How Do You Know When It's Time to Hire an IT Person?

Figuring out the right time to hire an IT person can be difficult, especially for business owners who are good with IT concepts, and can work with the company's systems relatively easily. At a certain point though, most expanding business will have to hire someone to work in an IT role, and it is recommended the person has a degree in Information Security. This is especially important if other facets of the company are suffering because of the lack of a dedicated IT person and the IT tasks need special attention.

Too many service calls
One of the biggest clues available to business owners that they need someone dedicated solely to IT is when calls are made several times a week to an outside company in order to help with computers, connectivity, Wi-Fi, software updating, etc. At a certain point, the cost of hiring someone for IT alone will be lower than the cost of constantly calling on another company to come fix any problems that arise. Even before that point though, it would probably be worth it to hire someone specifically for IT. It is hard to quantify how much money and time is lost between the time when a problem comes up, and when an outside IT technician can fix it.

For some business owners, the right time to hire an IT person is when they realize that their business is suffering from the lack of someone available anytime to fix problems. Time that an owner spends doing mundane IT work is time that they are not spending figuring out how to cut costs, increase revenue, or expand the business. An owner who spends 2-3 hours a day working on getting a computer working the right way or setting up devices on an internal network needs to think about what the dollar value of their time is, and decide whether or not it would be best to just get someone on staff who can do the IT work.

Too much lost productivity
Sometimes a business owner needs to be told when to hire someone for IT. This can be done through a number of people, usually when it isn't the owner themselves recognizing the need for IT staff, it can be employees, accountants, business partners, mentors, investors, and auditors. Those who are the most involved in a company will have the best idea of when it is time to hire someone for IT. Having employees who might have nothing to do for hours until the owner comes by to work on a malfunctioning computer would probably indicate that it is time for an IT person, and hiring someone before the issue starts causing financial problems for the company is crucial.

The time to hire someone specifically for IT, is not the same for every business. Companies that rely on computers and the internet very little would not have to hire an IT person until sales are in the tens of millions, whereas a call center with in-house software that needs frequent updates may need an IT person on staff as soon as the business opens. The business owner needs to be aware of when it would be best for the business to hire IT staff.

Dee Fletcher is a freelancer and ghost writer, and also enjoys guest blogging. She writes mostly about current trends or events in various industries, but also writes advice and how to articles. She works from her home in Southern California and loves to visit the beach as often as she can.