We introduced a flat on-call stipend two years ago expecting it to fix morale. It helped, and it also exposed a problem money can't solve.

Before the stipend, on-call was framed as "part of the job," full stop, which is technically true and also a great way to make people feel that their disrupted sleep and cancelled weekends have no acknowledged cost. We started paying a flat per-shift stipend, separate from base salary, in 2024.

What the stipend actually fixed

Survey sentiment around "I feel my on-call time is respected" rose from 58% agreement to 79% within two quarters of introducing the stipend. It wasn't really about the money — the amount was modest, about the cost of a nice dinner per week of on-call. It was about the acknowledgment. Paying for something says, structurally, that it's real work.

on_call_stipend_policy
  amount_per_shift_week: fixed, published, same for every level
  paid_regardless_of: page_count  # even a quiet week is paid in full
  rationale: >
    The stipend compensates for availability and disrupted rest,
    not for volume of work done. A quiet week still cost you your
    weekend plans; it should still be paid.

What it didn't fix

A stipend doesn't return the hours. An engineer who got paged four times overnight and then has a normal 9-to-5 the next day is compensated but still exhausted, and exhaustion doesn't respect a paycheck. We learned this the hard way when stipend satisfaction stayed high even as burnout indicators — self-reported fatigue, sick days following heavy on-call weeks — kept climbing on the worst rotations.

"I'm grateful for the stipend. I still showed up to a 9am planning meeting after being up three times the night before, and money didn't fix that meeting."

What we added alongside it

We now pair the stipend with a mandatory, non-negotiable "recovery window": any engineer paged more than twice overnight gets an automatic, calendar-blocked late start the next day, no approval required, no asking. The stipend addresses fairness. The recovery window addresses the thing fairness can't touch — the actual physiological cost of interrupted sleep.

  • An on-call stipend is a strong signal of respect, but it compensates for availability, not for the hours actually lost to interruption.
  • Pay stipends flat, regardless of page count — a quiet week still costs someone their evening plans.
  • Pair financial compensation with a real recovery mechanism, like an automatic late start after a rough night, or burnout keeps climbing under a satisfied survey score.