Imagine your team being out sick, on vacation, or overloaded with work. Suddenly, you’re facing a staffing shortage. What can you do? One option is to consider staff augmentation. Staff augmentation is the process of hiring contract or temporary workers to fill in the gaps in your workforce. It can be a great choice for businesses that need help for a short time or that have a lot of staff turnover.
Staff augmentation has many benefits, including cost savings, increased flexibility, and access to top talent. But before you decide if this is the right solution for you, it’s essential to understand what it is and how it works.
This article will explore what staff augmentation is and what benefits it can offer your business. We’ll also talk about the different kinds of temporary workers you might find and how to pick the right one for your needs.
What Is Staff Augmentation?
What if you’re the manager of a company? You’ve just been given a new project but don’t have the resources to take it on yourself. What do you do?
You could hire a new employee, which would involve interviewing candidates, checking references, and onboarding someone new. It’s a lot of work, and it can be risky. Also, around 54%% of companies face talent shortages globally.
An easier option is to outsource the project to a staffing company. Staffing companies provide temporary or contract-based employees to businesses in need of extra help. This is known as staff augmentation. According to Statista, the global outsourcing market has grown from $92.5 billion to $ 132.9 billion as the Covid-19 pandemic forced people to work from home.
Staffing companies have a pool of pre-screened employees, so you can be sure that you’re getting someone who is qualified for the job. And since the employees are temporary, you don’t have to worry about them leaving after a few months.
Parsley Energy, an independent oil and gas company operating in the Permian Basin, is an organization that relies on staff augmentation. Here is how it played out for them:
- Saved $1.5 million in consulting fees
- Saved $300k in travel costs
- Saved $50k in enterprise project management software
Pros and Cons of Staff Augmentation?
Staff augmentation is a great solution when you’re looking to increase your workforce without the hassle of hiring and training new employees. With staff augmentation, you get to onboard employees who are already trained and familiar with your company’s policies and procedures.
However, there are a lot of pros and cons to staff augmentation that you should be aware of before you invest in this modality.
– Pros
Here are a few perks of investing in staff augmentation to complete a project or serve other business needs.
- Guaranteed Talent: An outsourced IT agency is known to provide you with the resources to satisfy your business requirements. If an agency can’t ensure that their staff is qualified or experienced enough to complete your given tasks, then maybe you should move on to the next best option.
- Reduced Overhead: You don’t have to pay your new employees for benefits, payroll taxes, or office space.
- Increased Productivity: With an entire team in place, you can hit the ground running and start generating results right away.
- Flexibility: When your business needs to scale up or down, you can easily adjust your workforce by adding or subtracting employees through your staffing partner.
– Cons
Now that you know the benefit of staff augmentation let us enlighten you with some drawbacks to relying on this strategy:
- Long-Term Dependencies: Continuous reliance on outside sources is unsustainable. If you always use resources from outside your company to reach a goal, you may be able to do better in some ways than your own company.
- Unable to Meet Deadlines: It can be challenging to meet deadlines. It might take some time to introduce new workers to your project. Your project may be delayed by the length of the onboarding and training processes.
- Risk of Drop in Quality: Even while outsourced teams often consist of highly skilled experts, there are still certain risks associated with adding more IT workers, such as the challenge of integrating the increased workforce into the project. Hiring a dedicated employee might occasionally be more advantageous in this aspect.
Different Types of Staff Augmentation
our staff augmentation model can vary according to your requirements. To be precise, there are three different types of staff augmentation:
- Commodity
This type of staff augmentation focuses on the urgency of a particular task or requirement and not precisely on specific skills. This type of staff augmentation usually involves factory work, manual labor, retail, and others. If you are ever short of staff to perform a variety of tasks, then you should look for agencies that offer such people to work for you.
- Skill-Based
If you require a bit more skill, then this type of staff augmentation is for you. However, this is considered hiring people with mediocre skill sets. For example, if you need someone for clerical work or data entry tasks, you can consider going for this type.
- Highly Skill-Based
The third type involves highly skilled staff. This could be the staff you need to improve your business operations. IT and software development agencies are usually on the hunt for highly skilled staff augmentation. But you should only work with agencies that make sure their employees are trained well and have enough experience to get results.
When Should You Consider Staff Augmentation?
In order to make the most out of this service, you need to ensure that this model best suits your project. Here are a few scenarios when you can consider this a reliable option:
- You Have A Short Deadline
Recruiting is usually a long process. You can turn to staff augmentation agencies on short notice and receive help from experts while you continue with the hiring process for future projects that are similar.
- Specialized Skills
A time may come when you need specific skills for a period of time. For example, logo designing, tech setup, app development, web development, and more. In these situations, an agency can give you a temporary tool to help you reach your goals.
- Add More Firepower
Are you looking for a competitive addition while launching a new product? Well, you’ll have to increase your team rapidly. Hire an agency to fulfill the temporary spike or increased workload.
What Are the Challenges of Staff Augmentation?
There are some challenges to consider before you decide to go down this road. For one thing, you need to ensure you have the infrastructure to support temporary workers. This includes HR processes, systems and tools, and communication channels.
Another challenge is finding the right people to fill the roles. It’s essential to understand the skills and experience required for the job and then find someone who meets those expectations.
And finally, you need to ensure you’re budgeting for staff augmentation correctly so you’re not overspending or underutilizing resources.
How Do You Find the Right Staff Augmentation Partner?
How do you find the right staff augmentation partner? It’s not as easy as just picking a name out of a hat.
First, you need to figure out what your specific needs are. What kinds of skills do you need to add to your team? What’s the workload like right now? How many hours do you need the person to work?
Once you have a good idea of what you’re looking for, start doing your research and asking the right questions. Here are a few tips to get you started:
- Ask about the agency’s screening process. How do they ensure that their workers are qualified for the job?
- Ask about the agency’s training process. How do they make sure their employees are ready to follow the rules and policies of your company?
- Ask about the agency’s retention rate. How often do workers leave their jobs after being placed by the agency?
- Ask about the agency’s client base. Are they experienced in working in your industry or sector?
- Ask about the agency’s fees. How much do they charge for their services?
Keep in mind that not all staff augmentation companies are created equal. You want to find one with a proven track record of success who can provide you with the quality help you need.
Final Words
If you are still wondering what staff augmentation is, well, it can help you save money and time, and it’s a great way to find qualified candidates quickly and easily. Staff augmentation is the best option if you’re looking for a reliable, affordable way to fill in the gaps in your workforce.
Objects are the right place to look if you are looking for highly-skilled IT staff augmentation. Objects is an established organization with IT professionals that have the potential to help you achieve your goals. If you want your organization to partner with the best, contact us today, and we’ll provide you with the best resources to work on your next project.
