Over the years, we have managed to provide reasonably good support during the Christmas holidays, by relying upon some who volunteer to help when there are problems.
While reasonably effective, it suffers a few problems:
A more formal approach could help. The proposal is to ask for volunteers to be available via phone for half-days, during the week of holidays.
The person on call would be expected to deal with a problem report as best they could. Should they not be able to resolve a serious problem, they will call the staff member who might be able to provide quick advice.
Compensation for being available will be 2 for 1 time off, i.e. one day off for each half day shift. That applies to the person on call, and any staff member that volunteers to spend significant time on the problem.
Volunteers can choose whether they want to be available in the morning or the afternoon.
For 2010, the goal is support for each half-day from Monday December 27 to Friday December 31st.
A volunteer will:
At very least, volunteers are expected to be able to
Rather than having the person on call carry a cell phone, with the concomitant problem of passing it between those on call, we'll arrange for a single number to be forwarded to each volunteer in turn.
What happens to the phone redirection between shifts ? E.g. how will people be able to redirect the calls to voicemail between shifts ?
How will we fairly determine who can volunteer (if we have lots) ?
Will the time off be the usual "use it soon", or will it be added to one's vacation time ?