How can I convince my CFO to hire more staff? [duplicate]

Question

Currently we're 3 workers in our Systems Department, the thing is the three of us do everything: support(for a bit over 75 users, and a bit over 90 computer systems[some computers are used by 2 or 3 different users]), software development, networking, database administration(for over 9 small companies), and sometimes look for manuals and such for other departments, one of the guys is leaving now, and my colleague and I feel like the department lacks structure, I know that being able to do everything is good experience wise, but it's bad performance wise as in we can't really focus on one thing since we also have to be by the phone whenever a user encounters a problem. We want to convince our CFO(since he alongside the member that's leaving, helped to digitize the company and that's why our department reports to him, that's what I was told) that we need an extra worker with a degree and at least 3 interns, but the CFO is very jealous when it comes to spending money, how can I convince him that it's not only money being spent but more of an investment for the company?

Note that my colleague has been 1 year and 1 month on the job and I have been around for 9 months. So we're relatively new and don't feel like our recommendations/suggestions have enough weight to be considered.

Answer 1

I'm answering late after reading the comments.

I think you're looking at it slightly wrong in terms of getting a replacement developer and interns.

What I would do in your shoes is divide up and list the time spent on various jobs. Engineering, software support, database and development.

From the comments I gather that what you really need to take the pressure off is a good solid experienced engineer. He/she can take the brunt of the network engineering, with the two developers helping him/her but otherwise concentrating more on development.

I come from an engineering background and have handled well over that number of clients and machines solo at times but I have almost a couple of decades experience. It's not something that's easy to do on your own (because a lot of tasks are timeconsuming), but with backup it can be handled fairly well. I do a lot of support work without ever leaving my office and multi-tasking machines is par for the course.

If your list reflects the same as what I'm thinking, then that is what I would suggest to the boss. I know some developers don't think much of engineers, but I also know for a fact that in terms of efficiency and in depth knowledge of systems and networking, a good experienced engineer is worth every cent.

So do the homework with the hours, take it to the CFO and ask if you can hash out division of responsibilities. Then make a suggestion on what sort of staff you and your colleague feel are needed. But do the homework first. I assume you have a job tracking system, but if not, do estimates as solidly as possible.

Answer 2

Your CFO is looking to make money for the company. Right now, your suggestion is to spend money. He has no interest in that. You need to show him, how spending money will make money in the long run. Prepare a business case. What would the people you want hire do and how would that benefit the company. What does that mean for the bottom line?

Don't approach him to hire 4 people. Talk to him about the opportunity to make more money, which would require 4 people.

Answer 3

Frame the request in terms of what monetary benefits the company would derive from having the additional staff.

• If you had an extra developer, perhaps you could finish X project Y months early which would save the company $Z.
• If you had an extra support person, perhaps you could resolve requests a couple of hours earlier and improve the productivity of other departments.
• If you had an extra support person, perhaps you could take care of some item that never gets prioritized like applying patches to servers which improves security or stability. Perhaps it would reduce turnover by allowing you to have a less punishing on call rotation.

Figure out what benefits the company would derive from having additional staff, put some sort of dollar figure on that benefit, and present that. Realistically, if you can't come up with benefits or reduced costs that would pay for the fully loaded cost of another person, however, I wouldn't expect the CFO to agree to your proposal.

I would be particularly concerned about asking for 4 interns. I am hard-pressed to imagine a situation where I would want a department to have 4 full-time workers (assuming the CFO hires the additional full-time person) and 4 interns. Supervising an intern takes a fair amount of time and not everyone is good at that so throwing 4 interns into a department you say doesn't have the time to do everything that it needs to do seems like a recipe for unproductive and unhappy interns. Interns are also inherently short-term so you'd spend a fair amount of time orienting them and getting them to understand your processes just to have them disappear. If the department was large enough, you could plausibly offer the better interns full-time positions to keep some of the knowledge in place but that's not realistic in a department this small. If you really need 2 new hires, ask for that rather than asking for a bunch of interns.

Plus, if you are suggesting that you get some unpaid interns to do the work of full-time employees for the benefit of the employer rather than the intern, you'll likely run afoul of labor law on unpaid internships.