IT projects are often derailed by device work that never shows up in the project plan.
A warehouse management system (WMS) upgrade, for example, can slip a full quarter without anything going wrong in the project itself. Broken handhelds, new hire setups, lost phones, and replacement shipments rarely appear in project reporting, but they come out of the same hours your team needed for the upgrade.
Device work doesn’t arrive as one big job. It arrives as dozens of small interruptions, each one reasonable on its own, and together they push upgrades, security work, and everything else leadership asked for into next quarter.
This post covers how device work takes over an IT team, how much time it should take, how to measure what it’s taking now, and the options when the answer is too much.
How device work quietly takes over an IT team
Mobile devices create a steady stream of physical, hands-on tasks. Someone has to set them up, swap them out, repair or ship them, chase returns, and answer the call when a scanner won’t connect.
Most of that work is interrupt-driven. A store manager calls, a driver’s device dies, a new hire starts Monday. Each request jumps the queue because a frontline worker can’t do their job without the device.
The problem is that none of it looks like a project, so it rarely gets counted. Leadership sees the roadmap slip and assumes the projects were badly estimated.
In practice, the estimate was fine. The hours went to devices.
How much IT time should go to mobile device support?
There’s no single right number, because fleet size, device type, and how spread out your sites are all change the answer. Still, outside benchmarks help you tell whether your number is reasonable.
A 2022 Oxford Economics study on smartphone fleets found that an organization issuing smartphones to 250 employees needs just over one full-time equivalent to manage the program. The same study put the ratio at about one IT staff member per 220 users for smaller organizations, improving to about one per 600 at 10,000 users.
Just know that the study looked at smartphones. Shared rugged handhelds, scanners, and printers on a warehouse floor or in a truck cab break more often and need more hands-on work, so a frontline fleet usually sits at the heavier end. The guide to the cost of managing mobile devices in-house breaks down where that time and money go.
How to measure the time your team spends on devices
You can’t make the case for change with a feeling. Two weeks of honest tracking is usually enough to show leadership where the hours went.
- Tag every device ticket. Separate setups, repairs, replacements, lost devices, and app or connection issues so you can see which category costs the most.
- Log the untracked work. Hallway requests, phone calls, and shipping runs never become tickets. Ask the team to note them for two weeks.
- Count the physical tasks. Devices set up, devices shipped, repairs sent out, and returns processed, with rough time per task.
- Include the interruptions. Context switching costs more than the task itself, so note how often project work was paused for a device issue.
- Line it up against the roadmap. Match the hours to the projects that slipped in the same period.
The output should be a simple statement leadership can act on, such as how many hours a week device work takes and which projects it displaced.
Signs device work has passed the tipping point
Some device work is normal. It becomes a problem when it starts setting your team’s priorities instead of the other way around.
Watch for the patterns. Projects slip every quarter by roughly the same amount.
Your most senior people are doing setups and shipping because nobody else knows how. Repairs sit in a pile because there’s no time to process them, and new hires wait for devices.
The clearest sign is when the team stops proposing new work because they know they can’t deliver it. That’s when device work has moved from a cost to a ceiling on what IT can do for the business.
What device work costs beyond the hours
The hours are only the visible cost. The bigger cost is what those hours would otherwise have delivered.
Security upgrades, system integrations, and the projects leadership approved this year all wait behind the device queue. When they slip, the business loses whatever benefit they were meant to bring, and IT loses credibility for reasons it can’t easily explain.
There’s a people cost too. Skilled staff spending their days on setups, shipping, and swaps get bored and leave, and the knowledge goes with them. Meanwhile, frontline workers wait for devices while the team catches up, so the operation pays for the backlog twice.
Your options for getting project time back
Once you’ve measured the time, you can choose how to get it back. Each option fits a different situation, and many teams combine two.
| Option | Fits best when | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| Automate setup | Setups and re-enrolments are a large share of the hours | Helps with configuration, not with repairs, shipping, or returns |
| Hire a dedicated mobility role | The fleet is large enough to keep one person busy full time | Slow to fill, and the knowledge sits with one person again |
| Co-managed support | You want to keep policy and decisions in-house and hand off the hands-on work | Needs clear lines on who does what |
| Managed lifecycle service | Device work is spread across many sites and pulls your team away from core projects | Less day-to-day control, so reporting and service levels need agreeing up front |
Hiring is harder than it looks on paper. A Robert Half survey of 1,500 Canadian hiring managers, published in February 2026, found that only 5% of technology managers say they have the skills and headcount to complete high-priority projects. Adding device work to that gap makes it wider.
The comparison of in-house versus outsourced managed mobility walks through the cost and control trade-offs in more detail.
The managed options are the work we do. Through lifecycle management, our in-house Canadian team handles repairs, spare pool management, asset tracking, and help desk support, so your team gets its project time back. We think of it as a force multiplier for IT, not a replacement for it.
Just know that it fits best when you’re running hundreds or thousands of frontline devices across many locations. If your fleet is a few dozen phones at one office, better automation and a clear process may be all you need.
Questions we hear about IT time and devices
How many IT staff do you need to manage mobile devices?
It depends on fleet size and device type. A 2022 Oxford Economics study on smartphone fleets found about one full-time equivalent for 250 users, with the ratio improving at larger scale. Frontline fleets with shared rugged devices, scanners, and printers usually need more hands-on time than office smartphones, so measure your own hours before relying on a benchmark.
How do I show leadership that device work is slowing projects down?
Track device work for two weeks, including untracked requests and shipping, and total the hours by category. Then line those hours up against the projects that slipped in the same period. A short statement of hours per week and the work it displaced is more persuasive than a general complaint about workload.
What device work is easiest to hand off?
The physical, repeatable work is usually the easiest to hand off. That includes setup and staging, repairs and replacements, spare device management, returns, and secure retirement of old devices. Policy decisions and security standards often stay in-house, with an outside team doing the execution.
Where to start
Track two weeks of device work, including the requests that never become tickets. Total the hours and set them beside the roadmap. Once you can show leadership the time in hours and lost projects, the conversation moves from frustration to a decision about how to get that time back.
References
- Oxford Economics study, published on Samsung Insights, How many IT staff do I need to manage mobile devices? (June 2022). IT staffing ratios for smartphone fleets.
- Robert Half Canada, Only five per cent of organizations have the skills and headcount needed for priority projects in 2026 (February 2026). Survey of 1,500 Canadian hiring managers.