by Scott Jack
Content Contributor, E-N Computers
Over 10 years of experience in healthcare IT and tech support.
In a company with less than 10 employees, IT management and support is often done by the owner or a tech savvy employee that has another primary role. As your company grows, there are more employees to add, remove, and provide with training and support. Your tech stack—that is, all your IT infrastructure and software as a whole—also becomes more complex. You start to reach a point where you need dedicated IT support.
When is the right time to hire an IT person?
QUICK ANSWER:
When should a business hire an IT person?
When to hire an IT person depends on your size, the problems you’re trying to solve, and whether you want in-house IT only or co-managed IT. Many businesses need dedicated IT support once they have more than 10 employees, but it is usually more cost effective to outsource IT to an MSP until you have 50 or more employees. Even then, co-managed IT can provide the best balance of comprehensive support and flexibility.
When to hire an IT person, by company size
Less than ten employees. With less than 10 employees, many companies opt to have someone split their time between their primary role and IT support. When that’s not enough, you may call a managed service provider (MSP) and pay an hourly rate. At this size, companies often don’t have the budget or enough work for a dedicated IT role. In addition, many managed service providers (MSPs) only offer retainers to organizations with at least 10 employees.
Ten to fifty employees. Once you hit 10 employees, you should start thinking about dedicated IT support. Managing user accounts, support, updates, and more starts to take so much time that it doesn’t work well to split duties anymore. A systems administrator is a typical IT hire at this stage; they are expected to have the knowledge and skills to research, design, implement, and support the entire IT environment for a small business.
At this stage, though, it’s often more cost-effective to outsource IT than hire in-house. For example, the median salary of a jack-of-all-trades systems administrator in Virginia is about $72,000 according to Salary.com. In contrast, our Pricing Calculator shows that we can provide fully managed IT services to a company of 10 users for about $17,000/yr.
We are still less expensive than a single in-house sysadmin until you have more than 45 users. And that comes with an entire IT team, strategic planning, and basic cybersecurity tools. So even past that point, an MSP is an exceptional value for many small businesses.
Fifty or more employees. With 50 or more employees, many companies find it practical to have an in-house IT person in addition to some outsourced IT support. If you take this approach, it’s good to make sure you clearly define what each party handles. Some in-house roles that work well with an MSP include business analyst, technology coordinator, or desktop support technician. In-house IT and MSPs can collaborate best when they have clearly defined roles, regular communication, and shared tools and platforms.
Strengths of in-house IT
Compared to an MSP, in-house IT gives you three key benefits.
Business familiarity. Someone in-house is going to be more familiar with the technology, the way you do business, and dynamics within the company and the industry. This added perspective can help them with finding unique opportunities and challenges and then proposing solutions that meet your needs.
Fast on-site response. If you want “walk down the hall” support, or IT that will drop what they’re doing to help upper management, an in-house hire can be a good fit. In contrast, MSPs have proven processes for submitting support requests, triaging them, and prioritizing work. While this means every task gets handled promptly, it might lead to a slower response than you expect in some cases.
Personalized user support. An in-house IT person works with your team every day. They get to know the technical ability of each person and can be more aware of recurring issues. As a result, they’re better able to customize onboarding and training to meet the needs of your team.
Three reasons to hire in-house IT
We’ve talked about these reasons before. An MSP can often provide better strategic planning and day-to-day support than the in-house team that a small or medium business can hire. But if you expect to beIT project-heavy or having unique support needs, it can make sense to hire in-house IT.
You have many planned projects
If you’re particularly growth-focused, it can make sense to have in-house IT for all the resulting projects. For example, if you have consistent plans for expansion or you intendintend to execute several mergers and acquisitions over the next few years, capable IT staff can help smooth out the technical side of things. Your IT will be able to approach migrations, integrations, and expansions with greater familiarity with how you operate.
You need more operational IT support
We strongly encourage automation when possible, but there are some tasks that ultimately require a technician’s attention. If you regularly rotate through employees — for example, seasonal or PRN staff — it can be helpful to have in-house IT for account management and hardware provisioning. They can also be useful if you regularly need after-hours support.
Your staff needs a lot of IT support
Now, we’re not talking about handholding through routine tasks (which happens a lot). But in-house IT can build strong relationships with users that allow them to find opportunities to make a process more efficient with training, documentation, automation, or custom reports. If you see opportunities for IT to empower users, then having an in-house technical role may make sense.
Which role should I hire?
Which role you should hire depends on whether you want in-house IT only or co-managed IT. For an in-depth discussion on whether to hire an in-house IT department or outsource, check out our article, Should I outsource my IT department?
In-house IT only: systems administrator
If you’re set on hiring an in-house team, you will probably want to start by hiring a systems administrator. When you grow to fifty employees or more, you’ll want to consider adding an IT specialist. The salaries for these roles are around $75,000 and $55,000, respectively. That said, it can be hard for small companies to find and retain IT talent, and it’s not the most flexible or optimal option.
Co-managed IT: business analyst, tech coordinator, desktop support
Some companies choose a hybrid, or co-managed, IT approach where they work with an MSP and have someone in-house. In this arrangement, we provide Tier 2 support, strategic planning, and other behind-the-scenes functions, while your on-site person takes care of most day-to-day IT needs. Here are a few roles that work well with an MSP.
Business analyst. Business analysts use data to identify problems, opportunities, and trends. They also look for ways to improve processes and reporting. While they’re not a traditional IT support role, they are tech savvy critical thinkers that can be a great fit for co-managed IT.
Technology coordinator. Schools often use a technology coordinator to manage the installation, troubleshooting, maintenance, and support of school IT systems. The role involves day-to-day support, tech roadmap and budget creation, project coordination, and acting as a technology consultant for educators and administrators.
Desktop support technician. If your main concern is day-to-day support and training, a desktop support technician is a good fit. This is an entry-level position that can be filled by someone with technical aptitude, and skills like problem solving, communication, and relationship building.
How to hire an IT person
Hiring an IT professional can be boiled down to these six steps:
- Know why you want an IT person
- Know what systems they need to support
- Know whether you primarily need a person for information or technology
- Know what you should expect to spend
- Ask questions that reveal both soft and hard skills
- Consider using a recruiter or MSP
When we conduct IT interviews, we have a list of 29 questions we ask to help discern the people skills and technical skills of candidates. We prioritize looking for people who are humble, hungry, and smart, since these qualities are more difficult to instill than technical skills.
How much does IT support cost?
Use our In-house IT versus outsourced IT cost comparison calculator to get an idea of what you will spend on hiring IT support. The calculator considers how many staff you have plus IT salaries, tools, and consulting fees. You can get an idea of the annual costs for in-house and outsourcing and see how much you can save with outsourcing.
Next Steps
When you have the right people working together, you can implement systems and processes that actively help you reach your business goals. We sometimes call this IT maturity. But for many organizations, something is off when it comes to their partnerships, strategy, systems, and settings. How can you know what’s working well and where you have room for improvement? Start by taking our free IT Maturity Self-Assessment. You’ll walk away with some pointers and, if you want, a free appointment to discuss your results.
Take the IT Maturity Assessment
Is your business ready to weather changes, including employee turnover? Find out by taking our IT maturity assessment.
You’ll get personalized action items that you can use to make improvements right away. Plus, you’ll have the opportunity to book a FREE IT strategy session to get even more insights into your IT needs.
