Staff Augmentation is an outsourcing strategy applied by organizations to hire temporary employees in their team to fulfill a business objective. It involves evaluating the current talent in-house and then outsourcing the needed services.

It gives you an upper hand to, well, augment (or add to) your existing manpower – which is why the name!

It serves as a wonderful substitute to full-blown outsourcing, thereby, letting you handpick qualified resources that will go the additional mile to get your job done.

The best reason is feasibility. You get to hire temporary talent or ongoing support to help you accomplish your project goals. That means you can scale your workforce depending on your business needs.

Pretty sure, that will keep your budget in place!

Umm… Okay! Think of it this way.

You have this big project in hand with a tight deadline. You are left with no other option but to size up your team. With a service like staff augmentation, a third-party company can help you hire people with a relevant skill set and just the right amount of experience for a limited time.

IT staff augmentation is always a good alternative for businesses that require development solutions on different platforms.

The obvious perks being –

• Immediate availability of talents
• Relevant experience
• Required job function
• Just the right skills

When you mix these up, you have built yourself an army of candidates who is ready to run the show for you (yes! temporarily).

1. It helps you the right people to get your job done.

You get to pick your staff with the utmost precision and efficiency. When you have talents with relevant skillsets on board, direct contributions to the project will start flooding. What more? With the ability to adapt quickly, it will improve clarity on overall expense management as well.

2. It will save you a lot of money.

In continuation with the above expense management, cost reduction is a huge advantage of staff augmentation. It can considerably cut down your budget, which otherwise you would have invested in training inexperienced personnel. There will be no redundant staffing overlap.

3. It offers flexibility.

Another advantage of staff augmentation is you can turn down the company’s exposure to the economic crisis. When you have temporary employees working for you, any unforeseen risks can be adapted to and taken care of. It will reduce financial stress while helping your company gain a good deal annually.

4. It offers a great deal of agility.

With instant diversity added to your team, you can adapt according to the expectations of the ever-evolving industry requirements. Whether it is about short-term or long-term placement, you can customize based on the need of the hour.

5. It gives a fresh perspective.

When you have an in-house team working for you for a longer period, they usually get caught up in monotony. Staff augmentation can bring a fresh perspective to the team where your in-house staff will also start thinking outside the box. You get a creative take and learn new things in the process.

All said and understood. What’s next?

To begin with, you need to choose a good staff aug company. So, let’s look at the key factors that you need to consider while hunting for one.

How do you know you have partnered with the right recruitment solutions provider? Here, there are signs that you can look out for.

1. Is the partnership process simple enough to understand? Make sure they have a transparent process and do not use dense jargon to promote their company.
2. Will the company be able to fill your project requirements? Find out if the company has enough talent to augment your needs while keeping pace with the changing technical scenario.
3. Are they able to meet deadlines? Because your project is critical to you, it should be equally important to them too. Only then, they will be able to deliver services within expected timelines.
4. Is their business model flexible enough? You must be able to revise your work plan effectively with the augmentation team. They must be equally involved as you are.
5. Are their solutions cost-effective? Money is a significant factor and at the end of the day, you need a feasible service. Come on! That’s the whole motto after all. You need a partner that will keep your project on schedule with the best trained team of IT experts.
6. Do you get a dedicated resource, or your newfound team is working on multiple projects? To ensure that quality work is delivered, you need a team that is hired to work on your project solely.

Finally, let’s get real.

The following are a few ways how you can preselect your IT staff augmentation partner.

1. If you are looking for a service as such, it means you need to have your hands on a large pool of developers with the expected technology stack. You need to find out if the company in question can recruit the right developers for you. So, go ahead and ask questions like:

• What is their recruitment strategy?
• How many recruiters do they have?
• How many recruiters will they appoint for you?
• How many developers they have access to?
• How many cities do they operate in?
• How good is their brand value?
• For how long they have been in business?
• What does their labor market look like?
• Find out how suitable are their working conditions.
• Ask them for an online video of their locations.

2. Next, make sure you are working with a reliable partner. How do you do that? Here’s how –

• Ask for references and actively make calls to them.
• Dig up social profiles of the potential partners.
• Go to their social media page and look up the profiles of their team.
• Find real pictures and videos of the company.
• Bind together with a well-informed agreement.
• Do not forget to add a clause in the agreement that will protect your IP rights.
• If possible, schedule a site visit.

3. Your focus should be on availing the best services, which is why the company size should not matter much. Look at it this way – If you want to hire just one or two developers, it won’t be a smart move to partner with a big company. For companies that deliver a team of 100 developers, you might be set as a low priority. You need someone who reacts to your email fast.
4. Staff augmentation is also a crucial investment. Therefore, pay attention to the payment conditions. Try to pay your bills in your currency to avoid any currency exchange risk.

So, you know by now, staff augmentation is not foolproof. Here are a few disadvantages.

• If you have on-boarded with someone that has only compartmentalized understanding of different departments, things can get very tedious.
• You still need to train your outside resources to boost the development process. You need to make them understand the tools you use too.
• The blending of new and existing staff may take a little longer than expected, at times.
• You may require extra resources to take care of management.

The Bottom Line

The IT industry is experiencing a dramatic expansion now and is in no mood to slow down soon. No matter how tight the corporate margins are or how uncertain the economic environment is, it is bound to keep flourishing.

Majority businesses are seen inclining towards staff augmentation companies to fulfill their recruitment needs.

Remember: The right staff augmentation strategy can make all the difference. Plan wisely!