On-Call and Mental Health: The Conversation Engineering Avoids

Engineering management often pretends on-call has no mental-health cost. The research says otherwise; the supports help.

What research shows

Studies (DORA + others) consistently show on-call burden correlates with anxiety, sleep loss, and turnover intent.

Pretending otherwise costs the team in measurable ways.

Four manager-level supports

• 1. Compensation (covered separately).
• 2. Time off after heavy weeks.
• 3. Vacation as full-disconnect.
• 4. EAP / therapist coverage as part of benefits.

Team-level patterns

Quiet rotations; predictable handoffs; bounded boundaries.

Each pattern reduces the cumulative load; team-level resilience.

Talking about it

Make it normal to talk about. Leaders share their own struggles; opens space for others.

Silence reinforces the cost; openness reduces it.

Antipatterns

• Treating on-call cost as engineering-only. Wider impact.
• EAP no one uses. Awareness gap.
• Manager pretending it’s fine. Team learns silence.

What to do this week

Three moves. (1) Apply this practice to your next on-call rotation. (2) Survey the team after one cycle. (3) Iterate based on feedback; the discipline is the cadence.