In the rapidly advancing, trillion-dollar worth global IT industry, there’s always a need for professionals with a wide and contemporary skillset. The cloud, blockchain, data analytics, coding, AI, and machine learning are some of the growing trends in the IT industry, specialists of which were not even considered needful some years ago. According to experts, many organizations now feel hesitant to adopt new technologies on the back of a lack of talented resources.
Such scarcity of expert and skilled IT professionals for particular needs has given birth to the concept of IT staff augmentation services. Agile, efficient, and affordable IT staff augmentation has taken the IT industry by storm as more and more companies turn toward this recruitment approach to fulfill the needs of their unique and advanced projects.
To help you understand how IT staff augmentation can help you bridge the skill gap in your organization, this blog entails everything you need to know. From what and when to the how of a successful IT staff augmentation, we have covered everything for you to get started.
What is IT Staff Augmentation?
IT staff augmentation is the practice that allows businesses to hire skilled resources temporarily for a short-term project through a third-party staff augmentation company. Also known as business augmentation or resource augmentation, the practice is a relatively new approach.
IT staff augmentation is one of the many HR recruitment strategies that allow businesses to get hold of talented and in-demand individuals. Somewhat unique to the traditional hiring practices, staff augmentation comes with its own set of exclusive benefits. It offers businesses the opportunity to access a vast pool of resources at affordable rates and in a less time-consuming manner.
But why is staff augmentation needed when companies can outsource or hire dedicated teams through third-party vendors. And how is staff augmentation different from the other two practices? Let’s help you understand.
Difference between Staff Augmentation, Outsourcing, and Dedicated Teams
IT outsourcing industry has generated billions of dollars of revenue in recent years due to its various benefits. However, despite many industry giants turning to project outsourcing, there’s still a preference for staff augmentation instead of the other two methods.
Staff Augmentation
Staff augmentation is when you have a position (or positions) that needs to be urgently filled, and you hire a company to do that for you. However, unlike hiring a recruiter to hire a full-time IT employee, staff augmentation allows you to hire an individual or a team for a specific project only for a pre-defined time period. Additionally, these individuals have a very particular skillset that you need for a certain project; hence they can be referred to as top talent.
Outsourcing
Outsourcing software development is when your IT firm outsources an entire project to a vendor known as a software outsourcing company. In this case, you share your project details, goals, and deliverables for a cost, and then the outsourcing service does the job for you from start to end.
Hiring Dedicated Teams
Hiring dedicated teams is a hybrid approach where your hire a third-party outsourcing company but have them assign a dedicated team to your project. This way, you can closely monitor your project – being controlled by the outsourcing service – and have a fully dedicated team.
Why Choose Staff Augmentation?
Some businesses wonder why they should opt for staff augmentation instead of the other two methods. Here are three top reasons to do so.
Full Control
Outsourcing companies are great at what they do; hence it’s almost impossible (and wrong) to micromanage them. Therefore, in the case of outsourcing, you don’t have control over your project the way you will have with staff augmentation.
Reporting Authority
Both outsourced developers and dedicated teams will be reporting to the outsourcing vendor. However, the resources hired through staff augmentation will be directly reporting to you as an internal employee.
Internal Acceptance
Some businesses face resistance from their internal teams when it comes to collaborating with outsourcing companies and external teams. However, individuals hired through staff augmentation become a part of the internal team for a specified team hence have better acceptance and collaborations.
When to Opt for Staff Augmentation?
Your business can opt for staff augmentation in a number of scenarios. Some of the reasons why businesses depend on staff augmentation companies are as follows:
When There’s a New, Urgent Project
Software development projects are often agile and require fast turnarounds. In this fast-paced industry, the time spent in hiring resources, training staff, and integrating can cause substantial monetary loss. So whenever companies have a new project that needs an agile approach, staff augmentation has proved its mettle against other strategies.
When You Have a Skill Gap
The skill gap is the leading cause for organizations to adopt 64 percent of new technologies, says Gartner. For businesses that want to experiment and innovate, the lack of skilled individuals on their teams makes it difficult for them to take the step forward. In this scenario, relying on staff augmentation service can help you with acing the new technologies and developing unique software solutions as per the demands of the new era.
When You Have High Turnover
IT industry has one of the highest turnover rates of 13.2 percent in the world compared to any other sector. This is because there’s a lack of skilled individuals and high demand for special skills. In case your organization has been facing a high employee turnover and has had enough of losing resources, consider staff augmentation.
When You Want Expertise, Top Talent
Hiring experts and top talent in the industry on a permanent basis may not be possible for a tech startup with a limited budget. However, that does not mean that you should not be able to avail the services of the industry’s top talent through outsourcing services or IT staff augmentation.
