How to Apply a Staff Augmentation Model in your Company

The scarcity of tech talent is driving many startups and established companies to look out for offshore vendors and remote developers. Startups are looking for experts in particular technologies that can manage specific tasks and hence enhance the overall capabilities of their in-house team.

At the same time, companies also want to keep total control over their project resources, management process and milestone deliveries. Many IT companies are using IT staff augmentation models to achieve their goals for less time and money.

Staff augmentation is incredibly common—the global staffing industry, one of the primary suppliers of staff augmentation talent, is estimated to support $490 billion in annual spend. Another source of staff augmentation talent is freelancing, which has been around for centuries but recently gained notoriety through the rise of global freelance platforms. It is estimated that in the US 34% percent of workers engage in freelancing today, and that number is expected to grow steadily over the next decade.

IT staff augmentation can be a solution to many of the problems your company may be facing: a shortage of tech professionals in your region, excessive rates, incompetence in ascending the business, challenges in innovation implementation, etc.

Benefits of the staff augmentation model

When you have a big project residing ahead, one of the most challenging parts you need is to worry about managing and hiring a team to work for the projects. Choosing the right staff augmentation services allows you to scale a team either for the long term or the short term helping on-time project delivery and makes it easy to focus on your streamlined business processes.

Control over staff

When there is a need to manage and handle required resources, an augmented staffing model is ideal.

Seamless Team Integration

Any organization treats added human resources as an existing team member. Organizations often find it smooth and valuable to integrate contract resources for streamlined business processes.

Lower employee workload

Staff augmentation reduces the burden on your existing team, which may reduce the level of stress and work pressure. It will allow the team to concentrate the majority of time on core business focus.

Meet aggressive project deadlines

The staff augmentation model is the right option when an active project requires additional resources to finish on time. For instance, a specific project requires several developers and a designer.

Scalability

The scalability of your organization has become even more comfortable with the staff augmentation model. You can risk taking up projects of all nature and never say no to your customer requirements. With Staff augmentation, you expand your corporate team according to the on-demand services.

Employee acceptance

An augmented model can make it less threatening for internal employees and permanent staff than an outsourcing model. It means existing workforces have a slight risk of augmenting a few individuals than outsourcing projects.

Cost-effective solutions

It is a pay-as-you-need model where it helps IT firms to cut expenses at various levels. As we already mentioned, you can pay workers only for the period they work. You don’t have to spend on recruiting and training, employee benefits, taxes, and more as workers are selected based on their expertise in a specific domain. It helps to cut unnecessary staff costs.

Access to highly skilled talent

Tech companies mostly face a shortage of developers regarding the technical side of projects. The US is one such country where there is more demand than available talent. Thus, if you opt for staff augmentation, then there’s no doubt that you will have access to a large pool of tech talent from all over the world.

Geographic Flexibility

Facing no geographical location restrictions, you’ll get the opportunity to scale at a higher level. The principal advantage of staff augmentation is that you’ll have the best tech talents from any part of the world.

Higher efficiency

A notable advantage of staff augmentation is higher efficiency. Tech talent hired through staff augmentation is more concentrated in their work than specialization and experience. Thus that enables higher efficiency in their work.

How to Apply a Staff Augmentation Model in your Company

The staff augmentation model can be highly effective if implemented correctly. Here is a list of the ways that you can augment your team with external resources on a short-term basis for long-term success.

Identify talent gaps within your organization

An in-depth analysis of the business processes within the organization can be instrumental in providing you insights regarding the talent gaps that exist within the company.

Once you have identified the gaps, you need to determine whether the resource is necessary on a long term basis or is the requirement just limited to the particular project. In the case of the latter, staff augmentation is the way to go for bridging the gap.

Identify skill sets requirements

Once you have determined the specific skill gap and project role you are looking to hire for, the process of finding a partner to make the right talent available to you begins. The company that you partner with is tasked with sourcing the right talent, thoroughly vetting them to ensure that you build a quality product at a faster rate.

The staff hired on a short-term basis also has the added advantage of being more experienced in handling similar projects such as yours and bring their own skill sets to the table which is an added advantage.

Projects with limited time requirements

Staff augmentation works best for one-time projects which do not have an ongoing plan of continuation. Typically it is software development projects that are the most viable option to avail the benefits of staff augmentation. If you are looking to develop a website or a mobile app to meet your business needs, instead of looking for direct hires, staff augmentation is a better alternative.

Choosing the Right Staff Augmentation Model

Most organizations use a mix of providers, depending on their needs. When you are considering staff augmentation, the most important thing is to determine what you are trying to accomplish and what is most important. With a broad range of staff augmentation models available to organizations, it’s critical to weigh the pros and cons of each arrangement before selecting.

When Is Staff Augmentation the Right Model?

Project Length

Staff augmentation is best utilized in shorter-term projects, as opposed to long-term projects, which require months or years to complete. It could still make sense for an enterprise to engage a contingent worker on longer projects, in which case an outsourcing arrangement would be a better option than a staff augmentation model.

Staff Augmentation vs Managed Services

A managed service approach concerns a definitive deliverable, possibly with a definitive quality rating; staff augmentation concerns a job description and is paid for on a time and material basis. An augmented staff member might be brought into an organization to write lines of code for a specific application unusual for that company and would be paid per hour. A managed service contractor would be hired to create that specific application and meet a set of KPIs; they would be paid upon completion of the project.

Conclusion - How to Apply a Staff Augmentation Model in your Company

IT staff augmentation provides companies with several benefits such as a fast recruitment cycle, lower development costs, less legal hassles, higher flexibility, sustained authority, and many more that we have discussed in the article.

Now that you are convinced about opting for staff augmentation. The next question you may be having is hiring a vendor/consultancy for the job. Consider working with a vendor that provides both staff augmentation & project outsourcing services. This would permit you to gain the most from both the services, without getting into the responsibility of managing multiple vendors at a time. If you are looking to augment your staff with software developers for a project, your quest has brought you to the right place. Contact us Today!