The Challenge of IT Staffing

Hiring IT staff is expensive and often ineffective for small and medium-sized organzations

Your small to mid-sized business (SMB) depends on IT; most do. Keeping your systems functioning and healthy is critical. Downtime is expensive and can result in lost business, unhappy customers and frustrated staff. And even small businesses can have relatively complex technology environments. Multiple servers and operating systems, security systems, Internet connections, regulatory requirements, web sites, routers, firewalls and a variety of application and productivity software. How do smaller organizations effectively use and support this array of technology?

For the Fortune 500, the solution is obvious; the corporate IT department. Given enough budget and demand, hiring an IT staff makes perfect sense and is the right solution. Large organizations have the ability to hire the multiple layers of technology talent needed to make this an effective approach. From strategic technology planning through the IT help desk, larger organizations have the infrastructure, demand and ability to manage a professional IT unit.

So it is understandable that a smaller business owner or non-profit CEO, faced with technology challenges, might seek to emulate this model. Unfortunately the results are often disappointing.

Of course there are exceptions to every generality and while it is certainly not impossible for a smaller organization to find that staffing an IT department is an effective strategy, our experience has been that it often is not. It is also true that at some point, some level of full time IT staff makes sense. Size of the business and its reliance on technology all weigh into this equation and that tipping point is not a simple formula. But for many companies in the under 100 employee/computer user range, hiring full-time IT expertise is unnecessary, expensive and can create as many problems as it solves. Here are a few of the reasons why:

Big business IT departments are staffed by specialists. Programmers have different skills than Network Administrators who have different skills than the person who fixes your printer or deciphers high-end routing configurations. And even more importantly, the skills and experience needed to guide technology planning and strategy are very different from the technical skills needed to implement and support those systems.

A small business needs most of the skills-both technical and strategic- that a big business has, just in smaller doses. It’s virtually impossible to find all of this expertise in a single individual. The small business really needs a CIO/network designer/computer repair tech/software engineer/troubleshooter/web designer/wireless expert/network security consultant. If you find this person, hire them.

A small business owner /executive is generally focused on their company’s core products and services, on running a profitable enterprise, keeping staff productive and clients happy. They know IT is important but often need guidance to make the critical big picture technology decisions that have strategic impact. When hiring one or two individuals, most small businesses hire technical people who may not have the experience or organizational background to guide strategic IT planning. The skills and experience needed to guide technology planning and strategy are very different from the technical skills needed to implement and support those systems. The end result can be poorly planned and budgeted systems that don’t effectively support the mission of the organization.

Hiring an IT professional is, of course, only the beginning. Just as with any other employee, your IT staff person will require oversight, direction and feedback. The level of technical savvy needed to successfully manage this individual is typically not something the small business owner or executive has. Most small businesses do not have the resources to lead or evaluate technical skills or performance.

What often happens is that the IT staffer is left on their own and is given little leadership or management. The results are unpredictable. But in many cases, management can be unaware of serious IT issues that could be disastrous for the company. Security flaws, lack of basic system administration such as regular, reliable backups, illegally deployed software, incomplete or missing system documentation and login information etc… easily go unnoticed by busy small business management. In the rush to “solve” their IT problems, small business executives sometimes wind up taking a head-in-the-sand approach after making a hire only to uncover issues down the road.

Small organizations simply do not have the IT career paths to keep talented professionals engaged. Talented and ambitious individuals will need to move on to advance their careers. As a result, most small businesses find that they are in an almost continual cycle of hiring IT talent. Turnover is costly and often comes at inopportune times causing disruption and leaving the organization without an IT resource. Our experience has been that you can expect turnover about every two years.

In addition to the headaches associated with frequent hiring cycles, one effect of high turnover is a lack of long term technology vision and consistency. Each successive IT staffer will bring with them their own experiences and opinions and will often want to move your technology into their comfort zone. Over time it is easy to wind up with unwieldy systems that are unnecessarily time-consuming to support.

Since it’s unlikely that you will find a single IT person with all of the expertise that you need, and since IT demands often occur in cycles, you’ll need to budget for outside assistance in addition to your IT staff.

The demand for IT resources is not constant. In fact in most cases a well-designed and properly configured small business network should not need daily support.

Most small businesses owners wouldn’t consider hiring a full-time CPA or attorney. Yet both of these trusted advisors are key parts of your team. In the same way, hiring a full-time IT staff person is generally expensive and unnecessary. IT Solution Providers fill this void;

• Providing outsourced IT support which can be more comprehensive AND less expensive than hiring a staff person.
• Provide all of the skills and talents of a large IT department
• A permanent IT solution- eliminating the problem of staff turnover.
• Resources can grow when demand warrants and reduce
• Over the long term a Solution Provider is often less expensive than in-house staff

As a business owner you should not abdicate responsibility for your IT systems. You should have a clear understanding of the pieces of the puzzle even if you don’t understand the technical details.