Data Center Staffing Solutions for Optimal Efficiency

During the planning and construction of a data center, thousands of people are on the site getting the construction work done. But now that your center is getting ready to flip the on switch, owners are faced with questions of staffing. 

Just as many data centers hire a management company to handle staffing and operations as take on the responsibility themselves. Regardless of who is running the center, managers need to determine staffing so that operations are run at an optimal level without having idle workers. 

The questions that managers need to answer is how many staffers are needed and what kind of positions need to be filled. Lower-skill employees are generally easier to find than highly skilled labor. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that the demand for network engineers will increase by 5 percent over the next five years. Coupled with an aging workforce in which it is believed that two-thirds on current network engineers will retire in the next five years, the demand for some skilled trades will be hard to meet.   

Understanding Staffing Needs 

Staffing at data centers falls into two categories: IT and Facilities. For IT, centers will need highly skilled network engineers and information management engineers. Qualified technicians also need to be hired. For facilities, it is ideal to have qualified, certified, or licensed workers. 

Regardless of the labor category, data centers require a highly skilled workforce. According  to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs in computer and information technology will grow by 21 percent from 2021 to 2030. 

This growth indicates the importance not only hiring skilled workers but offering benefits and training to assist in retention. Your workers will not only have to handle current technology, but assist your company move toward innovation. Skills that are ideal now may not be so useful in five to 10 years. 

It is becoming more important to have people on staff who know how to use machine learning and data analytics as AI becomes more common. You can keep your team skilled and confident by stressing the importance of ongoing education and skill development. 

Staffing Plan 

Staffing levels are only the first part of developing a staffing plan. A staffing plan is more than a checklist. A good plan involves looking at the workload needs and making sure they fit with the employees' schedules. An eye also needs to be kept on availability of parts and delivery times, as well as the hours during the workday what are busiest. Fortunately, there are many software tools to help managers develop staffing plans. These tools use real-time information to recognize workflow patterns, allowing managers to understand trends and needs of maintenance of operations of a facility.  

An important aspect of staffing plans is flexibility. It’s understood by managers that anything can happen at any time. A staffing plan that does not have flexibility could leave a manager short-handed. 

A good plan usually has both full-time and part-time workers, and possibly vendors who provide services. You can quickly change the size of this hybrid model and add or remove things as needed. Temporary staffing solutions let you hire people with specific skills for short-term projects without having to make a long-term commitment. 

People are the Key to Success 

Everyone knows that machine learning and artificial intelligence are here to stay. What isn’t known is the impact these technologies will have on data center operations and staffing. It may be that machine learning tools can quickly and accurately analyze more data than humans, it is foolish to assume that data centers can remove the human element. 

AI tools are just that, tools. These tools can handle routine, repetitive tasks such as patch management or writing scripts for regular maintenance, which frees up skilled workers to work on more complex issues. It is an important part of any staffing plan to assure that your workers are trained to use the new tools that become available, not to replace the workers, but to help them with their jobs. 

It is the human imagination that leads to true innovation, something AI has still not achieved. To inspire innovation, it is important to encourage a learning culture in which there is an openness to new ideas that result in efficient data centers. 

Managers should encourage training and certifications, including making it easy for staffers to learn. There are many resources available online to individuals and companies, such as Coursera and LinkedIn Learning.  

Staffing data centers has its own unique challenges, but with good planning and implementation, the challenges can be overcome. In addition, the owner gets a dedicated staff that runs the center efficiently. 

Critical Energy Infrastructure Services (CEIS) is a nation-wide leader in providing safety and quality assurance for the data center industry. Contact Corey Englebrake at 505-220-3022 or corey.englebrake@ceis.com for more information and start the process of making your project safer.