Human Resource Blog

On-Call legalities in Michigan

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I work for a small hospital as a IT Network Administrator in Michigan. Recently the agency has asked that I offer on-call helpdesk support to the staff for the 24×7 facility. I am a salaried employee.

I’ve been told that managment expects that I carry my cell phone and answer help desk calls when every. I have 15-30 minutes to return the call to the person reporting.

These calls usually require me to get onto the network to reset passwords or to drive to the facility to fix the equipment in the middle of the night.

If I miss a call it becomes a performance issue and could lead to my dismissal.

My question is it legal for them to expect that I be available 24×7 by 365 /days per year.

I know it sounds unfair, but is it legal?

Should I receive extra compensation for taking calls and solving problems?

Is there any Michigan law that states a person can’t be expected to be on-call more than 128hours per week?

My family life and my sanity are in jeopardy.

First, your frustrations are well-founded. Being on-call 24/7 to troubleshoot over the phone or go to work and solve hardware problems in the middle of the night, is not conducive to a healthy work/life balance.

However, it is probably not illegal in Michigan. State law sets no limits on the number of hours that an employee over the age of 18 may be required to work. An employer could theoretically expect an employee to work 12 hours per day, 7 days per week – or even more. As long as the employee is paid for the hours worked, that is not illegal.

The employee should be compensated for any time spent working, even if the employee is  working from home.

There may be a loophole here if your position is not genuinely salaried-exempt. Not every employee on salary is exempt from the federal and state overtime laws. Certain highly-paid computer professionals are exempt from overtime, but it’s worth double-checking. Hospital employees are always covered by the federal FLSA, the Fair Labor Standards Act, as well as state laws. If the employee is legally entitled to overtime in this case, we suspect that the employer will find another solution to the dilemma of troubleshooting IT problems. 

If the employee is genuinely salaried-exempt, then there is little recourse . The employer can require virtually any number of hours that they like, at any time. Yes, an employer can even require that a salaried employee be on call 24/7. And not responding to a call can legitimately be considered a performance issue.

But, being salaried can work in the employee’s favor, as well. Employers are not permitted to dock a salaried worker’s pay for partial days of work that are missed. Normally, salaried employees who are called in to work 4 hours in the middle of the night will take 4 or more hours off the following day. This time off might permit you to attend a child’s soccer game, or connect with your family in other ways that are not possible when you work a standard daytime Monday through Friday schedule.

Even if this schedule is legal, it’s very hard on the employee. So, here are several suggestions to mitigate the effects.

Before talking with the employer about this, consider carefully what you really want from this situation, and what – if anything – you are prepared to give up.

You mention that the agency “asked” you to provide helpdesk support 24/7. Is it possible to say “no”? Or, “No, I can only do that on Tuesday, Thursday, and every other weekend?”  If so, one tactic might be to approach the employer and say, “I tried it, and it didn’t work for me. What else can we do?”

Sometimes employers do make demands veiled as requests. If the employee’s gut reaction is that he will be fired for saying “no” to on-call duties, then that’s probably accurate.

It’s possible that if the employee sat down with his or her supervisor, and explained the negative effects of this on-call schedule, the supervisor would try to work out a compromise. It’s also possible that the employer would merely regard this as whining.

Is there another employee who could provide helpdesk support, at least part of the time? If you presented the employer with a plan for coverage, it might well be accepted. For example, “Ted will take calls one week, and I will take them the next. That way, neither of us will get burnt out.” (It would be interesting to know what the previous solution for on-call duties was.)

In an ideal world, when an employee’s responsibilities increased, the salary would increase as well. Realistically, the window of opportunity there was probably when the employee was first asked to assume the additional on-call duties. A response like, “Well, that would be a lot more time and responsibility, and I would expect to be paid $X more to take on those duties” would be a reasonable response. It’s possible that at this point asking for a raise would work, but is that really what this employee wants? It sounds like he would prefer a more “normal” work schedule.

The final solution to this problem is to begin looking for a job with a more “normal” schedule. It’s just possible that once the employee finds another job and gives notice, the employer will decide that being on-call is really not necessary at all. Just be sure that if you use this tactic, you are genuinely willing to go to work elsewhere.

 

You may want to double-check with the Division of Wage & Hour of the Michigan Department of Labor & Economic Growth at   517-335-0400   to see if there are any extenuating circumstances in this case.