Did you cut your IT staff too deeply?

The recession has caused many firms to make significant cuts in their IT departments--decisions made out of economic necessity but ones that may come back to haunt those businesses. A survey by Robert Half Technology found that 43 percent of some 1,400 CIOs polled feel their IT departments are either somewhat or very understaffed in relation to current workload.

"Many companies have cut technology staff levels too deeply, making it challenging for IT departments to keep pace with demands," said Dave Willmer, executive director of Robert Half Technology, in a statement. "Although businesses may be able to operate with stretched teams in the short term, being perpetually understaffed isn't sustainable and can detract from the overall productivity and morale of the organization."

The concern now is whether IT leaders will have the high-tech skills needed to help their companies rebuild and drive business growth during the economic recovery. Gartner recently surveyed some 190 senior business executives and found 62 percent recognize that "IT-enabled changes will be a key element in their post-recession strategy."

At the same time, Gartner found that high-tech executives will be expected to do more with less again in 2010

InfoWorld.com reports that Lily Mok, vice president in Gartner's CIO Research organization, predicted that IT staffs could remain lean well into 2010 and that economic recovery will not also indicate a return of IT jobs to pre-recession numbers.

"IT departments during the downturn were very cautious about where they reduced, and more organizations plan to keep staffing levels flat for a period of time. As the recovery continues, they might not even add too much, so I don't think we will ever go back to the big IT departments of 2000 or 2001," Mok said.

For more on IT staffing:
- see this InfoWorld.com article

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