How IT staff keep your organization running

Without the appropriate technology, your organization cannot run effectively. Your IT department ensures you have all the right tech, keeps it running smoothly and finds solutions to keep your business running competitively in today’s high-tech society. Here are a few common functions of an IT department:

Keeping your operating systems up to date

Technology is evolving more quickly than ever, and you need to be aware of all the options to remain competitive. Your IT department keeps on top of this and, ideally, implements new tech seamlessly into your day-to-day operations with minimal disruption.

Protecting your digital assets

In the past, physical assets represented the bulk of a company’s value. These days, vast amounts of information is stored about your employees, customers and suppliers, allowing you to gain the maximum value from all stakeholders. This information needs to be protected, both for your company’s business interests and to meet privacy legislation. Your IT department takes care of this.

Installing equipment and software

Imagine if each employee had to install their own computer and software. Most wouldn’t have the skills or experience to do this effectively, so your IT department takes care of it.

Providing technical support when problems arise

If a piece of software isn’t working correctly or a PC breaks down, you need an expert on hand to fix the issue with minimum delay and the least impact on your business.

Handling daily maintenance

Like any piece of machinery, your IT equipment and software require regular preventive maintenance to ensure everything runs smoothly. In-house experts ensure this is done effectively and efficiently.

The functions of an IT Department

To perform the functions listed above, an IT department can be broken down into four main areas: administration, technical support, communications and programming. Of course, in smaller companies, these teams may not exist as separate entities and functions may overlap, but the principles remain.

Administration

Administration encompasses the day-to-day maintenance and repair of systems across your organization. This team advises staff on new solutions and handles getting it installed.

Technical support

Your employees need their systems to work consistently, and tech support is there to ensure this happens. Besides fixing hardware and software, the technical support department educates staff, ensuring they can get the most out of their IT systems.

Communications

The communications team is an increasingly important part of the IT department, as more meetings are conducted remotely and a greater number of employees work from home. These are the people that maintain your email systems, set up conference calls and prepare video conferences. They are also responsible for coordinating your IT security systems by adding and deleting users.

Programming

When you want to develop a new business application or update an old one, the programming team has the people you turn to. Besides programming, they will generally have the skills of web and software developers and will liaise with your whole team to ensure everyone’s needs are met by new and updated software.

Calculating the best IT ratio of staff to employees

Unfortunately, calculating IT ratios is not something that can be done on a “one size fits all” basis. The size and annual revenue of your business will have a significant impact on deciding the appropriate number of IT staff, as will the sector you are in. For example, tech, media, finance and professional services are all IT-heavy. On the other hand, a manufacturing firm that employs a lot of manual workers will have a comparatively smaller IT department. However, some generalizations can be made: the average ratio across all sectors and company sizes is one IT worker for every 27 employees. Here’s how that breaks down by organization size and annual revenue.

IT ratios by number of employees

• Fewer than 500: 1:18
• 499 to 999: 1:25
• 1,000 to 4,999: 1:23
• 5,000 to 9,999: 1:25
• 10,000 or more: 1:40

IT ratios by annual revenue

• Less than $200 million: 1:19
• $200 million to $500 million: 1:36
• $500 million to $1 billion: 1:31
• $1 billion to $5 billion: 1:36
• $5 billion or more: 1:15

As you can see, the larger a company is, the lower the ratio. This is because IT provisioning is easily scaleable; maintaining an operating system for 10,000 employees doesn’t require 10 times as many IT staff as making provisions for 1,000 employees. However, the tech support part of your IT team probably will need scaling, as their workload does depend directly on the number of employees they are required to service.

Summing up

Maintaining an efficient IT department is crucial for sustaining and growing your business. Having the right number of IT personnel in the right areas helps achieve this, and the above IT ratios can serve as an indicator. Still, do a thorough review of your needs and weigh them against the available budget to find an IT staffing ratio that works for your organization.

FAQs

What are the main roles in an IT department?

There are many roles within an IT department and some are specialized for certain industries. Here are seven of the most common roles:

• Help Desk Clerk is a frontline role helping and supporting employees with their operating systems on a day-to-day basis.
• Hardware Technicians manage and repair computers and servers and are responsible for managing upgrades and patches.
• IT Project Managers are responsible for executing IT projects, assigning tasks and ensuring projects are completed on time and on budget.
• Business Analysts process information and use data to ensure IT projects are delivering value for money across the organization.
• Network Engineer/Network Systems Engineersdevelop and design networks, integrating new technologies into a company’s IT systems.
• Systems Engineering Managers oversee IT infrastructure, monitoring asset management, performance, security and helpdesk support.
• IT Director, the most senior IT position, is responsible for high-level IT strategy and usually reports directly to the CEO.

How is an IT department structured?

An IT department will generally be led by an IT Director (or an IT Manager in smaller organizations) with managers or team leaders covering:

• Application management, overseeing systems analysts, system developers and application developers
• IT security, including information security and cyber security
• IT management, covering IT project managers and business analysts
• User support, covering technical support and helpdesk staff

What proportion of your IT staff should be dedicated to cybersecurity?

Cybersecurity is increasingly critical for all organizations and shouldn’t be overlooked by any IT department. Needs will vary depending on the company’s size, but most experts recommend between three and six cybersecurity experts per 100 IT staff.