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Ask Slashdot: How Do I Convince Management To Hire More IT Staff?
An anonymous reader writes "I work at a manufacturing company. We have roughly 150 employees, 130 desktops, 8 physical servers, 20 virtual servers + a commercial SAN. We're a Windows shop with Exchange 2013. That's the first part. The second part is we have an ERP system that controls every aspect of our business processes. It has over 100 customizations (VB, but transitioning over to C#). We also have 20 or so custom-made support applications that integrate with the ERP to provide a more streamlined interface to the factory workers in some cases, and in other cases to provide a functionality that is not present in the ERP at all. Our IT department consists of: 1 Network Administrator (me), 4 Programmers (one of which is also the IT Manager). I finally convinced our immediate boss that we need another network support person to back me up (but he must now convince the CEO who thinks we have a large IT department already). I would like them to also hire dedicated help desk people. As it stands, we all share help desk duties, but that leads to projects being seriously delayed or put on hold while we work on more mundane problems. It also leads to a good amount of stress, as I can't really create the solid infrastructure I want us to have, and the developers are always getting pressure from other departments for projects they don't have the manpower to even start. I'm not really sure how to convince them we need more people. I need something rather concrete, but there are widely varying ratios of IT/user ratios in different companies, and I'm sure their research turned up with some generic rule of thumb that leads them to believe we have too many already. What can we do?"
Standard way of doing it:
- Outline what's wrong with the current undersized staff, where are the bottlenecks, what's being held up because there aren't enough people.
- Explain how this hurts the company's bottom line.
- Explain how hiring another person will solve the current problems, increase efficiency, and in the medium to long term, increase revenues more than the cost of hiring this new person.
If your case is well built, it'll be self-explanatory. If your boss/manager is reasonable, they will see the benefit of hiring a new person. If they don't seem to see the benefit and refuse to see the logic of your case, either
1/ you haven't built a good enough case (your fault)
2/ your boss is a jerk and you should quit
3/ something fishy is going on at your company (such as the company having run out of cash and being unable to hire, even if it'd make sense) and you probably should quit as well
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
I used to work for a company with 150 machines, 10+ servers, few lazer cutters running windows (of all things).
Programming was outsourced.
That job required 1 IT engineer, and, 1 IT manager.
We also operated CCTV systems, when requested by management.
Onsite callouts to external users, etc etc.
Yeah, it was a family run company. You know the kind, workload piles up whilst you prioritize the family members requests (no matter how silly they were).
It sounds like you have the numbers, just in the wrong place.
"We also have 20 or so custom-made support applications that integrate with the ERP to provide a more streamlined interface to the factory workers in some cases,"
Theres another problem right there. Sounds like your programmers are simply throwing out quantity, instead of one quality application. It will bite them in the ass later down the line.
I honestly think your company should only have 2 programmers, 2 IT engineers.
I wouldnt be surprised if they sacked the extra programmer and made the IT manager focus on IT, instead of programing.
I'll be honest, you seem to have a large IT department. You have 4 programmers, and that seems out of whack. Now you are a manufacturer are these programmers actually working on internal business systems (so truly IT), or are they actually involved in developing end user software firmware etc (product development).
If it product development they need to be moved into the development department with the engineers, though the IT manager would then come underneath the product development manager which maybe politically problematic but needs to be done.
If it is just for internal systems development and support, frankly your doing too much customization of your internal system. I think you'll find that the payback with a company the size your described , for automating and streamlining every process, by heavy modifications to the ERP are actually not there. Get the IT manager to fight against further scope creep of the ERP, sack a programmer or 2 and get in more true IT support staff.
Hire a temp, it's usually easier to get a temp approved to knock down ticket times. Make them your Helpdesk person and have them handle basic low profile stuff. Temps are less threatening to management but do this every time you get backlogged eventually it will be cheaper to hire someone than to keep paying a staffing company. At the very least you'll get help to lighten the load even if only temporarily.
no.
just label 4 of the guys as part of the factory production team. that's what they are.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Two things; Never go to management with a problem, go with a solution and show them the money they'll make/save by implementing your solution.
Then, if it doesn't work, it's safe to forget it. Management doesn't want to think, but, they do want to make money, if it doesn't increase profits,don't hold your breath.
That IS what business is about; profit.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
One way to indicate to upper management - change the priority to the other projects and let things like printers and network problems go unresolved and state that it won't be fixed until we have achieved milestone Y for project X.
When the CEO comes in and rambles about printers not working - then let him choose between printer and a penalty for not meeting deadline for project X.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
ROI: Return on Investment
I had the displeasure of working inside Walmart stores for four years. (Thankfully, not for them, just in them.) They printed on every one of their distribution packaging boxes at the time, "Collapsing this box and sending it back saves the company $0.11.) Now there's ROI as simple and as plain-as-day.
How much time is lost due to computer or program downtime? How much time is lost due to broken code? How inefficient is having programmers share in tech support duties? How much money is this costing the company? Tell the company what they save by hiring another employee, and they'll make it happen.
no.
just label 4 of the guys as part of the factory production team. that's what they are.
Yeah, this is the problem.
Programmers, while from a layman's point of view are "IT", they are not helping to complete to the IT work load. They may help build the business processes, but they aren't pulling cables or tracking down DNS issues. So as far as what they do in IT, it's "zero".
Submitter's description outlines ONE "IT person" in the organization. (him / her)
I would approach this with a two step process; first, get a ticketing system and get all desktop support on it. That will let you show the programmers don't do shit for it, and what the work load is.
THAT sets you up to add other tasks the programmers, the manager, and the subby do on the ticketing, and when the workload is high, just say "sorry, can't do that doing this" and it's all documented.
Then you just do what is important, mark off your hours of the day, and go home. When the shit stays broken and people get pissed about it, they go "why?" and they will see the answer is "not enough people for this." If it's YOUR idea, they won't do it. If it's THEIR idea, they will.
I assume the subby doesn't want to be the person to do the desktop support. So from there, you hire a local goon for a day / evening per week, or a local firm, or some place in India, or whatever. THEY work on the ticket backlog of desktop issues.
Also, you may find that when people have to articulate what is wrong, their problems suddenly go away. People who get help with computers are VERY VERY LAZY and will not learn something. Suddenly rebooting the computer will seem worthwhile compared to (ugh!) writing clear English. Lastly, you can find out which few people are causing the most problems and have evidence to get them to change their ways (or at least stop screwing up their computers). You know, that one guy that always gets the virus of the day (always the same guy, always "i don't know what happened!"), and that one person who's keyboard, monitor, mouse, or whatever needs replacing just because (as a status symbol).