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Night-time and weekend inspection work - rates?

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bugbus

bugbus

Structural
Aug 14, 2018
506
What is the general industry standard (or at least your experience) when it comes to charging clients for night-time and weekend inspections?

For our company, inspections often come up during road/tunnel/railway closures, often on weekends, and often late at night. A common shift would be 10PM - 6AM, for example.

In the past, our company has charged as little as 1.5x the normal hourly rate for night-time inspections. Whatever additional rate is charged is passed onto the engineer, either by giving 50% overtime pay or allowing them to take an equivalent amount of time in leave.

In some cases we have charged zero additional rate for weekend (daytime) work. However, it varies project to project, and is applied inconsistently.

Frankly, I don't think it's worthwhile ruining my weekend or sleep schedule for 1.5x pay. I would think it should be at least 2.0x for night work or weekend (daytime) work, and 2.5x for night work on a weekend. This seems to be in line with what trades/contractors charge.

I have raised this issue with management in the past, but there does not seem to be much motivation to increase our rates. It seems that the motivation is rather to stay competitive to win the inspection work, and unfortunately it is the more junior engineers who have to do these inconvenient shifts with little reward.
 
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The fact that your company got 1.5x rate is rare from what I have seen (at least in my area of the US). Normally I see normal hourly rates, but adjusted work hours for the week, if possible. In my area the firms that do inspections normally hire inspectors, whom are charged out at significantly less hourly rates and the engineers mostly cannot compete at engineering rates, so it's not all that common for engineers to do inspections around here. If I were to try to implement an overtime rate however, it would most likely follow normal guidelines of 1.5x for in excess of 40 hours a week worked (which is hard to pass along to clients as you don't just inspect one clients project a week) and 2x for holidays.

It is best to look at inspections as opportunities to learn and know that a Jr. Engineer will not always be doing these, but can use these as a tool to further their career. IMO more engineers need to do inspections to get a better feel for how things are built as sometimes the details provided aren't the best way to do something, you can learn a lot from a contractor.
 
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My last company did a lot of inspections and they had a 1.5 multiplier for rates in their contracts for inspections outside of normal hours. The extra was not passed on to the engineers and inspectors that performed those inspections. A bonus was provided quarterly but it was never close to what you would get for having worked your hours at straight time. I recall doing 30+ overnight inspections for some rooftop equipment at a mall and then having to go into the office to work on deadlines...

I agree with Aesur that most of the inspection business in my region is performed by the Geotech/material testing companies that hire inspectors and have minimal overhead on those employees. It becomes impossible to compete on fees in relationship to an engineer that has a physical office presence.
 
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We work closely with contractors and tend to add +25% for nights or weekends, with most/all of that going back to the engineer performing the shift.

I'd be surprised to have +100% fly with our clients. Maybe a once-off emergency case, but not for anything regular or extended duration.
 
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Thanks all for the responses. After some discussion in our team, we decided that 1.5x was going to be our baseline rate for night shifts, assuming minimum of 2 consecutive shifts; and 2.0x for a one-off night shift.

Something I would just mention is that I think Australia has a long-standing culture of paying penalty rates for late-night and weekend work, which is probably less common in the States (just a guess)?
 
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bugbus said:
Something I would just mention is that I think Australia has a long-standing culture of paying penalty rates for late-night and weekend work, which is probably less common in the States (just a guess)?
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I would say in the US typically you only see "overtime pay" or "holiday pay" but normally only if not an exempt employee. Overtime is normally defined as anything over 40 hours a week gets a 1.5x (or w/e factor they use) applied to your pay, I'm sure the company makes a nice premium off that as well, as not all of the 1.5x rate goes to the employee, holidays often is 2x. An exempt employee (think college trained to do their job - ie, having a degree) means the company is normally paying you for your knowledge, and overtime rules do not apply by law in most locations, therefore the employer may have guidelines for this, but it's 50/50 from what I have seen. I have worked jobs in the past that demanded some weeks of 100 hours and never saw a dime over what my salary was.
 
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For Australia check the award penalty rates (I don't know how). 50% nightshift premium sounds a bit high, but of course the award rates are for continuous nightshifts not occasional one nighters. TOIL is not acceptable, it's the disruption to sleep patterns that matters.

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376
 
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In Canada engineers are exempt from alot of the legislation around overtime / penalty rates etc and it was extremely unusual for clients to pay a higher hourly chargeout rate even if the engineer did manage to negotiate an uplift or additional compensation. For nightshift what I found more common was alot of looking the other way - as in, the engineer only works half the night and charges for the whole night, or works the first two hours, sleeps the next four, works the next two, and charges for the whole eight.

 
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If a customer has an emergency job and wants me to work nights or weekends, it is 2X if I even decide to do it.
 
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