The Right Time to Hire a Full Time Salesforce Administrator

While writing this post I’m keeping in mind that maintaining a full time employee may present some challenges. You need to ensure this person will have enough work on their hands to keep them busy and motivated so they won’t get bored and decide to leave and pursue other opportunities. As long as your administrative needs are being met and everyone is happy it does not matter whether you have a full-time, part-time, remote or any other administrator!

That being said, when should you hire a full time administrator for your organization? Because of the flexibility the Salesforce platform has to offer, administration needs will vary across organizations. Here are some things to consider about your instance that will hopefully help you identify what type of admin should have the keys to your Salesforce kingdom and what the benefits and challenges are.

Amount of Users

One of the things to take into consideration is how many users will be using the platform. The more users you have the more time and resources will be needed to support them. Having a full time admin is ideal because they will have time to tailor training according to the individual needs of a large user base. Every user will have different learning styles and different system functionality they will need to master, so customizing training is especially important when it comes to adoption. In addition, when it comes to day to day basic troubleshooting or questions it is ideal to have someone readily accessible to quickly resolve issues without having to wait too long or interrupt business processes. Please refer to the chart below to see what Salesforce considers adequate administration resources:

Complexity of Current Configuration

Something else to think about is how intricate is your Salesforce instance. Are there a lot of customizations, code or complex business processes that require more heavy lifting? Or, do you have a complicated security model where being in compliance is a driving factor of your success?  Do you have any system integrations in place? You want someone that can monitor and keep a close eye on things when any changes or updates have to be made. A full-time admin would be able to better manage these components by keeping tabs on all the current and new technology. Full-time admins would also be able to identify when it is necessary to bring in external resources and manage that relationship.  

What are in the plans for the future?

Finally you should consider what your organization plans are for the future. Will the organization be expanding or adding new business types or programs? Perhaps your company wants to bridge the gap between the sales teams and service teams, and you may need to start planning for how you can implement Service Cloud Console or other service related features. A dedicated admin will understand your system well enough to identify processes that could use innovation and proactively explore the possibilities that exist within the Salesforce Platform.

This is a great opportunity to have a full time admin take advantage of all the great resources Salesforce has to offer. For example, your administrator can join the local User Groups and network with other users in similar industries and exchange ideas about how they are using Salesforce. There also are several events that happen throughout the year like Dreamforce, The Annual World Tour, workshops and presentations on the latest and greatest features all while meeting some awesome people at the same time.  

These are just some of the considerations to keep in mind when thinking about hiring a full-time administrator. Each organization is unique and this is not a one size fits all solution. While some organizations will benefit the most by having a dedicated administrator, others can still operate efficiently with a few workarounds. For example, you can still have an internal staff member handling administrative duties and just split responsibilities among others in the team. Another option would be hiring a consultant as a buffer to help with anything outside of the administrators comfort level or to provide strategic support.

Please feel free to comment below, on the Salesforce Success Community, on our Facebook page, or directly at me on Twitter @msespinal90.