Benefits of IT Staff Augmentation
In case your business still hasn’t considered looking into the IT staff augmentation approach, here are some of the benefits of doing so:
Scalability and Flexibility
Upsizing and downsizing IT teams has never been easier! With the help of staff augmentation, you get to choose how many people to hire for a project, when to let go of some and when to scale according to your business needs. In contrast to full-time employees that require job security, staff augmentation services provide you with full scalability and flexibility without having to worry about the costs of idle employees.
Cost Saving
Consider the costs of hiring new resources, training them, providing them with benefits such as paid leaves, and investing in their upskilling. All this makes full-time in-house employees difficult to manage for IT companies in this era of an uncertain economy. To bring a smooth, cost-effective, and permanent solution that ensures neither you lose business over lack of resources nor incurs financial losses due to lack of business, staff augmentation provides a middle ground.
Access to Top Industry Talent
IT staff augmentation services have the best of the industry’s talent on their panel from all over the world. This allows businesses, who hire their services, to benefit from the top-tier talent with expert skills in different domains. Especially if your country of origin lacks talented individuals for a particular software development skill, you can always rely on the vast pool of resources provided by staff augmentation companies.
Quick Completions, Better Returns
At times, training your existing staff for a particular project or hiring new resources is a tedious and futile effort with too much of a hassle. Staff augmentation allows you to yield results without spending time or money in training your staff quickly.
This is because staff augmentation services have a data pool of resources ready at all times that helps businesses pick their desired talent quickly and get the work started. Similarly, IT professionals with particular skillsets for a project can do the work more quickly than newbies who aren’t accustomed to a certain field of development.
Integrate, Collaborate, Generate
In the case of outsourcing development, it’s a little difficult to navigate through the integration and collaboration process. By augmenting an individual or a team, it’s easier to integrate with a business’s current ideologies and collaborate with the existing team.
This is because in staff augmentation, instead of two companies coming together to align their interests, it’s easier for a person or some individuals to get in line with a company’s processes. In turn, this can help you generate outcomes and revenues in no time.
Quality Control
One of the major issues with outsourcing, especially in the case of offshore outsourcing, is that businesses are unable to keep a check on quality control. While nearshore outsourcing solves this issue to some extent, the companies with core IT practices find it better to use staff augmentation services instead of outsourcing. This is because it allows you to keep track of individual performances, test the product and troubleshoot quickly.
Tips for Successful Staff Augmentation
Now that you know the benefits of staff augmentation, here are some tips to help you through the process. These tips will also ensure that you get the most out of your IT staff augmentation experience.
Pre-Assessment
The first step for IT staff augmentation is to identify the gaps in your existing workforce to get resources that better complement it. This you can do in three stages.
Identify the needs and goals
Based on whether you are hiring for a project, to fill a hard-to-fill role or curb the problem of employee turnover, identify your needs. Find out why you need to opt for staff augmentation and what you are expecting from the augmented staff. This will help you narrow down your search.
Identify your current workforce skills
To get the best outcome and results on investment, monitor your current workforce closely. Find out their strengths, weaknesses, and areas that need improvement. Hire an individual that best caters to the needs of your current workforce and adds some valuable input to the team.
Conduct Industry Research
As is the case with any software solutions company, decisions cannot be hasty or taken without due diligence. Therefore, look around and research for an IT staff augmentation service before you proceed with the hiring. You can depend on recommendations, industry ratings, and the choice of industry leaders when it comes to hiring a staff augmentation agency.
Hire a Staff Augmentation Service
The second step of IT staff augmentation is to find an expert and reliable staff augmentation company with a wide pool of professionals. Furthermore, nearshore development companies are familiar with your country’s laws and cultures; hence they will ensure to provide you with individuals that are equipped with the necessary skillset and have background checks run too.
Facilitate the Onboarding
Once you have finalized the process and hired a staff augmentation company, initiate the onboarding process. You can offer orientation, training, or a team meetup (virtual/ physical) to help your augmented staff get started. Communication is the key to success at every stage. The best bet is to set precedence for communication right from the beginning.
Enrich Your Business with Staff Augmentation
While staff augmentation is a short-term and temporary recruitment arrangement, it can provide long-term benefits too. Hire a reliable staff augmentation service to help you find expert software development teams and individuals so that you know the industry’s best up-close. Make sure to keep a track and data pool of the individuals you work with to handpick them for your next project. In a world full of IT talent scarcity, make sure to keep your hands on the top-tier, talented individuals that you get to find through staff augmentation services.
Need Staff Augmentation? We Can Help
At Vates, we have a range of software solutions and software development services. We are Argentina’s leading software outsourcing company preferred by some of the world’s topmost companies. Hire us for IT staff augmentation, development, and testing servi