1. On-call duty and on-call backup: what is the difference?
On-call duty is the arrangement that an employee can be reached outside regular working hours and takes action when needed. Think of the district nurse who takes calls from clients at night, the technical administrator who gets called when there is an outage, or the municipal employee who picks up reports about public spaces at the weekend. On-call backup is the second layer: who takes over if the first person on duty does not answer, or if the question is too much for the first line?
Both work on the same mechanism. There is a service number that clients, patients or colleagues call. At any given moment, that number has to end up with the right person. Everything in between, the rota, the call forwarding, the shift swaps and the escalation, determines whether on-call duty works or only exists on paper.
2. Where it goes wrong
Ask a planner at a home care organisation or an ICT helpdesk how on-call duty is arranged and you usually hear a version of this story. There is a rota in Excel or in the planning system. On Friday afternoon someone switches the service number’s forwarding to the mobile of whoever is on duty that weekend. If someone swaps, it has to go through the planner, because the forwarding has to change too. And if the person on duty does not answer, there is a list of who to try next.
“On-call duty that depends on forwarding someone switches over on a Friday afternoon will go wrong one day. The only question is when.”
The weak spots are always the same. The rota and the forwarding are two separate things, so they drift apart. Swaps happen outside the system, in a quick text message. The mobile of the person on duty is on silent or in another coat. And nobody can see in real time whether the number is actually reaching anyone right now. In healthcare there can be no doubt about that, and the same goes for an emergency response centre or fault response service.
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3. The rota is the truth
The first step is a principle: there is one rota, and that rota is the only truth. Not the list on the noticeboard, not the group chat, not the planner’s memory. Whoever is on the rota is on duty, and the service number follows the rota. That places a few demands on the rota itself:
- The rota is up to date on the employee’s phone. Not just on the planner’s web page.
- Signing on and off takes one tap. When the shift starts, the employee signs on; when it is over, they sign off. No form, no email.
- Swaps happen in the rota, not alongside it. With or without the planner’s approval; you decide that per team.
- Everyone can see who is on duty now. In real time, including the colleague on the ward who wants to know who to call.
- Changes trigger a notification. A new shift, a swap request, a sign-off: those involved hear about it straight away.
4. Call forwarding: from manual to automatic
The second step is linking the call forwarding to that rota. As long as someone switches the forwarding in the telephone system by hand, on-call duty depends on that one action. Link the service number to the shift and the number automatically goes to whoever is signed on at that moment. If someone swaps, the forwarding swaps with them.
| Situation | Manual forwarding | Linked to the rota |
|---|---|---|
| Shift starts | Planner switches the number, usually on Friday afternoon | Employee signs on, number follows |
| Colleagues swap | Through the planner, otherwise the forwarding is wrong | In the app, forwarding swaps with them |
| Person on duty does not answer | Caller works down the list | Everyone on duty rings at the same time |
| Outage during the night | Nobody can see whether the number reaches anyone | Real-time overview: who is on duty, who is available |
Shifts, the duty rota app in Effecta Connect, does exactly this. Automatic call forwarding is available for Cisco UCCX; for other telephony environments we look at what is possible case by case. Signing on and off, swapping and the real-time overview work in any environment, on iOS and Android.
5. Simultaneous ringing and escalation
The list of “who do you call next” is the weakest link in on-call backup. A home care client who calls at three in the morning is not going to try three numbers. A control room operator who has to escalate an outage has no time to ring round. The solution is simultaneous ringing: everyone who is on duty at that moment rings at the same time. Whoever answers takes the call; for the others the ringing stops.
That is also how you build an escalation chain that works without anyone hearing it. The first line is on duty on the service number. If nobody answers, the call goes to the on-call backup. In an emergency response centre or at a healthcare organisation with thirty district teams and ten residential care locations, like one of our clients in Zuid-Holland, that is the difference between on-call duty you can explain and on-call duty you hope you never have to test.
6. Agreements with the team
Technology takes care of the forwarding, but not the culture. Make three agreements explicit. First: signing on at the start of the shift is mandatory, and the app reminds you. Second: swapping is allowed, but only in the rota, so the number moves with it. Whether that needs the planner’s approval depends on the team; with an experienced district team it is often unnecessary, with a fault response service whose staffing varies it is needed. Third: whoever is on duty can be found. Combine the rota with an up-to-date phone directory, such as Contacts, and a colleague can see in an app who is on duty now and how to reach them.
7. How to get started
Start by taking stock of your service numbers and who manages them today. There are often more than you think: an outage number, an on-call number per district team, an escalation number for senior management. Pick the team that suffers most and set up the rota there as the only truth. Then link the forwarding, and test the escalation at a quiet moment. Once that team is happy, the rest will follow.
Curious how well your on-call duty is arranged today? The Real Contact Scan asks three questions about it and gives you a score straight away. Or book a demo and see Shifts working on a real rota.