Compensation for on-call teams

Isabelle·Aug 24, 2021

Does anyone have experience with compensation for on-call customer service agents? We are hiring stay-at-home-parents who are interested in extra income but not committing to a full-time job. They would be on call during a set number of hours to answer incoming support emails/texts. I'm looking for some guidance on how to compensate them -- does salary make sense, or a fee per issue resolved?

beatricepartain·Aug 24, 2021

From my point of view, I think an hourly is the only fair thing here. If one expects people to be "on call", i.e. available, it makes sense to pay them for that time - it's not like they can go to lunch/the zoo/the gym/whatever during that time. Less per hour than for "work hours" certainly, but an hourly definitely. A fee per issue resolved could result in an 8 hour shift with no pay, which seems like a terrible deal.

spendleton·Aug 25, 2021

Salary makes the most sense, the value is the tricky one.Our team got offered $50/day to be on-call for 24hrs, regardless of how many issues arose. AFAIK no one on our team signed up (mostly we're in Europe so that degrades the value further with currency exchange, but even for $50 in the US I'd hesitate). Having said that, we're all full-time employees already so mostly value more time with family over a bit of extra cash, so the math might be different for those looking for a side gig.

Isabelle·Aug 26, 2021

Gotcha, thanks for that data point!

renukasivarajan·Aug 25, 2021

I think having a base pay, either hourly or salary and then adding something on top for every issue attended/ resolved would be fair.

Anneliese124·Aug 26, 2021

I’m a mom and work part time answering customer calls and emails for a large company. I’m paid $36/hr, no benefits, and clock in and out. Typically I put in 20 hours a week but am flexible.

Isabelle·Aug 26, 2021

Super helpful, thank you very much for your insights!