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By Dave Wilmer, Robert Half Technology

Question: “Our IT department has been busy since the company -- after months of putting off any significant investment in technology -- has committed to several new projects. Now, many members of my team are working overtime just to keep up with their everyday responsibilities. I feel like we need more personnel, but after laying off staff not long ago, I’m afraid of expanding the size of my team too quickly and having to take make cutbacks if business slows. How can I be sure it’s time to hire again?”

Reducing staff levels to the bare minimum or instituting a hiring freeze have been common survival strategies for companies navigating through what some have called the Great Recession. But now, as the economy begins to show modest signs of improvement, many employers, like yourself, are sensing it might be time to add at least a few new members to their workforce.

Some are considering expanding certain teams so they can move quickly to seize new business opportunities. Others believe they should strengthen their overall talent bench because there are many skilled professionals in the job market. In your case, the fact that staff members must work overtime to avoid falling behind with their basic job responsibilities -- let alone any additional projects they’ve been assigned -- indicates a clear need to add staff. Asking your team members to continually burn the midnight oil can undermine employee morale and lead to turnover.

Here are four additional signs that it may be time to hire:

1. Service levels and work quality are deteriorating. Perhaps your company has experienced an unusual increase in returned items and requests for refunds. Or customers may be complaining about their experience on your company’s Web site, or the way your staff treats them. The root cause of these issues may be that your workers are overloaded and feel rushed to complete projects. They simply don’t have the time or energy to perform their duties to the same level as they did in the past.
2. Non-urgent projects are repeatedly deferred. When workloads spike or critical deadlines loom, lower priority tasks often get pushed temporarily to the back burner. However, if deliverables are chronically postponed, due dates are constantly revised, or projects are completely thrown off schedule or scrapped entirely, your organization is likely short-staffed.
3. Managers are stepping in regularly to help with lower-level work. Trouble is brewing if senior staff must spend a good portion of their workday dealing with urgent but less important matters instead of focusing on their core management responsibilities or strategic, big-picture issues. Another warning sign more resources are required: If the absence of just one staff member due to illness or other work commitments throws the entire team off schedule and forces you to step in to handle routine tasks because no one else is available.
4. Your organization can’t move on new opportunities or take on more clients. Is your organization turning away new business? Is it unable to act on strategic initiatives that could create competitive advantage simply because there aren’t enough professionals on staff? If so, you may be staring at the biggest red flag of all. The company’s future success may be at risk, so now is the time to think seriously about adding employees.

Even if there are clear warning signs that your team is understaffed, committing to adding new employees in a still uncertain economy may not be easy. While waiting too long to hire may be a mistake, so too is hiring prematurely.

One option is to bring in project IT professionals to supplement your core workforce. This allows you to keep personnel levels flexible until you determine more full-time workers are needed over the long term. In addition, project workers often make effective full-time hires because you have the opportunity to evaluate the quality of their work and how they interact with other staff members firsthand, saving you time and trouble during the hiring process.

It may be a while before the economy is firmly in recovery, but your organization may not be able to wait until then to add more staff. If your workforce is clearly in need of support, you must move to provide them with relief or risk losing valuable talent right when the company is ready to grow again.

Dave Willmer is executive director of Robert Half Technology, a leading provider of IT professionals for initiatives ranging from e-business development and multiplatform systems integration to network security and technical support. The company has more than 100 locations worldwide and offers online job search services at www.rht.com. For additional management advice, follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/roberthalftech.

Comments (1)

	1. 03-05-2010 07:22
	These pressures map with what I've also been hearing from IT workers. Many organizations that have lost IT workers to attrition over the past three years have distributed the additional workloa to remaining staffers without making new hires. Over time, the remaining workers have become stressed. Registered

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