Is there some kind of rule that determines how many users are accounted for by one person from support?

Question

Law in IT

Colleagues!
Can you please tell me if there are rules that determine how many users and supported systems should be per one technical support employee? By a technical support employee, we mean not a call center operator, but a person who deals with solving problems. In my case, there are 640 computers for two people + a lot of paperwork and a warehouse, and you need to correctly justify to the manager that people are needed in the department so that the service is of high quality.

Answer 1

I do not think that there is a clear “norm”, because situations can be completely different. I have heard more than once about a simple ratio of 1:100 IT people in the company to the total number of employees. Those. with 640 users, the company should have 6.4 employees in the IT department.
To justify the manager, I suggest that you first enter the metrics of this service - the time to solve problems, their number, repeatability, which is important to you. Agree the required level of performance with management.
If the management is satisfied with the level as it is now, then new employees are not needed and there is no need to solve these problems faster. If the approved level is not achievable, here is the rationale for increasing the staff.

Answer 2

Each IT system is unique, so there are no norms and cannot be.
On average, in a hospital, with a standardized hardware and software park, slaughtered politicians, and so on, it is considered that 1 person per 100-150 PCs, maybe more, especially if all the work is “came - changed the computer”.
It is more difficult with servers, because different architectures, tasks, etc., from 5 to 20 servers, more is purely physiologically more difficult, unless, of course, these are HPC nodes =)

Answer 3

If we assume that the hardware fleet is standard, the policies are strict, and there is a separate service desk, signalers, a server management team and an application support team, then on-site support is normally 1 person per 150-180 computers. Also, somewhere nearby there should be a second person for an emergency (illness) or planned (vacation) replacement of the first.

Answer 4

there are no clear norms - more often IT is divided by functionality and, with a shortage of people, the staff is increased

Answer 5

At one of the previous works, a structure of about a thousand computers in different offices, countries and continents was served by three people.
In each office, a help desk without admin rights is only for replacing hardware and cartridges.
otherwise, competent planning and only one problem was when, after the next update, the printers flew off.