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24/7 Support reimbursement percentage?

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I’m an IT Manager that has to start offering 24/7 support to my Enterprise. My guys have the ‘do whatever it takes’ mentality and will do the support for free. However, they should be compensated for those nights where they’re gonna get called at 3AM.

The problem is those calls will be relatively infrequent and I can’t put a $ amount on it.

Do other Managers reimburse their 24/7 IT staff by a straight $ figure or some %?

If a percentage is fair then how much?

Help will be greatly appreciated.

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Combination

In reply to 24/7 Support reimbursement percentage?

I’ve done that kind of support and had others do it for me, and in both cases it involved a weekly fee to carry a pager and be on call($100 or so) and then if called, overtime charges apply – minimum 2 hours for a call.

You want to be fair – no one should carry it 52 weeks a year – everyone should have a backup, and you should make sure that the processes are in place to ensure the number of calls to those who are “off” are severly limited to exceptions.

Hope that helps.

James

Shift Levels and on-call pay

In reply to 24/7 Support reimbursement percentage?

Being in the outsourcing business and responsible for pricing models, what we use for 24×7 operations are Shift Levels for compensation:
1st shift (regular and/or extended business hours) = std pay
2nd shift (end of business day to late evening or very early morning) = std pay + 6% to 8%
3rd Shift (dead shift, late evening to early morning or business start) = std pay + 10% to 15%

for 24×7 coverage, which is different than operations having to be there onsite, we use an on-call formula that is budgeted as a seperate since the shift is shared across a team. This is a seperate check, and may or may not be included as overtime. Tech’s are paid an additional 1 hour for every 4 on call. And if they get called in, its overtime pay for that duration. Client price is given with on-call built in, but actual overtime work is billed T&E. OF course everythign is negotiable, this is how we approach every deal, and negotiate.

If you want to know more, drop me a note. Good luck.

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