Then consider office tech support, which is on your list. That's
something you can't really do remotely and
part-time. If something
goes wrong, you need to be there to fix it. With
a rapidly growing
office, that's going to take up a significant
amount of time as well.
(It's probably half a day's work just to
set up each new staff
member.)
True, some aspects are hard to handle remotely. But, again, this gives us
a tech resource to draw on and helps justify FTE in 2014.
Realistically speaking; if you're paying £35K for a developer/manager
(which is what the last job description was looking for) it's not a great
use of his or her time to be fixing laptops :) If this is a major issue
there are contract tech support services we could look into to fill this
specific gap that would be more cost effective.
In fact; mulling on this specific point... I think this is the approach to
take for tech support in the office. Either contract it to a local firm (as
it's not something likely to demand days each week) or hire someone part
time - a student for example.
It doesn't require exemplary technical skills, and is the prime opportunity
to offer a "first job" to someone.
Tom