The Hidden Cost Of On-Call Rotations: How The Distraction Tax Slows Innovation

Bill Hineline is Field CTO for Chronosphere and previously led observability for United Airlines. getty Early in my career, I spent years in IT operations, where I saw how on-call responsibilities drained teams tasked with driving innovation. Over two decades in the field, I watched some of the brightest minds struggle—not because they lacked vision, but because they were too busy putting out fires to build the future.

As part of a broader transformation effort that redefined how we approached team focus, I led on-call reforms that shifted the model from constant firefighting to protecting time for deep work and innovation. The result? Team members had the space to solve the right problems, contributing to an award-winning mobile app that remains the envy of the competition. That experience cemented what I’ve known ever since: If your best minds are always fixing the past, they’ll never have time to build what’s next.



Innovation doesn’t happen in 15-minute increments. Yet, in many companies, engineers are expected to drive industry disruption while constantly being interrupted by urgent incidents. The minds driving your future growth can’t push boundaries when they’re running on limited sleep, forced to drop everything for yet another 2 a.

m. emergency. On-call responsibilities are an unavoidable part of maintaining reliable systems—but too often, an on-call practice gets treated as an afterthought rather than a strategic function.

This leads to a hidden but measurable cost to a technology team’s efficiency: the distraction tax. Every time an engineer shifts from building the future to firefighting the present, there’s a cognitive penalty. Research from the American Psychological Association shows that frequent task switching can reduce productive time by up to 40% .

That’s not just a minor inconvenience—it’s a fundamental drag on innovation and business velocity. The cost goes beyond just lost minutes. Deep work—the kind of focused, uninterrupted thinking that fuels game-changing innovation—requires time to develop.

When technologists are constantly pulled into reactive incidents, they never get the opportunity to reach that state. Instead of designing competitor-killing tech, they’re trapped in an endless cycle of short-term problem-solving, leaving breakthrough ideas scribbled on the back of a napkin. For businesses that depend on innovation, the impact is clear: slower product development, missed opportunities and a reactionary technology organization struggling to stay ahead.

If your best minds are always fixing the past, who’s building the future? Burnout or boredom may push them to toggle “Open to Work” on LinkedIn—while a competitor reviews their résumé. On-call will remain a necessary evil for years to come, but the way it’s structured can either protect your team’s focus or drain productivity and innovation. The smartest companies treat on-call as a strategic function, not an operational burden.

To minimize the distraction tax, start by eliminating unnecessary alerts. How many alerts does your team acknowledge in a single on-call rotation without taking any action? Those signals are likely just noise, distracting from real crises. Reducing alert fatigue ensures that when a real issue arises, engineers aren’t desensitized to constant pings.

Next, invest in modern observability. Observability platforms today are built to handle the massive scale of data from modern cloud-native architectures, turning noise into actionable insights. The best platforms not only help teams surface critical issues but also guide them in reducing unnecessary telemetry, keeping both cognitive load and observability costs under control.

Just as critical, companies should adopt a preventative culture. Too often, teams reward the engineers who pull off heroic last-minute fixes while overlooking the importance of preventing incidents altogether. Post-mortems should focus on root cause analysis, not just recovery time.

On-call rotations should be sustainable, ensuring time off for illness, vacation and—just as importantly—innovation. Finally, clearly define escalation paths and timing. On-call engineers shouldn’t be left struggling to figure out who to call at 2 a.

m. Escalation paths provide both technical and leadership support in critical moments, allowing teams to focus on resolution instead of organizational bottlenecks. Setting clear expectations on response times and escalation thresholds prevents unnecessary churn and keeps incidents contained before they spiral.

Companies that get this formula right don’t just reduce burnout—they outpace their competitors by ensuring their best minds are focused on building the future, not constantly fixating on the past. The companies that recognize on-call as a strategic function will retain their best talent, innovate faster and gain a competitive edge. Those that don’t? They’ll keep paying the distraction tax—losing productivity, momentum and, eventually, the technologists who drive their future.

The real question isn’t whether your business can afford to fix on-call. It’s whether you can afford to keep losing time, talent and competitive velocity. Take a hard look at how your company structures on-call today: • Are you rewarding firefighting instead of preventing incidents? • Are your best technologists focused on building the future—or stuck fixing the past? • Are you investing in better observability, automation and escalation processes—or letting inefficiency dictate your team's productivity? This isn’t just an engineering issue.

It’s a leadership issue. The companies that solve this problem won’t reduce burnout. They’ll outpace their competitors—because their best minds are focused on what matters the most: the future.

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