Why Businesses Choose Staff Augmentation

Staff augmentation is a form of outsourcing companies use when large-scale or vital projects need additional talent.

This model allows companies to enhance their current staff with experts who have the specialized skill sets ideal for specific projects. In thriving industries, like IT, where projects are constant and high-volume, working with staff augmentation firms helps secure the right talent for each project and get work done.

When you are working on a huge software development project, you may worry about hiring a development team. But with the staff augmentation model, you can get one on a per-project basis, and it will be easy for you to focus on your business goals.

While many companies possess the expertise to handle all their demands, some may not have specific knowledge about or expertise in a particular area. In such situations, companies need to augment their current staff with new professionals.

Typically, IT hiring managers look to staff augmentation services for the following five reasons:

• Access to specific skills currently unavailable within the company. Staff augmentation allows the IT hiring manager to add skilled resources to supplement their existing staff.

• Flexibility and quick response. IT hiring managers can use staff augmentation to adapt quickly and create dedicated teams around specific skills, products, or technologies for critical projects or deadlines.

• Reducing business overhead costs associated with maintaining staff for finite or seasonal projects. Staff augmentation minimizes the cost of administrative functions related to payroll, benefits, and unemployment concerns.

• Saving time. Staff augmentation helps organizations hire more quickly, often within days instead of weeks or months.

Staff augmentation services help leverage existing resources while utilizing outsourced services and contract workers.

These are the five main reasons businesses choose staff augmentation:

1. It allows you to save on costs.

Employing a full-time workforce for the purpose of working on a particular project costs more time, money, and energy than necessary. Instead, organizations can increase current teams with dedicated experts who work on a short-term basis. This circumvents expenses associated with salaries and benefits as well as the other costs of a full-time hire, who may or may not actually have the particular skills needed for a specific project. Staff augmentation gives businesses the option to hire for the short term, instantly meeting the precise needs of the company.

2. You can hire for specific skills.

Short-term projects are perfect for temporary staff who only need to work a certain amount of hours. Staff augmentation services give businesses the chance to hire based on specific skill gaps. This affords organizations skilled talent at a portion of the cost of hiring a salaried expert for full-time work. Companies can recognize the skills or fields in which their permanent staff needs help and modify their staff augmentation to meet those requirements. Staff augmentation keeps businesses in control and costs down.

3. It lets you scale your business quickly.

Staff augmentation lets you scale your staff in an affordable way. By reducing costs while still recruiting top talent for particular projects, businesses can scale their business more quickly than if they were to hire new, full-time employees. In most industries, an organization’s workload is ever-changing. Temporary employment is the ideal solution to handling continuing and forthcoming demands on a project-by-project basis. That means taking on more business without impacting the quality of your project.

4. It lets companies retain control.

Although staff augmentation is a form of outsourcing, it allows organizations to retain control over the skills and experience they need from temporary staff. The major benefit to this is that businesses have the ability to monitor the development of their temporary hires, because they’ll likely be working alongside their full-time staff. This also removes other disadvantages to totally outsourcing projects to external teams. Staff augmentation allows companies to uphold the confidentiality of their projects, for instance, and make recommendations to the project in real-time.

5. It gives you an unbiased outlook.

Temporary staff can contribute an "outsider" point of view, which may be beneficial to a company with continuing projects. A fresh pair of eyes can identify and recommend improvements to projects or practices that permanent staff may be too absorbed in their work to appreciate. This external, more objective voice may increase productivity and bring more ideas to the workplace. What’s more, every workplace is unique, and dynamics often vary from office to office. Temporary employees working on a project-by-project basis are far less likely to get involved in office politics than someone on-boarding full-time. A suitable, affordable way to hire gifted professionals for the short-term, staff augmentation is the new name of the game.

Things to Consider When Hiring Staff Augmentation Services

When you are considering staff augmentation, the most important thing is to determine the goal that you want to achieve. For example, if you are looking for a machine learning expert, then prioritizing cost will be unrealistic because machine learning is an advanced and specialized skill. Likewise, if you need 100 employees to do a simple task like data processing, then you probably do not need to hire based on a high skill level.

With a wide variety of staff augmentation models, it’s critical to weigh the pros and cons of each arrangement before selecting. Here are a few points that can help you make smart decisions:

Determine your staffing needs.

Why do you need to extend your development team? This is an important question to answer before you hire a staff augmentation team. Maybe you need highly talented software engineers to fill skill gaps. Maybe you are coping with inadequate office space. Or maybe your project managers need extra engineering resources to complete the project before its delivery date.

Whether you’re looking for product designers or front end developers to work for the duration of the project, or you want a web analytics developer or an accessibility specialist to work only during specific phases, you’ll need to evaluate your staffing needs. To do this, you can consult your HR team, managers, and employees to know where you need to boost specific skill sets.

Research staff augmentation companies.

After creating your blueprint of outsourcing requirements, you can begin your search for a staffing partner that has the tools, experience, and expertise to help your business stay ahead of the tight competition.

Research your staff augmentation company’s work history and past performance. You can consult with their previous clients to know whether they were satisfied with the company’s services. Make sure that your staff augmentation vendor has adequate experience in the field you require.

Be mindful of your project schedule.

It is extremely important that the staff augmentation company can keep pace with the project development schedule. Collaborate with a staff augmentation partner that can efficiently meet your operational schedule. They need to provide you with a detailed resource management plan, skilled augmented, remote onshore or offshore development teams, adequate office space, dependable IT services, a pool of exceptional engineers or creative designers.

Evaluate their communication protocols.

The communication method of a staff augmentation company is one of the most critical factors that will determine the success of the project. Be sure that your chosen staff augmentation company has simple and clearly defined communication protocols that provide you with constant project development updates, irrespective of location.

Furthermore, a transparent communication protocol fosters an uninterrupted workflow that is easily monitored and adjusted according to feedback from team members.

Conclusion - Why Businesses Choose Staff Augmentation

The right IT talent can help your company reach its goals swiftly while keeping your central systems operating at top capacity. Staff augmentation allows any company to stay ahead of the competition and provides many advantages, including fewer legal responsibilities, fewer operational expenses, less paperwork, and enhanced flexibility.

Staff augmentation can help you solve complicated IT talent hiring problems. It all starts with finding the right partner.