Hiring an IT Person or Bringing in a Partner: What the Numbers Look Like

At some point, almost every growing firm realizes IT is taking up too much of someone’s time, and the obvious question is whether to hire someone.

It is a sensible question, and sometimes the answer is yes. Most firms start by comparing a salary to a monthly fee, but the more useful comparison is hours, skills, and coverage.

The Hours

One full time hire covers one person’s working week. That sounds like plenty until you count what falls outside it.

• Evenings, weekends, and holidays, which is when a lot of problems surface.
• Vacation weeks, sick days, and the weeks spent getting up to speed after a hire.
• The weeks or months after that person leaves, before the next one starts.

None of that is a criticism of the person, since one person can only cover so much. My team provides around the clock support for clients, including nights, weekends, and holidays, because problems happen outside office hours too.

The Skills

Here is a rough list of what IT covers at a small business:

• Help desk for everyday questions and fixes.
• Network and Wi Fi.
• Microsoft 365 or other cloud systems.
• Security, access, and keeping old accounts closed.
• Backups, and actually testing that they restore.
• Buying and setting up equipment, and dealing with software vendors.
• Planning for what the firm will need next year.
• Writing and maintaining policies and plans, including an acceptable use policy that covers AI tools, rules for managing company phones and laptops, a business continuity plan, and an incident response plan.

That is seven or eight different skill sets, and a single hire is usually strong in two or three. The rest either gets learned on the job, often in the middle of a problem, or quietly skipped.

Policies are a good example, because writing them well means knowing current best practice, tailoring it to how your firm actually works, and keeping it up to date as things change.

The Workload

What surprises many people is that IT at a small business is often a steady trickle of small tasks plus a few urgent days a year, rather than a full time job.

That is exactly why nobody hired for it in the first place. A full time person may end up underused most weeks and overwhelmed on the bad ones. And on the days they are busy fixing whatever broke that morning, the important work, like planning ahead and testing your backups, tends to get pushed to another week.

When Hiring Makes Sense

Some firms should have someone in house. If you have a lot of custom systems, a large staff, or a steady daily volume of hands on requests, an internal person can be worth it. It also does not have to be one or the other. An internal person can handle the day to day while a managed provider covers the off hours, the specialties, and the backup.

Running Your Own Numbers

Before you post a job listing, try this.

• Track for a month how many hours your firm actually spends on IT, and who spends them.
• List which of the skill areas above you need covered, and which ones nobody is covering today.
• Look up current local salary ranges for the role you have in mind, and add recruiting time and the cost of the gap if that person leaves.
• Put a managed IT quote next to all of that, and ask what it includes.

Then compare the two fairly. On one side is one person’s working week. On the other is coverage for every hour and every skill on the list.

If You Want Help With the Comparison

I am happy to walk through the comparison with you and give you an honest view, even if it points toward hiring someone of your own. There is no obligation.