There are a lot of jobs that require out of hours support, specifically those that aren’t tied to business hours. In tech at least, many of the sites and services you use are built off the backs of software engineers that are paged at 5am because latency is a little higher than normal.
There is a very easy solution to this dilemma: pay someone to stand ready at off-hours.
If you’re already working 40 hours a week, focusing on stuff out of hours is going to be hard. I know this all too well!
IMO, this is EXACTLY where outsourcing should be used. Either move someone from the US (or your home country) to where you need support, ensure you have a good triage system for issues that might come up, etc.
What is complicated? You give two bullet points and a potential solution that all fall under the umbrella of “paying someone.” This solves the problem.
It’s a simple solution to what’s a more nuanced problem.
Be honest. If faced with the choice to cut hours/roles, move roles overseas, or to “pay more”, do you think many business owners will do the latter?
You need to consider the nuance here, otherwise you find a similar situation to the minimum wage rises, where businesses complain about the operations not being viable because they need to start treating workers like humans.
You can be as obtuse as you want. You know I’m right, and it’s exactly why legislation is needed to ensure these things are done correctly to stop businesses from exploiting the rules.
There is a very easy solution to this dilemma: pay someone to stand ready at off-hours.
My first job in the late 90s did just that - 1 hour pay for every 8 on call. 4 hours when you get a call (even if it took 5 minutes.)
While true, there are some complications to this:
IMO, this is EXACTLY where outsourcing should be used. Either move someone from the US (or your home country) to where you need support, ensure you have a good triage system for issues that might come up, etc.
What is complicated? You give two bullet points and a potential solution that all fall under the umbrella of “paying someone.” This solves the problem.
It’s a simple solution to what’s a more nuanced problem.
Be honest. If faced with the choice to cut hours/roles, move roles overseas, or to “pay more”, do you think many business owners will do the latter?
You need to consider the nuance here, otherwise you find a similar situation to the minimum wage rises, where businesses complain about the operations not being viable because they need to start treating workers like humans.
Yes, I agree. We definitely need to consider the “nuance” of a situation where business is asked to treat their workers like human beings.
You can be as obtuse as you want. You know I’m right, and it’s exactly why legislation is needed to ensure these things are done correctly to stop businesses from exploiting the rules.
I worked retail for 10+ years, and never once did I receive more pay for working on weekends, nor have I ever met anyone who has.
Might be another Americanism. It’s been close to two decades since I worked retail, but I got paid more on weekends than weekdays.
I was thinking more along the lines of ‘nightshift’. 😀