The Hidden $20K Cost of Your "IT Person"
In almost every company past seven or eight people, there's someone who ends up being the IT person. It's rarely in their job description. Most owners assume this saves money. The math usually says otherwise.
How it happens
It's rarely written into anyone's job description. They just happen to be good at fixing the printer, resetting passwords, and troubleshooting "my email isn't working" at 4:30 on a Friday. Everyone asks them because they're good at it, and because there's nobody else. Over time, that becomes an unofficial second job layered on top of their actual one.
The math most owners never run
If that person makes $100,000 a year and spends 20% of their time on IT issues, that's $20,000 worth of their salary going to work that isn't their actual job. That's before counting the deals they didn't close or the projects they didn't finish because they were resetting someone's password instead, mistakes made because they're not actually an IT specialist, security questions they're not qualified to answer but answer anyway, and the quiet resentment that builds when their real work keeps getting interrupted.
At that point, nobody is fully doing their job.
Why the team feels stuck too
The rest of the team usually feels guilty asking for help, so they either wait too long to raise an issue or try to fix things themselves - which usually makes it worse. Everyone ends up half-doing two jobs: their real one, and an informal IT role nobody officially assigned.
What the comparison actually looks like
Professional IT support looks like an added expense on paper. But once you add up everything the informal approach is actually costing - salary time, mistakes, missed work, and the quiet toll on morale - the comparison gets a lot closer than most owners expect. This is exactly the kind of thing worth running the numbers on during budget season, not after the next crisis forces the conversation.
What would your most tech-savvy employee accomplish if they could actually focus on the job you hired them for?