IT staff to Users ratio?
This has been a rough month for me at my day job. We are in the midst of rolling our existing company over to an ESOP (basically employee owned, buying out the current owners over a period of years), which has basically doubled my workload in getting the back end ready for the change over.
In addition to this we had a senior accounting executive fired, which led me to discover that our entire AR system is being handled by a series of highly customized Excel spreadsheets. When I say highly customized I mean that not only will they only work on one computer, but they will only work under one single user’s profile (which happens to be the previously mentioned, and recently departed, senior accounting executive).
This in turn led me (with the help of the accounting department) to the inevitable conclusion that our entire ERP product needs to be completely replaced. Why? Because it is not capable of handling the volume of of a specific AR transaction we have on a daily basis without quickly locking up the server (which is how the current “Franken-Excel” system came to be in the first place).
Ok great! I’ve never liked the ERP solution we use, and have already done the research on what I would like to replace it with. After getting the current owner to sign off on it, I’ve now effectively quadrupled my workload. Oh did I mention the go live date for the new ERP system can be no later than October 1st?
Which led me to the conversation with one of the executives in our company about the fact that I need more IT staff. Anyone who has experience with an IT degree education would be great. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind working the occasional 14-18 hour day, but when it becomes 10-12 hours every day (and at least a couple hours over the weekend) there comes a point where I would rather just not come in.
More to the point it’s a bad situation for the company. At this point my IT staff is worn kind of thin, and we are basically paralyzed. We can continue what we are doing, but doing anything more (like when the main printer goes down because you accidentally tried to print the entire Internet, or when the pr0n fiend on the third floor infests the network with spyware, and the servers start to lag because of it) is going to force one of us to stop doing something else.
In theory this is a undesirable situation, but in reality what happens is this; we have a bunch of unhappy users, and the IT staff is making decisions about what to get done based on what is least likely to get them fired if it doesn’t get done.
So keeping that in mind, the question I am asked by this executive is; what is the ideal ratio of IT Staff to Users?
Wait, what? It just doesn’t work like that (though I sincerely and truly do wish it were that easy).
Unfortunately IT is not a commodity like so many executives seem to think it is. IT work is not like filing, or data entry, unfortunately it is just not something that your average person can do (if it were I would not have a job).
And beyond that, it can’t be quantified as simple man hours either. An issue that may be a trivial five minute fix for me, may take another admin two hours to fix (or vice versa).
Which led me to the real question, how do I quantify the number of IT staff that is required for this company? Because when you cut right to the source of the issue, each and every company is going to have a different level of IT requirements based on a multitude of factors:
- What does the company do? (a software company is going to require more IT involvement than say a restaurant)
- How screwed up is the current IT system?
- How screwed up are the company’s business processes?
- What level of technical competence do the users have?
These are by no means the only factors, but they are the ones that have the biggest impact on what any given company’s ideal “IT staff to Users ratio” should be.
So what’s the answer? If I knew that I would be making Millions telling everyone how to get it right. All I can offer is this: the people making staffing decisions need to listen when their IT people tell them they need help, because the unfortunate fact of life is this; in the modern workplace (and perhaps more than any other business unit) when IT fails, the business fails.
I could list a plethora of statistics to back that up, but I just don’t have the time.
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about 3 years ago
I am in a similar situation. I am on my last nerve. We need more staff for an expanding business but for some reason the current administration thinks that our numbers aren’t strong enough to support another salary. There are two positions out of three that require 24/7 oncall support. I, being one of those positions, feel that I can never get a break to actually relax on my scheduled days off.
If you do figure out the magic number then please let me know.
about 3 years ago
How many end users are you guys supporting?
about 3 years ago
20 servers, 250 workstations, 30 Point of Sale Terminals and 300-350 users depending on the season in a business that is open 24 hours a day.
about 3 years ago
The key problem as I see it is the current shape of your IT environment. I had the environment at my last job purring like a kitten and we got by with about a 600:1 ratio (for about 3,000 desktops) which is extremely high from what I’ve heard. The key is automating everything. For example, our imaging process was so dumbed down we could have a janitor do it with minimum supervision from a low-level tech. Of course, this requires a lot more work on the backend until your environment is straightened out. It took me about 2 years to get there but I could do it much faster if I had to do it again somewhere else. A lot of it is about getting back to basics:
- Everybody MUST go through the help desk, no exceptions. Get buy in from execs first so you don’t have to worry about anyone going over your head.
