How to never break up with your Salesforce Admin

A great Salesforce Admininstrator can be hard to find, and even harder to keep. In this post, we take a walk-through the ways you can bring in the admin skills you need, without the heartache. 

Did you know that the average time a Salesforce Administrator spends in their role right now is 14 months?*

14 months. That’s not long. Actually, it’s just long enough for someone to get fully ramped, know your business processes and your Salesforce setup like the back of their hand and then, walk out the door.

That’s pretty painful.

Admins are the people that make sure Salesforce is working every day, providing a bridge between your business, your customers, and your users, all the while optimizing your platform for maximum ROI. No wonder Admins are in demand, and never more so than right now.

The continued skills, expertise, and love of a good Salesforce Admin will keep your business running on the rails. So how do you get to that?

Let’s say you are in the lucky position of having a great Salesforce Admin on your payroll. To keep them there, you’ll need to keep on paying them the market rate, or perhaps just a little more. What that rate amounts to depends on several factors including your location, your organization, number of users they will be supporting, etc. So while we can’t give you an exact figure, take a look through rates on LinkedIn and Upwork, and you’ll get a good idea. The benefits you offer will play a part too.

Of course, it’s not just down to the overall package. Good Salesforce Administrators are thinking about their career path and you have to be sure that you are giving your Admin(s) new challenges. Allow them the chance to use their adjacent business skills in conjunction with Salesforce, for example, customer service, business analysis, marketing, etc. Keep on giving them the opportunity to do more training and develop in their role. The Salesforce Admin career path is likely to take them to Platform owner, on to running your PDO, and then potentially all the way to CTO. While this is happening and they are moving up, be sure to start building your next generation of Admins to take their place.

If you get this right, then you are on to a good thing. You’ll get to keep all that stability and knowledge in the business, and everyone is happy.

Except that’s a lot of work. And what’s more, it requires some knowledge of Salesforce in the leadership team to direct that person (or people) to the type of career fulfillment that makes them stay.

There is another option: to outsource your Salesforce Admin role. In other words, pay a Salesforce consultancy a monthly fee entitling you to a set number of support hours. Now, you may be dead set against this route for a number of valid reasons.

“It’s too expensive!”

“They won’t care about my business!”

“I’ll be just another support ticket waiting for a resolution!”

We hear you. But that doesn’t have to be the case if you ask the two very important questions:

Firstly ask your partner how long the majority of their Salesforce specialists have been with their business. You are looking for two years plus - a solid sign that their people are good at what they do and successful in their role.

Secondly, ask about how they assign support resources to their customers. Ideally, you want to hear that they assign at least a couple of resources to each customer, so if one of their Admin walks, for whatever reason, you get to retain the services of someone with the knowledge of your system.

This way, you get to have access to Salesforce Admin with none of the heartbreak. No line management, no training, and no one needs to read the Salesforce release notes ever again. Your support partner should take care of all of this for you. And most importantly, no tearful break-up after 14 months.

Summing up

There’s no shortage of Salesforce Admins out there but beware, not all of them are good.**

The Admins you want to stick around are the ones that can apply their Salesforce skills to solving real-world business problems for actual people. That is not the same as clocking up badges on Trailhead. Big difference.

"You can teach someone Salesforce, but you can’t teach someone to be smart."

Someone smart once said. (It was Geraldine).

And if you don’t want to teach someone Salesforce, then it’s time to think about outsourcing.

Superstar support shouldn’t have to cost superstar dollars. That’s why we created ADvantage by Endiem, fractional Salesforce admins, and developers to help with your Salesforce needs as they arise. Need help with data management, process enhancements, onboarding, and training? We’re here to help — with experience, talent, and sometimes even spirit fingers. Get in touch with Marta today and let's start a conversation. 

*Normally we would love to have a published reference here for that data point, but we put our hands up here, we don't have that. However, the source is a trusted contact in Salesforce recruitment and ties in with our own experience of the current market. 

**A topic that Geraldine covered in detail in her recent talk on the Skuid AppHacks series.