IT Staffing and Effective Practices

Like many institutions, St. Olaf College continues to find that regardless of how many staff are employed in the IT office, there's never enough staff to do everything that needs to be done. IT staff are challenged by increasing demands from users for consulting, assistance and troubleshooting, skyrocketing demand for assistance with classroom technologies, to a hardware and software market that demands continual research and review. The staffing challenge is exacerbated by budget restrictions and a college-wide FTE cap. Requests for new staff positions has evolved into a highly competitive process that demands a well-documented need statement. The very competitive nature of the process also demands that IT be prepared with an alternative plan to reallocate existing staff resources to new demands if the FTE increase is denied.

When encountering a shortage of skilled IT staff to do client/server development work, we decided to hire trainees to augment the work force. These trainees needed specific skills training.