How To Request Additional Staff From Your Boss (With Sample Letters)

When your department has more work than it can handle, adding staff members may seem like the logical solution to you. Unfortunately, your manager might not agree with your assessment. Providing evidence that your department will be unable to meet its goals without additional employees is the key to ensuring the approval of your request. Before you begin writing a letter requesting additional staff, make sure you have all the facts and figures in front of you to support your request.
How to write a letter requesting additional staff
  1. Demonstrate need. Discuss why you need additional staff at the beginning of your letter. …
  2. Highlight the benefits. Highlighting the benefits of additional staff can help convince your supervisor. …
  3. Explain the cost. …
  4. Present the alternative.

How To Write Letter To Management – Letter For Additional Staff

Sample letters to request additional staff from your boss

Here are examples you can use to help you request additional staff from your boss:

Formal letter example

Jamie Wiseman
Customer Service Manager
(555) 555-555
[email protected]

John Banks
Chief of Staff
(555) 555-555
[email protected]

Dear Mr. Banks,

I am writing to you today because I have identified a need for 10 additional full-time, permanent staff members on the customer service team. We need customer service representatives to help the team better address customer concerns in a timely manner.

Over the past six months, our brands consumer audience has grown by 40%. This increase in customer base has led to higher call volumes for my customer service team, and I want to make sure my team feels able to qualitatively handle all customer service communication.

Adding additional staff to my customer service team will:

I understand that we also need to consider how to pay the salaries and benefits of these 10 additional full-time permanent staff. Prior to communicating with you, I examined my teams yearly budget and found that there are some funds we can reallocate to help pay for some of these costs.

However, these additions may also require money to be reallocated from other areas of the business. I know that these potential changes will need to be discussed with other business leaders, but I wanted to reach out to you about this first since you are our chief of staff.

Taking this addition of staff into consideration is important because, without them, our customer service department may experience challenges, like work fatigue. In saying this, I am concerned that this may affect the quality of our service and the satisfaction of our customers.

To offset these issues, I want to make sure my team has the resources they need to keep that satisfaction at a high level. I appreciate your consideration of my request for 10 additional full-time permanent staff members for my customer service team. Thank you, and I look forward to continuing this conversation with you soon.

Sincerely,
Jamie Wiseman

Informal letter example

Hello Ms. Didden,

Im emailing you today to make a request for 25 additional temporary part-time employees for our distribution center. I anticipate well need them by October to help our company prepare for growing shipment demands in November and December. This need is something I recognized when examining our demand from that time period last year, which was 80%. With large increases in shipment demands, I believe it could be beneficial for our department to prepare for this demand ahead of time.

Adding these seasonal staff members to our distribution center team might help us ensure our customers receive their product in a timely manner. This might help us boost our customer loyalty and prevent our current distribution employees from having to work extensive overtime hours. I have examined our distribution budgets and theres enough money for us to allocate to these additional 25 temporary part-time employees.

As a distribution manager, I feel this is an important option to examine to help our current employees maintain a healthy work-life balance during higher demand months. I appreciate you taking my request into consideration and would be happy to continue this conversation in more detail. If youd like to set a time to meet, just send me your availability. Thanks.

Sincerely,
Tom Barnes

How to write a letter requesting additional staff

If you need to request additional staff from your employer, here are some steps you can use to help you write your letter:

1. Demonstrate need

Discuss why you need additional staff at the beginning of your letter. Include all the specifics: how many staff members you need, which projects or departments theyre needed for, how long they will be needed—including if they will be full-time or part-time personnel and temporary or permanent employees—and their titles and responsibilities.

To be effective, provide your supervisor with quantifiable reasons to support the need for additional employees.

For example, a companys distribution manager might need additional shipping staff seasonally because shipping demands increase. In the request letter, the manager might report how much shipping demands have increased historically by percentage to quantify the need. Providing this information can show your supervisor how you identified this need and help them better understand your request.

