HEALTH & WELL-BEING
Sustainable On-Call Culture
An on-call practice that prioritizes human health and long-term team viability alongside system reliability.
By Niketa Sharma, Founder at Runframe·Last updated Mar 2026
Sustainable On-Call
An on-call practice that prioritizes human health and long-term team viability alongside system reliability.
Humans > Uptime
A sustainable rotation has:
- Low Noise: Actionable alerts only.
- Compensation: Time off in lieu (TOIL) or direct pay.
- Support: Easy escalations and blameless culture.
ExQualitative On-Call Implementation
“Series B startup moved from "always-on" to qualitative on-call. Key changes: max 1 week on per month, actionable alerts only, $750/week comp, 1.5x TOIL. Result: 0% turnover vs 25% industry average, 35% better MTTR (well-rested engineers fix faster).”
Impact
Team NPS score improved from -20 to +55
Resolution
Published "On-Call Bill of Rights" with team input
Why Sustainable On-Call Matters
Reliability requires reliable people.
Sustainable teams retain senior talent.
Common Pitfalls
Treating sustainability as optional
Sustainability is essential for reliability. Burned out teams make mistakes and quit. Invest in sustainable practices like any other reliability investment.
Focusing only on tools, not culture
Tools help, but culture matters more. Blameless post-mortems, psychological safety, and manager support are more important than the best paging system.