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PC to tech ratio

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by rwest

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I am looking for benchmarking. Pc to tech ratio

8 replies

by bfilmfan

This ratio truly depends upon the way you support your user community. What level of support are you offering? Do you support the users remotely? Are the users in a few locations or are they spread all over the place?

by mjd420nova

There is a very long list of parameters that make
up the equation for the ratio that works.
Are peripherals supported too, routers and switches?? Modems, scanners and plotters have to
be taken into account too. Location may also
dictate some manpower be present thou not fully
applied, just to achieve a desired or mandated
response time.

by charliespencer

It's not just PCs per tech, it's also users. I have a few dozen machines not assigned to a single individual. Each machine is used by multiple factory workers throughout the day.

Another factor is the average skill of the users supported. Sometimes its easier to support those employees with limited computer skills. They're less likely to load malware, and less likely to screw things up more by trying to fix their mistakes.

by w2ktechman

Both above answers are correct, more details would be much better. But, as a basic rule for deskside support, 1 tech per 250-500 users. For helpdesk, 1 tech per 150-350 users. These #'s are very flexible, as I have seen 2-3 techs support less than 250 users on deskside alone. These #'s would represent medium to large businesses. Smaller businesses usually need more technicians with less supported people.

by jc2it

I work in a SMB (Small to Medium Business) environment with users that are not technologically adept. I have found, because of the many hats that IT wears, you must have more technical support to service the broad range of tasks that appear every day.

We support everything that blinks (Servers, PCs, FAX, PBX, Printer/Copier, PLC, any netwoking equipment), so our goal is to have well rounded indiviudals that are willing to learn about many different systems and processes.

Keep in mind that IT does not mean ivory tower. IT must be willing to provide solutions to all parts of the business, as long as they meet or assist in meeting business goals. This probably means getting your hands dirty (especially if your business is manufacturing), and facilitating the improvement of a process.

With that said you should have enough IT personnel to provide sufficient support and enough free time to work on projects related to increasing the company's profit margin.

In our environment this is around a 75-80 to 1 ratio.

by zeotter

When I was working for a larger company a few years ago. My boss found a magazine article that listed 70-1 as the magic number. I now work at a public school district and we have a 3-2000 ratio. That doesn't count the IP phones, servers, and database work we have to do. I think tech to PC ratio's are deceiving. I would say that what is really important is finding the number that allows a 24 hour response time to almost any issue. I would say that would make you just below average. With that as a base line you can bring in more staff with a focus of bring that response time down to what you find acceptable.

by thechas

This question pops up on a regular basis.

Rather than any fixed ratio, your company IT department and managers need to start by defining the acceptable level of tech support your business needs.

Then implement metrics to measure the level of service and technician performance.

Things to measure include:

Response time to all the different levels of problems.

Technician idle time.

Value added by projects that the IT staff works on when they are not supporting users.

Cost to the company of downtime.

You may end up going as far as having different ratios for different business units within the company.

In situations where the user has no other task to do when their PC or network node is down, or those taking customer orders, downtime is very costly to the business.

Other users may have other tasks that they can perform when their PC is down, and downtime is more an inconvenience than a cost.

Age of equipment and complexity of applications also factors in.

Chas

by happyheathen

I worked for a previous (national) employer whose acceptable average was about 200-250 clients per tech but could rise as high as 300-350. This was very workable especially as customers typically contacted a centralized HelpDesk for tickets to be generated. Tickets were escalated to the onsite techs as needed.

Due to regional office constraints, I supported 100-125 users providing both the Level 1 and Level 2 response and they appreciated the personalized service.

This included all desktop support services, printers, networking, video conferencing and telephone services.

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