Ever create a new position?

--chris--

Anyone ever get there current employer to create a new job or role?

I am working on exactly this and have a good idea how to approach the idea, but would appreciate some feedback from anyone else who might have done this.

NetworkNewb

My manager says they are trying to create me an engineer role and it is in the budget... We'll see though.

I've talked with him many times about me being bored at my current position and about what I would like to do. Every chance I get to do something outside of my regular duties that adds value to me I do it. I've also put in a ton of hours at home after work creating tools that help my team with our jobs. (by tools, I mean I've created a lot of scripts and put them into a GUI so they are easier to use. The other people on my team don't really care to learn how to script unfortunately.)

UncleB

I've had to do this a few times as a manager and there are 2 key factors to use to convince the company the position should exist:

1 - demonstrate where it creates value. This should be quantified if at all possible (eg an infrastructure specialist will be able to handle the work currently outsourced to Rackspace at a saving of £100k per year in consultancy fees).
If the role is only to improve support then quantify the savings - reduce downtime from 2 hours a month to 30 mins, saving 1.5 downtime for 20 sales staff at a saving of $40/hour each on average = 1.5 hours * 40 an hour * 20 staff * 12 months = $14,400

2 - be aware of the headcount culture in management. Some are very resistant to adding headcount because they answer to shareholders who hate the sprawl of teams, so have a chat with a friendly HR person and arm yourself with the info before setting out.

If you are already doing the job in some way then chances are low - why would the company create a new position for something already being done by you. All they need to do is add it to your objectives and their part is done. If you need the "recognition" then it is part vanity and part career developing for when you move on so it wont help the arguement.

If you are recruiting someone with a different skill set then this is where you should get best chance of success.

--chris--

UncleB wrote: »

I've had to do this a few times as a manager and there are 2 key factors to use to convince the company the position should exist:

1 - demonstrate where it creates value. This should be quantified if at all possible (eg an infrastructure specialist will be able to handle the work currently outsourced to Rackspace at a saving of £100k per year in consultancy fees).
If the role is only to improve support then quantify the savings - reduce downtime from 2 hours a month to 30 mins, saving 1.5 downtime for 20 sales staff at a saving of $40/hour each on average = 1.5 hours * 40 an hour * 20 staff * 12 months = $14,400

2 - be aware of the headcount culture in management. Some are very resistant to adding headcount because they answer to shareholders who hate the sprawl of teams, so have a chat with a friendly HR person and arm yourself with the info before setting out.

I believe I have two factors on my side: 1) They are budgeting to hire for two more people in our department next year, and 2) the work that needs to be done is not getting done and my manager catches hell for it.

High level, my strategy is to propose stripping out the non-security related tasks & projects from my position (thus creating a new Jr Network Admin position) leaving IPS/IDS/Firewall, vuln assessment, remediation, policy & procedure creation/maintenance and other similar tasks with me.

As for quantifying, I need to look at the numbers but for instance we had 70 something "board" approved GLBA related compliance projects in 2017. Due to all of the projects and operational work I was doing I could only manage to complete about 1/3 of them. This resulted in my manager farming some of it out (about another 1/3) and leaving the rest unfinished to become "repeat" findings which senior management and the board reacted poorly too. These were the approved GLBA projects. Through Nessus scans I had another two dozen remediation tasks (counting only high & criticals) pop up, I spent a week working with our compliance department revising the ISSP and adjusting policies accordingly and I am WAY behind on completing the IT departments vendor due diligence paper work.

The need is great! As you said, I just need to provide clear proof to that end and deliver it in a way that shows it is a no-brainer and provides obvious benefit for the org.

TechGromit

One way our management builds a case to allow additional positions created is to scope your upcoming work and how much time will be required to perform each task. This is why it's important to have tickets created instead of going outside the process were Joe calls you up directly for computer help without going through the help desk. If you allow users to go outside the process when management looks at your tickets and see you been doing so few, it hard to justify hiring additional help when it looks like your workload is light.

--chris--

TechGromit wrote: »

One way our management builds a case to allow additional positions created is to scope your upcoming work and how much time will be required to perform each task. This is why it's important to have tickets created instead of going outside the process were Joe calls you up directly for computer help without going through the help desk. If you allow users to go outside the process when management looks at your tickets and see you been doing so few, it hard to justify hiring additional help when it looks like your workload is light.

Roger that!

One of my objectives last year was to implement an ITIL based helpesk ticketing system, for this exact reason. ALL my work into it because we were told in late 2016 that they planned on expanding head count and needed justification. I have automated tickets getting generated for many of our compliance tasks that take 2-6 weeks before I can get to them, all documented.

I should have time today to get numbers onto paper and maybe present the idea next week.