Comment there is no hard and fast number (Score 1) 134
Unfortunately, there is no good answer for a ratio of support personell to users. It seems that more IT managers seem to cut down on support people in an order to cut costs, but then don't understand why they have such a morale problem and a high turnover rate.
There are a couple of things you can do to make your life easier, however.
1) Layering. Have a "front line" that takes all the easy calls/emails (pw's, etc) so that the more experienced people can work on actual problems (like servers/networks being down).
2) Education/documentation. Enable the users to help themselves. If they can go to a web page and get some instructions on how to change their password, how to make sure their browser is set up right, or whatever you seem to be getting a lot of calls in, it will decrease the number of calls you get on those issues.
3) Express yourself to your manager. Make him/her understand (without being threatening) that people in your department are unhappy. It would also help if you went to him en-masse, one person bringing concerns doesn't have the same effect as many people bringing him concerns. In the long run, is it more useful to get more people on and retain them for longer, or easier just to train new people as old ones leave?
Good luck. I was in your position once, and finally ended up having to leave. I hear it is much better at the job now, but sometimes it takes people leaving to get the point across.
--Doc
There are a couple of things you can do to make your life easier, however.
1) Layering. Have a "front line" that takes all the easy calls/emails (pw's, etc) so that the more experienced people can work on actual problems (like servers/networks being down).
2) Education/documentation. Enable the users to help themselves. If they can go to a web page and get some instructions on how to change their password, how to make sure their browser is set up right, or whatever you seem to be getting a lot of calls in, it will decrease the number of calls you get on those issues.
3) Express yourself to your manager. Make him/her understand (without being threatening) that people in your department are unhappy. It would also help if you went to him en-masse, one person bringing concerns doesn't have the same effect as many people bringing him concerns. In the long run, is it more useful to get more people on and retain them for longer, or easier just to train new people as old ones leave?
Good luck. I was in your position once, and finally ended up having to leave. I hear it is much better at the job now, but sometimes it takes people leaving to get the point across.
--Doc
