Adding people to the team should feel like a win. More hires
usually means more work coming through the door, and that's the whole point.
But for a lot of firms, the week a new hire starts turns
into a scramble. The laptop isn't ready. Nobody's sure which licenses to buy.
Someone in operations spends a full day chasing logins instead of doing their
actual job.
Most of that friction traces back to new employee IT costs
nobody planned for. Here are the 5 we see catch growing firms off guard most
often, and how to build them into the budget before the offer letter goes out.
1. Computers and equipment
The device is the cost everyone remembers. It's also the one
that surprises people when the quote comes back.
Depending on the role, a new hire might need a laptop or
desktop, monitors, a headset, a docking station, and sometimes a mobile device.
Some roles need more horsepower than others. An architect or engineer running
design and modeling software on a bargain laptop will spend their first month
staring at progress bars.
The fix is a standard equipment package for each role,
settled before you post the job. We help partners set those standards as part
of our IT lifecycle management work, and we
pre-configure every device with the operating system, security tools, and
settings before it reaches the new hire. For partners without spare storage
space, we can even hold pre-configured machines at our facility until they're
needed.
2. Software and licenses per employee
Recurring software is one of the easiest line items to
predict. It's also one of the easiest to underestimate.
A new hire rarely needs just 1 license. There's Microsoft
365, the line-of-business application your team runs on, a project management
seat, maybe a design tool, an e-signature account, or a customer relationship
management (CRM) license. $20 a month here and $30 a month there, and each hire
suddenly carries a software bill nobody wrote down.
Build an itemized list of every subscription each role
needs, with the cost next to each one. Then when leadership approves a hire,
the software budget moves with it instead of showing up as a surprise on next
month's invoices.
3. Accounts, access, and security
Getting equipment wrong costs time. Getting access and
security wrong can cost a lot more.
Every new person brings a new set of credentials, a new
inbox for phishing emails to land in, and a new device to protect. Before day
one, you want:
·
Accounts created with secure credentials and
multi-factor authentication (MFA) turned on from the start
·
Access scoped to what the role needs, not copied
from whoever had the most permissions
·
Keycards or fobs issued properly, so nobody's
borrowing a coworker's badge for the first 2 weeks
·
Security awareness training assigned in week
1, before the first convincing phishing email shows up
At Framework IT, MFA is a baseline in every managed
services agreement, and our security tools go on every new device
during setup. That moves security from a checklist someone has to remember into
part of the standard build.
4. IT setup and support time
Even if you never see an invoice for it, someone's time goes
into every new hire. Imaging the computer, creating accounts, assigning
licenses, setting up the phone, and showing the new person how to get help.
That's labor, whether it's billed hourly, absorbed by a salaried office
manager, or covered under a support agreement.
Onboarding 1 person a quarter is manageable. Onboarding 4
people in the same month can pull time away from everything else on the
calendar.
This is where your support model matters. For our fully
managed partners, routine onboarding requests are part of the support
agreement, not a separate hourly bill. We recommend at least 10 business days'
notice for a standard onboarding, or 2 weeks if new hardware needs to be
ordered. Partners submit a short onboarding form, it becomes a ticket, and our help desk team takes it from there.
5. Growth that adds up
1 new hire won't break your network. 10 might.
Growth rarely shows up in a single wave. It creeps in 1 or 2
people at a time, until the conference room Wi-Fi can't keep up, the file
storage is full, and the internet connection that worked fine for 15 people is
crawling with 30.
You can't fit 30 people into a 10-desk office, and your
technology has the same kind of ceiling. Knowing where those limits sit lets
you plan the upgrade before a new hire runs into it on their first day.
Make new employee IT costs part of the hiring conversation
We work with a lot of growing professional services firms, and the
pattern repeats itself. The hiring plan lives with HR and finance. The
technology plan lives somewhere else, if it exists at all. Nobody connects the
2 until the new hire is sitting at an empty desk.
The firms that grow smoothly treat technology as part of
every headcount decision. When a hire gets approved, the equipment, licenses,
security, and setup time are already priced in.
That's a big part of what our virtual Chief Information Officer (vCIO) does.
Your vCIO takes your hiring plans into account when forecasting technology
costs, builds them into your annual technology budget, and reviews them with
you at your Strategic Business Reviews. Tell your vCIO you're planning to add 5
people next year, and the cost of supporting them shows up in the forecast, not
on a surprise invoice.
Standardization helps too. Partners who align their
environment to our Business Optimization Framework onboard faster
because every device, account, and permission follows the same playbook. Our
operational data going back to 2008 shows that partners aligned to these best
practices see roughly 30% fewer disruptions.
New employee IT costs FAQs
How much does it cost to set up IT for a new employee?
It depends on the role. Add up the device and accessories,
every software license the role needs, the security tools that protect the
account and device, and the setup time. Building a standard package for each
role is the fastest way to turn that into a reliable number you can budget
against.
How far in advance should IT know about a new hire?
We recommend at least 10 business days for a standard
onboarding with existing equipment, and 2 weeks if new hardware has to be
ordered. More notice means fewer rush shipping costs and a new hire who's
productive on day one.
What IT does a new employee need on day one?
A configured device, accounts with MFA turned on, the right
software licenses, access scoped to their role, and security awareness training
assigned in their first week. Physical access like keycards should be ready
too.
Book a meeting to talk about what your next
new hire will cost to equip, secure, and support.
And if you know a business owner who's about to grow their
team, send this their way.
About the Author
Adam Barney is President and Managing Partner of Framework
IT, a Chicago-based managed IT services firm he's helped lead for more than 15
years. He and his team of 40+ professionals specialize in IT support, strategy,
and cybersecurity for small and mid-sized businesses. Adam's insights on
business technology have been featured in the Harvard Business Review, the
Washington Post, and Fox 32 Chicago.
