Why You Only Need to Hire Half a Person

I received an email the other day with several web links, and one was titled “Why you need half a DBA”. This got me thinking about the current state of IT shops around the area, and the fact that many companies are looking to focus on the core of their businesses. What does focus on the core mean?

Think about a manufacturing firm that produces widgets. The main goal of the company is to sell, build, and ship widgets. They may utilize a sophisticated technology system to assist them with building, selling, and shipping these widgets. The company may also have a finance department, which keeps detailed accounting of all of the transactions, and a robust HR department that ensures the company has enough people to do the job.

IT, HR and Finance are all important support departments for this company, but the goal is still to build, sell, and ship widgets. Investors in the company aren’t asking how efficient the finance department is, or how the HR group is doing… they want to know how many widgets have been sold.

We are seeing many companies move to utilizing fractional staff to execute in these supporting departments instead of hiring full time employees. The amount of work day to day fluctuates and paying for only what you need works out more economically in the course of a year. Imagine having a fractional HR person who works 10-20 hours a week handling the hiring, benefits consulting, and other HR related activities. The same can be applied to finance AND IT.