Key Points

• IT department hiring budgets largely remain frozen due to doubts about whether the economy will see sustained growth in the future.

• Enterprises might be tempted to demand more out of IT staffers, but pushing employees too far can backfire.

• IT professionals can find opportunities to widen their skills and to mentor colleagues as enterprises seek to rely on in-house talent for new projects instead of hiring additional employees or third-party consultants.

The IT sector as a whole is no longer shedding jobs to the extent it was last year, but don’t expect a return to the better days before the recession any time soon, according to analyst firm Computer Economics.

“All of the positions lost during the recession are not going to be restored—at least, not right away. At the median, staffing levels will remain flat,” says John Longwell, an analyst for Computer Economics. “There will be improvement, but IT organizations will continue to run lean and, in truth, be a bit understaffed.”

Given that many enterprises will have limited staffing during the foreseeable future, then, the issue for most IT departments is how to do more with fewer or the same amount of staffers. We look at some of the trends associated with low data center staffing levels.

Staffing Fears

Lingering concerns about the economy are leaving small to midsized enterprises gun-shy about increasing the size of their staff even in the face of economic recovery. “Companies are reluctant to hire permanent workers for fear of having to lay them off again,” says Rob Enderle, principal analyst for the Enderle Group. “The cause is that these firms aren’t yet sure that we are in recovery and know the market can bounce up and down a bit before sustained recovery takes place.”

The fear of adding staff in today’s economic climate is also part of an historical trend. “Companies often get pretty tight about opening or even filling positions at the tail end of a downturn or the beginning of an upturn, whichever the case is now,” says Susan Snedaker, principal consultant and founder of VirtualTeam Consulting. “They will typically stretch existing resources pretty thin rather than hire additional staff.”

Stretching Staffers Too Far?

The implications that companies are doing more with fewer people can look good, at least on the surface, for a department’s bottom line. Companies are also often able to motivate IT staffers to take on even more work and responsibilities because they are less likely to quit when the job prospects of finding work elsewhere are not great, Snedaker says. However, pushing workers too far is not a good idea, either. “Over-allocating staff wears them down and makes them more prone to error, which in an IT shop of any kind can be a large problem,” Snedaker says. “Beyond error, you simply begin to wear people down mentally, physically, and even emotionally.”

Stretching staffers too far can also offset “any goodwill the company may have garnered through the years,” Snedaker says. “This can manifest as people sticking rigidly to the rules and regulations; exhibiting ‘malicious compliance,’ in which staff do exactly (and only) as they’re told; or, in the worst case, intentionally sabotaging projects and deliverables to ‘prove’ to management more staff is needed,” Snedaker says. “These scenarios are all bad situations to get into.”

A good practice for IT departments is to not place too many demands on staffers even if they feel like they do have the upper hand, Snedaker says. “Most staff will be able to work within the constraints, even if that means putting in long hours, if they are clear that it is a temporary approach,” she explains.

Work With What You Have

Most IT departments certainly do not have a carte blanche to spend money on third-party consulting services like they may have done in the past. So when it comes time to implement a new technology or process, staffers are increasingly called upon to step up and do the necessary work in-house without bringing outside talent in. Although having to take on new projects, especially in areas where you might lack expertise, represents obvious challenges, learning new skills to see new projects through can also spell opportunities. “Finding new ways to do things is one way that IT experts can keep skills sharp and up-to-date. IT . . . seems to morph every four to five years, and some would argue that maybe three to four years is the real technology turnover timeline,” says Brad Kowal, assistant data center director for Shands HealthCare in Florida. “As IT workers, we are forced to reinvent ourselves for learning the new technologies while supporting the old. Today’s IT worker combined with the economic recession/ depression definitely feels they have to prove they are an asset to the organization.”

So as IT departments are asked to work the miracles of upgrading or installing new systems applications as budgets shrink, IT workers should focus on how they can better apply their skills despite reduced budgets, Kowal says. “Everyone should be asking themselves, ‘Where do I fit within the organization?’ and the answer is, if we don’t want to be downsized, outsourced, or let go, we need to take on additional responsibilities.”

Not hiring outside help or adding new staffers as IT departments take on new projects often means teaching new skill sets to in-house staffers. As a result, mentoring should get more attention within organizations in the coming year due to limited staffing resources, Kowal says. Although trying to compensate for tight staffing levels is not an ideal scenario, mentoring in general can play a positive role in career development. “Taking a person with the skills needed and just getting them the technical information/mentoring they need [can help them] play an improved part in the organization and to accomplish their goals,” Kowal says.

Article by Bruce Gain for .