Help understanding the On-all / Stand By allowance and Overtime etc

grace2much

Hi folks I need some help understanding these lines on my friend's new job contract that he's not sure about.  It's his first job and although it will all become clear when he starts in a month's time but he doesn't want to pepper HR with questions so it's MSE to the rescue   It's a large multi-national engineering company and he will be a service engineer with a company car/van provided.

From the contract:

Reference salary will be £32,000 per annum gross.

Overtime

You are eligible for paid overtime in this position.

You will be paid at flat rate up to and including 37.5 hours per week.

 Any hours worked over the full-time weekly standard contracted hours shall be paid as overtime at the rate of

time and a half for the hours worked per week. Overtime on a Saturday will be paid at the rate of time and a

half. Overtime on a Sunday will be paid at the rate of double time. Overtime on a public or statutory holiday will

be paid at the rate of double time plus a day off in lieu.

On-call/Standby Allowance
In this role you will be required to be on standby/on-call. You will receive an allowance:

 Monday to Friday - £27.99 per day Saturday\Sunday\Public and Statutory Holidays - £46.68 per day

PH £54.83

To his (and mine) questions:

So I assume he will be on-call on a rota and not permanently on-call? 

Let's say for example he is on-call that week and on a Thursday night at 21.00 he is called out for 2 hours. Does he receive £26.86 on-call allowance + time and a half for the 2 hours?

What does the PH £54.83 refer to above

We are unsure how the overtime and the on-call rate of payment etc work together.  I apologize for the muddled questions but we don't have any experience in this type of thing and would really appreciate any help offered.

BrassicWoman

I'd go one further and ask him to check what a "reference salary" is. It's either his base salary ot it's not, and is the first thing I would check.

grace2much

BrassicWoman said:

I'd go one further and ask him to check what a "reference salary" is. It's either his base salary ot it's not, and is the first thing I would check.

That makes sense, I'll pass it on....thanks

Savvy_Sue

grace2much said:

So I assume he will be on-call on a rota and not permanently on-call? 

Let's say for example he is on-call that week and on a Thursday night at 21.00 he is called out for 2 hours. Does he receive £26.86 on-call allowance + time and a half for the 2 hours?

What does the PH £54.83 refer to above

One would certainly hope its a rota not permanent on call ...

That's how I'd expect the on call to work: basic payment, plus extra if called out.

No idea what PH would be.

The thing is though, only the employer can say for certain how it works.

Does he only have an HR contact,  or does he know who his manager will be?

I'd ask:

How often will I be on call? And for what period? How much notice will I get? (Where I work, some colleagues are on call for 5 evenings in a row, not more often than monthly. They get plenty of notice, enabling them to arrange swaps if needed. This employer will be different, but will it write off a week every month, every 2 months? Or the odd day twice a year?)

I'd also ask:

When is payment made for On call / standby? (We pay it the month AFTER  you work it, in case you don't. So May salary includes April On Call.)

And once in post, before first on call, I'd want to be clear what expectations there were: answer phone within 6 rings at any time of night? Does every call trigger the extra payment, or only if I can't solve it by phone? Who can I escalate to if I need to? 

avawat20

The company should hopefully have a policy but he may just have to check with HR. I assume PH is public holiday.

saker75

Yes, it’s likely to be the on-call rate plus overtime for any hours worked. 

grace2much

Thanks for all the help folks.  I'm still a bit unsure about the "PH £54.83" since the contract states in the line above: "Saturday\Sunday\Public and Statutory Holidays - £46.68 per day".

So the daily on-call allowance on a Public holiday is £46.68 so I'm still wondering what the "PH £54.83" is?   I guess he needs to bite the bullet and ask HR.  It would have been helpful though if the contract made clear what the PH stands for.  Once again I appreciate all the input.

NCC1701-A

PH might possibly be 'per hour'?  so not an overtime rate but a call out rate.

Presumably this is not a 9-5 job but a 7 day service over extended hours (or even 24 hours)? So will be on a rota? If so, has your friend seen and understood that? 

grace2much

We were thinking the same as you that PH was £54.83 per hour but since his normal hourly rate is £19 approx even double time is £38 per hour so the £54.83 seemed too large an increase.  It would be nice though:-)  But maybe, just maybe, it's high because it's only when on-call?  We will soon find out, either way, he is very excited and thankful.

Yes, he is aware of the rota and is happy with this but as of yet he does not know the schedule i.e.: every week in four etc.