Seeking Advice: How Do You Label On-Call Allowances Without Legal Issues?

Dear HR Practitioners,

Our company currently provides an on-call allowance to some employees who are required to attend calls after their regular office hours in case of urgency. However, after discussing this with our legal team, they have advised not to show this allowance as On-call Allowance and use a different terminology to indicate that the employees are not working beyond their working hours and are on the job only when the need arises.

Please, can you help me with an alternate terminology for an on-call allowance? Also, please share your best practices while providing such an allowance to employees.

Thank you for your help in advance.

The solution is simple—just call it an "incentive." However, make sure that the incentives are reflected in the payslip, and this payment should not be separate from the payslip.

Thanks,

Dinesh Divekar

I would suggest it as an exigency service allowance. As the services are taken in exigencies, it is not regular in nature, so I suggest this. It can also be an exigency service incentive too.

Please explore the possibility of reimbursing it monthly against claims for business expenses incurred due to providing extra services to clients, rather than paying it as a regular allowance.

Regards,
Vinayak Nagarkar
HR and Employee Relations Consultant