Ideal number of IT staff

[prha]

Can anyone point me in the right direction to get some hard evidence that 1 person supporting an entire organisation of 150 users is an inadequate number.
I have recently suggested that the users may get a better service if I had another staff member to help me. I was told that 1 person is "more than adequate" and that they knew plenty of organisations that only had 1 member in the IT dept. (public sector housing association)
Is there anything out there that can give me some examples of the risk of only having one IT staff for a Small to medium business?

Many thanks.

 

[SF0751]

There are no easy answers to this subject, but there is a lot of discussion - see thread672-1182729 for just a recent example.

There are no hard and fast numbers for staffing. It really boils down to how PC literate the staff is as well as what kinds of back-end applications you are running and how much administration they require.

I'd suggest that you make a list of your current duties and tasks, and the amount of time spent on each. Give reasons WHY another IT body is necessary - what could be accomplished if the IT staff was larger. That will carry more weight that trying to convince somebody that X general staff = Y IT staff.


Susan
"Do what you feel in your heart to be right - for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't. "
- Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962)

 

[xmsre]

Gartner and other research firms have covered this several times. You may want to google "TCO" and "Staffing"

 

[svanels]

You want hard evidence? It is very simple. What happens when you are not there? What happens if you are on leave?

My sugestion take a long vacation, go to the Bahamas, throw away the pager, unplug the telephone, go to the middle of the dessert, and don't make any contact with your company !!!

Remember, one monkey don't stop no show, everyone is expendable

If you are the typical technical nut that takes vacation leave for only 1 day, spread through the year, they will never know your true value.

If after 4 weeks leave, the company still exists, they never called you, there is no pile of work, except of what you left, they have a case...

Steven

 

[BocaBurger]

Document your workload. Create a call tracking system, Could be just a spread sheet:
Call #, Data / time/ Who called / what was issue/ solution / time to fix. / priority.

If you don't have a backlog they are correct. Work on the calls in FIFO order. When the person that says you don't need help doesn't get their issue fixed instantly, just tell them you are working on other, older issues.



BocaBurger
<===========================||////////////////|0
The pen is mightier than the sword, but the sword hurts more!

 

[ManagerJay]

I was strggling with this until recently. The organization I work for has decided VoIP is what should be pursued for several reasons. During the course of the conversations concerning my needs to ensure the network was always available, someone is available to work with the system to make programming changes, etc.

During the course of the conversation, instead of adding staff, the solution for me, is to have most of the services(network management, phone system management, etc.) on contracts so the vendors proactively monitor the systems.

The cost of the service contracts and monitoring is significantly less than adding an employee when the benefit costs (health insurance, retirement, etc.) are included.

Hope this helps.


Jay

 

[eyeswideclosed]

Numbers are irrelevant, it all depends on the person, 1 good person is worth more than 10 deadbeats.

 

[SkinnysPOS]

Sure, look into "Running an Effective Help Desk" by Barbara Czegel, (I use this book for anything dealing with staffing in IT) pages 54 to 58. There you will find the appropriate number of techs that your company needs.