On call is the practice of designating specific people to be available at specific times to respond in the event of an urgent service issue, even though they are not formally on duty. This is a critical responsibility inside many IT, developer, support, and operations teams who run services where customers expect 24/7 availability.
The rising importance of on call for IT and software teams is evident, as it allows teams to scale to match expanding services, providing consistent coverage for critical IT functions, and prompt incident response. With each failure, teams get the opportunity to learn new skills, like understanding a critical service a little better, seeing how it responds to failure, and knowing how to design for fewer failures or improve the incident response plan.
According to www.atlassian.com, having a good on-call program built on a culture of shared responsibility can also lead to improved camaraderie and less burnout, which in turn can mean higher employee retention.
However, being on call can also have its drawbacks, such as the potential for burnout and the need for adequate support and resources to ensure that teams can respond effectively to incidents.
