Staff Augmentation: An Exceptional Model To Extend Your Team

Many of the world’s most successful businesses operate with very little staff. Innocent Drinks, founded in 1998 by three friends, outsourced most of its operations to third parties, leaving a micro-team to focus on growing the company. Users of Skype might also be surprised to know that an outsourced team in Estonia developed the first version of the video calling software.

They did such a great job that its two founders decided to build their team in Estonia itself. Today, Skype has more than 44% of its workforce based in Estonia. These two examples were not designed by chance and involved complex strategies to address the long-term objectives of each of these organizations.

• In recent years there has been a revolution in the way IT companies are facilitating their needs for specialized skills and talent. The IT industry is rarely static, and the type of expertise and skills needed by employees is ever-changing.

• Today, there is an increasing drive to improve operational efficiencies and reduce costs through technological innovation. This naturally translates into a growing number of IT projects, where the failure or success of a business can often hinge on the ability to complete these projects on time, within budget, and to specification.

• Developing in-house proficiency to complete these projects can be a risky and costly venture, particularly when the IT requirements of an organization are continuously changing. Moreover, in the current business world were falling behind the IT innovation curve can lead to disaster, very few organizations have static IT needs.

• When companies look for outside help in completing IT projects, they look for outsourcing models such as - managed services but generally consider staff augmentation models.

Staff augmentation is quickly becoming a buzzword on the IT job market, attracting more global businesses to hire remotely. It is a form of outsourcing strategy in which the in-house team within the organization is supplemented by hiring qualified resources on a short, medium and long-term basis to meet specific business objectives.

The model helps vendors to add skilled technical resources to your in-house development team on either a short or long-term basis. These resources are employed directly by the vendor, thus the cost and liability of making new full-time hires are eliminated.

Hiring skilled and trained IT talent has always been a challenge for IT companies, where they fail to meet standards as they lack technical skills, long-term vision, and more. To overcome these hassles technology organizations should maintain strong management and have great resources in place, where resources could also see a future with the organization.

Another big challenge is communication. It can be said that poor communication lies at the heart of failed projects. And the explanation for that, is that the service provider and outsourcing companies are located in different locations. There will be expectations and dissatisfaction with the ultimate product because of the communication barrier. The best technique to avoid communication barriers is to have a solid communication plan from the start. Ensure that your service provider has communication protocol and commitments are flourished in writing for ensuring surprises down the line. Organizations should utilize all the collaboration & communication tools so that your project development process goes in a smooth manner. Tools such as Zoom and UberConference are cost-effective tools for interfacing with your remote teams.

#1 Augmenting with higher expertise- The advent of globalization has given rise to innumerable IT projects, thus driving an insatiable demand for safe technology and resources. With staff augmentation organizations now have access to a large talent pool. The HR teams of the organizations had access to resources with a new skill set immediately available to fill the voids which affect the project deliverables.

#2 Scale up and down with ease- Staff augmentation gives businesses more flexibility when it comes to team sizes. it mitigates the risk associated with the traditional hiring process. It is an excellent solution for companies that experience regular shifts in demand. The size of the team can be scaled up or down without incurring much on training, salary, benefits, etc. depending on the current need.

#3 Control- When you choose staff augmentation over complete project outsourcing, you’re choosing to maintain total control over your team. With staff augmentation, companies have direct insight into how the temporary staff is working and cooperating with full-time employees. Additionally, they have the ability to monitor the progress of a project on a daily basis. This eliminates the risk factors associated with fully outsourcing a project.

#4 Hiring Process can be expedited- Planning and organizing a recruitment drive is a resource-intensive exercise. There are instances when “time to fill” is of the essence to fulfill the deliverable window and dependency on the traditional hiring process is fraught with important positions going unfilled. Staff augmentation speeds up the time to hire by identifying key resources within weeks if not days in markets in which an organization cannot afford to lax.

#5 Cost-Effectiveness- The purpose of staff augmentation is to supplement your staff with outside talent. It’s a great way to reduce the general costs of hiring full-time employees. When you bring in short-term talent, you avoid negotiating salaries, benefits, and other expenses. If the project is successful, you can consider bringing the temporary staff on as full-time team members. This business model allows you to keep projects flexible by eliminating contracts with third-party vendors. It also allows you to reassess the talents and skill levels of your team whenever necessary.

So, staff augmentation is an effective and convenient staffing method that can be used in numerous situations, when utilized correctly. If you’re looking to outsource your work to skilled employees, Polestar solutions can extend a helping hand. Contact us today to learn more about the services and innovative solutions