- Have a CLEAR escalation path when a tech can’t fix a problem in a certain amount of time. I had techs spending 6 hours on a problem I ended up fixing in 2 minutes because they wanted to prove they could do it by themselves.
- We also used interns from a local tech school to perform all of the monkey work like replacing motherboards and troubleshooting Excel. You can usually get an intern or two to work for free but you get the bottom of the barrel unless you pay at least $8-10 an hour. Or, go to a local staffing company but you’ll pay a heck of a lot more for only a little more talent.
- This is a tough one depending on your company culture, but we NEVER made someone a local admin on their PC. If they’re not allowed to install their Luck ‘O The Irish screensaver, you won’t have to remove the malware it also installs. Our policy was simple: it’s not YOUR computer, it belongs to the company. It helped that we also applied this policy to IT staff. They were obviously local admins, but they weren’t allowed to install IM programs, Limewire and all kinds of other crap that’s not work-related (and that included me).
- We carefully tracked which users and departments had the most help desk tickets, viruses, spyware, etc and presented that information to department heads and the board every month. In truth, the board didn’t even look at it after the initial novelty wore off but NO director wanted her department to be on that list. Another useful strategy is to charge back your tech’s time to the departments (even if it’s just on paper).
- Another aspect of tracking tickets is to see which techs are actually solving more problems.
about 3 years ago
I think your company has to realise that 24/7 support comes at a cost, that they can’t keep burning out 2 people by constantly having them on call.
As for the magic number, can’t help on that one.
about 3 years ago
I agree with some of your points a really disagree with others. We use specialized software for all of our business practices like PO’s, Order Entry, Warehousing, Shipping, HR, Accounting and MANY MANY others. We support over 3000 users with close to 500 servers.
I am not giving the keys to the kingdom to a $8 an hour kid!
You want quality workers then you need to pay quality salaries and keep your employees happy. It’s called Morale most companies need to look into it.
And 3,000 users to <3 admins is horrible – what if there was an emergency and you needed IT workers to fix some issues? Then what? Hire REALLY EXPENSIVE consultants?
Yes it is important to automate and have things running squeaky clean BUT you also need a WHAT IF staff.
That is if you are interested in the good old 5 9′s.
about 3 years ago
24/7 Support is how a lot of people make their bones in this business but 2 ppl running 24/7 is not viable – unless you have people waiting on the side-lines for the jobs of the burnt out admins.
about 3 years ago
Sorry but if your nnetwork was designed correctly one person shouldnt be able to infest the network with spyware and virus’s. Here we have all workstations firewalled. Every workstation has antivirus on it and spyware software. Every Station is conencted via wsus so that any approved updates get sent out automatically (yes this could be trouble with a bad update but id rather have that then a virus).
More important servers are virtualized so if they go down you just load the most recent backup of the virtual hdd.
Heck we even run deep freeze here. The users comp screws up tell them to reboot it and deepfreeze reloads everything.
You can get yournetwork running and only have 2 people do it but you must set it up corectly.
about 3 years ago
Every major IT department I know has properly designed networks and also employs a Network Administrator a manager, a director and several junior admins and then you have your DB administrators, your custom programmer.
When all is said and done yes a network can be run with 2 well trained people and a healthy network but like Ninja said above what happens in a crisis?
about 3 years ago
Of course in an ideal world, all workstations would be reimaged every night (I have worked for organizations where this was standard practice, and man was it nice), but there are a large contingent of Admins out there that have a total mess to deal with and their management is either not willing to, or unable to help them get it corrected. And it is the direct fault of IT people that have the attitude of “well if you won’t do things my way, I’ll just go work for someone else.”
Unfortunately the current economy is not conducive to executives giving the green light to massive IT initiatives just because the IT department can show that there is a valid need. Too many of the people that make these decisions will tell you flat out that “it’s not broken, there is no need to fix it”. It is that mentality that is the source of the problem. Too many executives do not understand that once something in the IT realm is broken, the fix is going to cost 10 times what it would have cost to take corrective action in the first place.
This is what has lead the IT industry to the current situation where we have an economy of fear. Almost every single IT solution in our current market is sold on fear. Fear of data loss, fear of security breaches. Today’s reality is that it is FAR easier to get an IT project approved through fear mongering than through attempting to educate the people making the decisions.
There is a line in the movie Idiocracy that really sums it up well: “… finally Joe gave up on logic and reason, and simply told them that he could talk to plants, and that they told him they wanted water instead of Brawndo.”
