Do you work in an organisation?

[owen]

If so I'm wondering if you could help me out with a project I'm doing.

I'm doing research into IT Staff:User ratios, to find out what the average is and perhaps use that info to push for more people in our section.

Even if you don't work in the IT section at your organisation, would you have an idea of how many IT people there are and how many staff in total?

By IT people I'm referring to Technical Support and helpdesk, rather than programmers or comms.

And if you can help me out, can you also answer the following questions? How many hours are you required to work and how many do you actually do? Do you find the pressure and stress overwhelming, and how do you deal with that?

Thanks very much

Owen.

[MHD]

Our IT group here is Excellent! They have to be though as the computer literacy is very high and we have very specialised needs (Performance computing, clusters, Linux/Unix/VMS)

We have 4 IT staff for ~100 staff, but we also have 1 IT helper (part time salary, usually a PhD student) for every ~12 people.

They work a little bit more than the standard 8.30-5 but are fairly relaxed (decent tea breaks etc..) They seem to like what they do, but they do get nice hardware (latest aquasition is a 16 node 64bit Opteron Linux cluster)

[Nogshale]

I used to work for a charity up until April this year. The orginisation had about 120 people, with just 2 IT staff, the IT manager and me. Our hours were pretty standard, from 9-5 which i usually worked but my manager would usually do overtime. It was quite busy but not insanse. Since i have left there is now 3 in IT for the same amount of people.

There was presure some times but its just work

[Alpha_7]

At present I'm the only IT guy for two offices totally around 36 people, hopefully we will have a junior in soon to help with low level support.

Hours are long, I get paid for 7.2 a day, but I am expected to work more and I essentially work till the job is done. I am also on call 24/7 which can be a little restrictive to social and personal events. Dealing with another time zone also pushes my working hours out longer, as does any co-ordination with our offices in the North Hemisphere (Europe and US).

At times the pressure and stress can be overwhelming, generally there is only a moderate level of pressure, the kind that makes you get the work done effciently rather then putting it off till later.

[Laurie]

I am the network administrator of a Sydney office for a marketing firm. Our main office is in Melbourne and that is where my boss resides.

I look after at max 15 people (laptops, PC’s & desk phones) as well as a call centre with 3 departments of 48 users including their phones & PC’s (very low end). I also look after 7 servers, with a phone line recording unit and the PABX.

My Boss however looks after the entire network and manages 15 servers, and over 100 users (including a call centre).
He has a helper who is doing a reduce version of my role in Melbourne who is also doing work for another part of the organisation.

There is no need at all for another IT support in Sydney. There are 4 full time developers for websites and the like based in Melbourne. They also contract out.

Hope this helps :/

[greencardigan]

We have (based on 04/05 data):

- 1100 employees
- 800 PCs
- 15 full time support people
- 9300 IT support requests/yr

[moz]

I work for a TNC with >30k employees. But the bit I work for only has 10 or so. We're a pure software section, with a manager, 5 QA and 7 programmers. We have no IT support staff. Instead we have a programmer who does most of it, and I replace him when he's not around. It seems to take about 4 hours a week between us, which is not too bad if you don't think about it. I mean, I can install windows and configure a PC just as fast as anyone, so every time we get a major PC problem I spend half a day rebuilding it. Or we could spend $100 or so to have someone come in and do that. Not worth the hassle, apparently.

[garyr]

Ah, the ubiquitous admin:server and IT:User question

There are many web resources - just google - that will give you numbers. Your best bet is to look at some of the industry analyst research - forrester, gartner, corporate executive board, etc and work on some of those. There are many permutations to this question so it really depends (sound like a consultant? ).
Complexity of environment
Service levels
Geographic distribution
Automation and service management tools
Organisation size
Industry
Legal and statutory requirements
Skill levels
Agility needs
Rate of technical and business change
and the list goes on - so when you look at these numbers you should factor in some consideration....
So I put numbers here at the bottom so that you read the influences above - industry research shows that to provide reasonable support (helpdesk and admin) the range can vary between 26 and 48 users per IT FTE, with an average of 40:1. You can use it as a guide, but to be successful in your quest for headcount approval you have to make it specific and relevant to your organisation - sit down with your team, work out what you do and how much time you spend on it - then work out what you are not doing that you should be doing - tie it to some risk - and then work out how many FTE heads you need to mitigate this risk or deliver cost justified, improved business value. Easy.

Cheers
Gary

[meicw]

I have just retired from a taxi company. There was only one IT guy there to look after all the computers (despatch and office) in the company. There would have been close to 100 terminals all up.
I did my little bit keeping the despatch database up to date.

Regards
meicw

[apsilon]

We have around 900 seats and 11 staff inc CIO and myself (who seems to be doing more and more boring admin/management type stuff) and we're struggling. We're also down 2 staff from 2 years ago.

You'll find the numbers vary widely and as such the average is not necessarily a good representation. eg One place I worked at it ended up just myself (reduced from 3 staff over the period of a year) for around 280 seats.

[MarcL]

Even if you don't work in the IT section at your organisation, would you have an idea of how many IT people there are and how many staff in total?

We have five staff, two are "Technical Support". Well, actually one of them, technically, supports Support, as his primary job is "Project Management"...that's me! . Another one's a programmer, one's the boss, and the other one is first up against the wall when the revolution comes (that'd be PR/Business Development/Marketting ).

And if you can help me out, can you also answer the following questions?

Okay, but only because you promised to buy us all icecream...

How many hours are you required to work

The usual...what is it officially? Something like 37.5 hours/week, isn't it, your regular 9-to-5.

and how many do you actually do?

Hmm, well, maybe....about...umm....50, but sometimes up to 60 (every third week maybe, as a project comes to fruition on a weekend).

Do you find the pressure and stress overwhelming,

At times it's all I can do not to see how "safe" the safety glass in our building is, and how hard I can throw a laptop.

and how do you deal with that?

I bite the heads off pigeons, and push little old ladies down escalators...you know, the usual.

Actually, my work is very "leftbrain". My pressure release is to let my emotional self (rightbrain) interract with said leftbrain. Sometimes this is by writing (I write really bad poetry sometimes) but mostly it is via photography and reading. I have cause to think something "meditative" may help things more (though I can never get organised enough to attempt to best meditative technique - that is, meditation). Letting my mind clear of "Completed tasks" is something that I've a knack for, and it helps greatly (it's less a skill, than a side-affect of an appalling short-term memory). I've got to get into a state where I can let it go and move on.

Some of the above things help. Sometimes something self-destructive seems like a good idea (but I rarely listen to those voices in my head ).

Thanks very much

No worries....now about that icecream you promised....

Cheers,
MarcL