2. Highlight the benefits

Highlighting the benefits of additional staff can help convince your supervisor. These benefits can be customer relations, employee or finance-based. For example, more staff might provide customers with better overall support and increase brand loyalty.

3. Explain the cost

Your supervisor will likely want to know how more employees will fit into the company budget. Be proactive and examine your teams current budget before requesting more staff. Brainstorm and consider how you might reallocate money to cover more employees and be ready to offer a solution, when your supervisor asks about budgeting. If you have budget-related questions, you can reach out to finance personnel within your company for support.

4. Present the alternative

Sharing potential challenges that may arise without additional staff is beneficial to helping your supervisor see the whole proposal effectively.

For example, the current amount of personnel on your team is having challenges meeting current shipping demands. In this scenario, you might outline how customers may experience shipping delays, if the company doesnt add more staff. Providing your supervisor with this information can be useful because it may provide them with a sense of urgency regarding your request.

Tips for requesting additional staff

Here are some tips you can use to help you request additional staff from your supervisor:

Stress Potential Benefits

Describe how each of the requested employees will enable your department to complete work on schedule. Explain in detail what type of work each new employee will perform and how completion of the work will help the department meet goals and deadlines.

Example:

With 30 additional seasonal employees we would be able to expand hours of operation and work 24/7 during the holiday rush. We would assign the seasonal people to picking and packing.

I would like to hire one full-time associate to help cover evenings and weekends when the branch office does the most business.

Explain Cost Benefit Ratio

State your current departmental budget. List the proposed salaries for the new positions and provide a new yearly total for salaries that includes the proposed new positions. Provide details of your plans for covering the expenses of new employees, such as relying on increased profits to cover staffing costs.

Example:

The new advertising campaign has already brought in an additional $250,000 since September, which is more than enough to cover the cost of 30 half-time seasonal employees working at minimum wage for a three month period.

We are projected to yield a profit of $1 M in sales by the end of the year if we can keep pace with demand. Adding one full-time sales associate at an annual cost of $32,000 seems like a smart investment. We’re paying close to that right now in overtime.

Identify What’s at Stake

Describe the impact on the department if the request is not approved. If your department will not be able to meet a crucial deadline, mention this fact. If lack of manpower will cause a significant slowdown in your department, describe how this slowdown will affect other departments in the company. Provide facts and figures if possible. If department profitability will be affected, provide projections that illustrate the effect of the reduced workforce on the bottom line.

Example:

Temporary seasonal employees are needed as soon as possible. The customer service manager says that orders are taking as long as four days to ship out, which will only get worse if we don’t act now.

The new branch office has consistently exceeded sales goals, thanks to our highly ambitious sales associates. However, we can’t expect them to keep working 12-hour shifts. They might quit and take jobs with our competitors if we don’t hire another person soon.

Express Appreciation

Inform your manager that you appreciate his consideration of your request and would like to meet soon to discuss the matter in more detail.

Example:

Thank you in advance for your thoughtful consideration of this request. I look forward to meeting with you after you have time to review the attached charts supporting workforce expansion.

FAQ

How do you write a letter requesting additional staff sample?

Formal letter example

Dear Mr. Banks, I am writing to you today because I have identified a need for 10 additional full-time, permanent staff members on the customer service team. We need customer service representatives to help the team better address customer concerns in a timely manner.

How do you justify request for additional staff?

Follow the steps in this guide to help you build a solid case to justify an increase in headcount for your team.
  1. Step 1: Identify your needs. …
  2. Step 2: Be specific about what you’ll be asking for in a new hire. …
  3. Step 3: Collect the right data. …
  4. Step 4: Show your current state and the consequences of not hiring.

How do I request additional resources?

Decide on the main statement you want to make to justify your request for additional resources and use that to start your letter. This could be a broad assertion, such as saying that the resources you’re requesting will help increase sales or cut costs. You then provide support for your claim in the body of the letter.

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