Unfortunately this is a rather accurate metaphor for what goes on daily in IT organizations across the country, where IT people try again and again to get necessary changes made, and are told no, until out of desperation they are led to start with the fear mongering to get the powers that be to allow them to make the changes necessary to the continued well being of their networks.
I am occasionally reminded of this sad state of affairs when I am pitching an initiative, and get nothing but resistance until the discussion turns to the “what is the worst case scenario if we don’t do x”, and the attitudes of the people making the decisions instantly change. In a more correct situation, this would not happen, the attitudes would not be adversarial until the doom and gloom discussion comes about.
I would estimate that a good 90% of the IT initiatives I propose should be able to get 100% executive buy in on their own merits, and never need to have a “doom and gloom” discussion. Unfortunately the reality is that 90% of the IT initiatives I propose will never be approved without it.
I have made it a point in my IT career to never start the “doom and gloom” discussion. I will always start with the merits of a given project, and move on to the benefits and costs. Yet every single time someone else starts us down the “doom and gloom” path, and I do nothing but truthfully answer their questions, and watch as their entire demeanor changes.
Quite frankly this particular fact of life has led me to consider changing careers on more than one occasion.
about 3 years ago
First off I WISH I could have all my desktops re-imaged nightly – that would make my life SO much easier!
I can dream can’t I?
I have thought about leaving the field I love for similar reasons but what else would I do?
about 3 years ago
Half of the team is making decent money to be on call 24/7. I am not that half though. So for my bosses sake I hope he has someone lined up that will be willing to jump on this rollercoaster.
The other thing that gets me about payment practices and IT staffing is that for me to get paid better for what I do, I would need to go find another job. I enjoy the company I work for, the people that I work with and can’t wait to see what the company is going to do in the future. In the short time that I have been here I have gained a lot more experience, some paper certifications, and implemented some very useful ideas. All things that I should be able to take to mangement and have a healthy debate on my merits for a raise. Instead I spend my evenings touching up my resume.
about 3 years ago
Which is why I continue to work in IT, when all is said and done, I really am not interested in doing much else – but if you hear of any jobs where they need someone to shoot at paper targets and listen to some kick ass rock and roll all day, let me know!
about 3 years ago
I’ll keep my ears open for you :)
about 2 years ago
Another issue is how much authority the IT department has in relation to other departments.
I am the entire IT department at a very small company (<50 desktops). But I have basically complete authority over all aspects of the network. If I don’t think something needs to be done (or done right away), pretty much the only person who can force the issue is the president of the company.
If you are in a situation where IT answers to many other departments and those department execs can force IT to do things (or not do things), it gets much more complicated. I understand how large companies get that way, but it isn’t a good situation.
IT needs to be able to balance their own workload and do what is best for the organization as a whole.
about 2 years ago
Spoken like a true network administrator Peter!
about 2 years ago
I’m in the same situation as Peter above. Relatively small company, but I run all IT operations with impunity.
I answer to no one but the COO, CEO’s.
With that said though, I do not possess the arrogance of Peter. It isn’t a matter of being forced to do things or to not do things. We in IT are a service organization within the confines of our overall organization.
Therefore we should be providing the best possible service we can. That means providing for our end losers..er….users the tools they need to do their jobs. Yes there is strange requests from the low level users and even the high level users. It is our job to service those requests.
With that said, I do not know the ideal ratio of IT staff to users. It is like the typical answer to every single IT question: “It depends”
I’ve spoken with consultants and other IT companies about my infrastructure here and my user base. Most of them marvel at how I can operate as a lone wolf with pittance of a budget. And some people like my peers here, are not impressed because they do the same things, like Peter!
Again it all depends upon what the expectations of IT are. If you’re expecting a 24/7/365 operation, then you will need some additional staff. If you have thousands of end users and other endpoints on your network, then a one man show wont work in most cases.
I think it is best to quantify to the bean counters the time spent on every task for every day. Essentially you need to track the time of everyone for every hour they work, be it weekdays or weekends, nights, etc. If you can show that your average employee is pushing over 8hrs of actual work a day, then obviously you need to bring that down.
I think the idea above of billing you and your staff’s time to the departments for the number of hours worked on every ticket, or project would quantify to the bean counters over the course of a month or two. That should provide the metrics needed for the bean counters to see that indeed you’re working in excess of capacity.