On-Call During March Madness? It’s OK
Who doesn’t love March Madness? Well, I’m sure that engineers aren’t always crazy about being on-call during the tournament. But, it doesn’t have to be that way. On-call doesn’t have to be the proverbial death knell to your personal life. In fact, what if I told you that you can watch your favorite team play AND cover your on-call shift AND save money for your company?
In 2016, Fox Business wrote an article stating that employers may spend an additional $4 billion during the tournament from employees filling out brackets and watching games at work. And let’s be honest, you don’t want increased system downtime because one of your on-call engineers was distracted by the UVA game. But, you may also want to allow your employees some time to enjoy the tournament without forcing managers to adjust long-term on-call rotation schedules.
Take On-Call Functionality
Are you an engineer and a KU fan who misses half the tournament each year because you’re on-call? Well, what if you could switch your on-call shift with your buddy who’s rooting for Villanova? That way, you both can watch your teams play while always having someone on-call. Now, that’s a slam dunk! Sorry…
With VictorOps, you can switch on-call shifts with someone else on your team in one click. It’s as easy as logging in, finding the user you’d like to switch with, and selecting “Take On-Call”. This way, one engineer can simply take one shift from another engineer without needing to completely reconstruct your on-call rotations.
Enjoy Your On-Call Experience
Offering flexibility and transparency in your on-call rotations will make your employees happier while continuing to maintain the system uptime that you expect. Of course, well-established escalation policies and communication tools will still allow your on-call engineers to involve anyone else they need when an incident occurs.
VictorOps provides on-call scheduling flexibility, extensive incident data visibility, and built-in chat to allow quick and effective incident response. You can continue to serve your customers while your employees also have more freedom to choose convenient on-call rotations rather than being forced into on-call schedules they resent.
Good luck on achieving a perfect bracket this year! We hope you enjoy the tournament.
Remember to schedule a demo to see how we can help with your on-call rotations while providing top-notch system observability!
Originally published at victorops.com on March 15, 2018.
