Research Outline

Staffing Ratios

Goals

To understand the typical/average staffing ratios of companies and whether these ratios vary based on company size.

Early Findings

During our preliminary research, we were able to determine the typical staffing ratios for IT employees, HR, and Managers. Below is an overview of our early findings.

IT

  • The widely agreed upon IDEAL IT/help desk staffing ratio is 70:1.
  • However, the median is 200:1.

HR

  • The Society for Human Resource Management’s 2017 Human Capital Benchmarking Study companies with up to 250 employees typically have an average of 3.4 human resources employees per 100 full-time positions.
  • However, the median ratio, as determined by The HR Department Benchmarks and Analysis 2017, is 1.4 HR employees for every 100 workers.
  • It has also been found that smaller companies have a higher HR ratios as opposed to larger companies, because larger companies have "economies of scale and automation software" that help them keep their HR ratios low.

Managers

  • For most area, a typical manager to employee ratio is 10 workers per manager.
  • However, for direct reports to a regional vice president or senior manager, the typical ratio is 4-to-1.
  • In addition, in an administrative area, the typical manager ratio is 20-to-1.