IT staff needed or not

hamuod

I have currently 75 desktop users and and 8 exch/dc/etc servers , 2 firewalls,2 routers , 14 printers, 50 smart phones, 100 normal phones, 30 ip cameras, 2 storage arrays.

in addition I take care of mobile sims new/suspend/credit limit, backups, testing backups, vpn support to remote users, erp support, keep inventory, wireless connectivity support, talking to vendors, saving cost by buying the best hardware or solution., controlling cost for IT, off office hours support., testing new software,
I just want to know if it will be good decession to get 1 desktop support guy to help me ? currently I am alone doing all this.

techfiend

If given the chance, absolutely. It looks a bit much for one person but maybe not. More importantly, redundancy is just as important in employees as it is in the network. Every company should really have at least 2 people to go to when IT issues arise, even if they're part time or contracted.

TheFORCE

You definitely need 1 or even 2 more people. You can't focus on improvements if you only focus on support and maintenance. Not to mention BCP/DR issue that might arise in thw future.

si20

Sounds like you need +1 IT guy, +1 server guy and +2 network/telephone guys. That's 4 extra members of staff. One guy doing all that is crazy and bound to have issues. But whether you can afford 4 more qualified guys (or girls!), I don't know.

UncleB

If you set the environment up properly then 1 staff member is plenty, so long as the company acknowledge that when you are on leave / sick / training / stuck in traffic then there is no-one to do anything - they will quickly realise that a second person is a sensible move.

Your desktops should be built from an image so adding more or rebuilding is a piece of cake. Keep 2 or 3 hot spares to be safe - very low overhead.
Desk phones - these need almost no effort to support.
Routers / Storage arrays / IP cameras - once designed and built you don't need to touch these normally.
Printers - put these on a maintenance contract and forget about them. You may have to change a toner once in a while but train some users to do this as well.
Smart phones - always a pain but tell the staff you will rebuild them if they have problems and this fixes most things
Exchange servers - not much admin but keep monitoring the logs
Firewalls - not a lot to do once they are setup but monitoring is a bigger overhead.

Overall it is a piece of cake once you get the kit to a standard - I did this for 6 years for a company with 100 users, 64 servers, 3 data centers and spent most of my time bored - I used the time to train up, get the config right, monitor pro-actively and manage expectations from the staff and it was a breeze.

If budgets are tight then get a trainee or junior in and get them to do the repetitive or admin stuff while you learn and improve the config of what you have so make it less of an overhead.

Iain

Danielm7

It's funny, I used to run almost exactly the same setup plus more servers, myself. I had a phone guy who came in occasionally to do line changes and such. Then after a few years I had an interviewer tell me that wasn't real IT because it wasn't a big business. If I had 4 IT members for that it would have been a combo of a dream and boring. Although I probably would have been able to take a vacation without being on call, that would have been nice.

636-555-3226

If you're looking for justification for the boss, here's what I'd do (I have a bit of an informal sense of humor...)

Walk into your boss' office with a printout of everything you're responsible for. Show it to him/her and explain that it's a list of everything you do. When (s)he says OK and looks at you with a "so what" look, say you've got a new job and they're offering you a $10,000 bonus to start in one week instead of the usual two. Say you've taken the offer because the money was too good to pass up and you sincerely wish your boss the best of luck at filling the position in a week. Once (s)he recovers, just smile and laugh and say it was a joke, but it's a joke to prove a point. You could get hired away, have a massive heart attack, or have a rich uncle you didn't even know die and leave you tons of money at a moment's notice. Then they'd be SOL. I'm a big fan of you ALWAYS need two people working in IT even if it stretches the budget a bit. Assuming, that is, that IT helps keep the business running. If it's a small shop and IT isn't a big deal then it isn't that big of a deal. Reading your write-up, though, it sounds as if IT is relatively important towards keeping the business running.

True story - I know of an IT dept by me that won the lottery pretty big time. They all said peace out to their employer and the employer was in a lot of trouble for a long time while filling all of the positions. Hurt them pretty seriously in the mid-range. Always have a backup plan.

NetworkNewb

For 1 person that might be alot... but definitely doable if need be. I came from a company where I did almost all of that. Was pretty close to the exact same number of users/devices. There was one other manager who helped with a couple things, especially when it was busy or an issue rose up, but it was pretty much all me otherwise.

I'd say 2 people would be good for that size though, always good to have backup when one person is sick or if a major problem occurs. If your environment is setup efficiently, more then 2 people would be overkill and guarantee there would be a lot of downtime.