It can be a challenging task to recognize when your company's IT department is understaffed, but it's imperative for ensuring the efficient and smooth functioning of your operations. We understand that identifying flaws within your organization can be uncomfortable, but ignoring the signs can lead to serious issues. It's important to acknowledge the need for additional support and address the problem in a proactive and thoughtful manner so that you can find the best solutions. That’s why our team at Premier IT is here to point out the signs to look out for to help you determine: Is your company’s IT department understaffed? Read on to discover 5 signs to look out for, and explore the best ways to find a solution.
Signs that Your IT Department Is Understaffed
Running a business is challenging, and pinpointing the root cause of any issue can be daunting. However, it's essential to recognize that understaffing in your IT department can have a significant impact on your company's overall performance. When a department is understaffed, it can cause any company to lose its footing and struggle to make progress; in the information technology department, this can be increasingly true as issues with the technology that is relied on every day by every employee can cause a ripple effect throughout the organization. This is why we’re going to go over 5 notable areas and signs to look for that your IT department may need some extra support. This will help you identify issues and find a solution that works for your business.
1. Drowning in Work
One of the first ways to determine whether your IT department is understaffed is to note whether your employees are drowning in work. Are your employees suffering from slow servers? Are you using antiquated technology? Do you have a small on-call IT team that immediately fixes issues as they arise? If your IT employees are filled to the brim with their workloads throughout the year, ask yourself why. Chances are that it’s partially stemming from IT difficulties or a lack of information technology workers.
2. Delayed Response Times
When IT problems arise, take note of how fast the response times are. Does your IT team get back to you within the hour for small issues or is it taking them over 24 hours? If your IT team is struggling to keep quick response times, chances are that they are either lacking the know-how or the manpower to act. In most cases, it’s the latter. If you are consistently seeing long wait times for IT issues, chances are that your information technology team could use some assistance in the form of fractional IT services or a new hire.
3. Lower Service Quality
To determine whether your IT department is understaffed, look at your quality of service. When IT problems arise, is the problem immediately fixed indefinitely, or does your information technology team offer quick solutions that don’t result in a long-term resolution? Are they able to fully assist everybody as problems come up, or are they lacking the proper time and help to assist your team properly? If you are consistently experiencing poor quality of service in your IT department, chances are that enhancing your team with fractional IT services can help solve the problem.
Find out more in our article Staff Augmentation: On-site Tech and Strategic Support
4. Outdated Technology
Another way of noting whether your IT department is understaffed is by taking into consideration whether your technology is up to date. If you’re still using out-of-date equipment, chances are your IT department is overwhelmed with having to solve information technology problems constantly. Unfortunately, older equipment runs into problems more frequently and can easily overload your team with IT work. An easy fix to this is replacing all of your technology, but often, that’s a huge undertaking and it’s a large budget expense. Another solution could be investing a smaller budget into a fractional IT team with on-call services to back up your current team.
5. High Turnover Rate
One of the last signs to look out for when determining whether your IT department is overstaffed is whether there’s a high turnover rate for informational technology positions. Are you consistently hiring IT workers and seeing them leave within a year or two? Are you receiving comments from IT employees about the workload being too stressful? Is anyone making suggestions to hire another IT professional? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you may want to supplement your IT team with temporary or fractional IT services.
How to Fix IT Staffing Issues
As we mentioned on a few different occasions, supplementing your IT team with fractional IT support can be a major solution to your IT understaffing problems. By using part-time IT services, you can get the additional support that your team needs without having to replace all of your equipment or find space in the budget for new hires. If you’ve determined that the answer to the question, is your company’s IT department understaffed, is yes, then getting information technology support in other places is a must.
Premier IT is well-equipped to back up your information technology department with high-quality IT support and services. If you’d like to get support from our team, contact us today to discuss your situation, and we’ll show you how we can help.
Premier IT is a dedicated IT support team that manages all your technology needs. We pay attention to the details so you can focus on what you do best. We provide technical consulting, hosted infrastructure, computer & network support, security, Microsoft support, repairs, network monitoring and more. If your small business needs reliable technical support, contact our team of experienced technicians and engineers.