Hiring is not cheap; the average cost per hire was close to $4,700, according to recent benchmarking statistics from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). Besides, the average time to fill a position in the engineering industry or information technology sector is about 56 days and 47 days, respectively. Accordingly, finding proper resources for organizational projects is a challenging task.
Fortunately, staff augmentation is a great way to save time and money when it comes to meeting your talent needs – but what exactly does it mean? Allow us to demystify the concept of staff augmentation services for you. Here, we discuss how such solutions can benefit businesses in both their technology operations and recruitment costs – bringing success one well-placed hire at a time!
Defined Staff Augmentation
Staff augmentation is the strategic use of external resources to meet specific skills or bandwidth requirements. It enables organizations to identify and hire specialized talent on a short-term or long-term basis, thereby giving flexibility while allowing enterprises to focus their time and resources on core business processes.
With staff augmentation services, the hiring team can access global professionals with specialized skill sets while also reducing associated recruitment costs. This helps businesses increase their efficiency and fill the existing resource gap to complete projects on time.
Moreover, this method also allows organizations to scale up or down without having to worry about long-term commitments or the need for in-house training. Staff augmentation services can address both seasonal fluctuations in demand and last-minute resource requirements.
Overall, instead of carrying out a thorough recruitment process yourself, you can opt for an efficient staff augmentation or outsourcing company to minimize time and effort. This will provide access to talent that is tailored towards your specific requirements, who ultimately blend into the existing team and adhere strictly to development objectives as set forth by your own organization.
Types Of Staff Augmentation
There are three main types of staff augmentation:
| Commodity | This involves hiring a team of external resources to work on specific projects without any need for particular knowledge or skillset. Here, the resource is given a task and expected to deliver results within the specified timeframe and budget. If you need a boost with tedious tasks such as data entry or manual testing, commodity staff augmentation could be precisely what your business needs. |
| Skill-based | Regarding skill-based, the external resource is required to possess a specific set of skills or experience that your internal team may lack; however, the level of expertise may not be highly critical. These resources are hired to help complete projects within a specific amount of time with minimal training or onboarding costs. So basically, skill-based staff augmentation allows you to quickly fill roles requiring unique expertise without having to recruit and train any in-house personnel. |
| Highly-skilled | As the name implies, highly-skilled staff augmentation requires a deep level of expertise and experience in order to complete any given project. These resources are usually hired for up to 6 months or more with strict deadlines and objectives. Therefore, such hires demand specialized knowledge as well as advanced technical skills. |
Is Staff Augmentation Suitable For Your Business?
Expanding an in-house team can be both financially and temporally taxing. However, IT staff augmentation provides a savvy solution by enabling organizations to onboard exceptional remote developers or technical project managers specifically tailored to individual projects – all while evading excessive overhead costs. With that in mind, staff augmentation can be an excellent approach for your business when:
Your project requires specific skillsets: If your existing team lacks the necessary technical expertise or knowledge for a particular project, you should consider staff augmentation. This will help you access high-quality talent that can add value to your project quickly and cost-effectively.
Your project deadline is close: If you need to complete a project before the set deadline, staff augmentation can help you quickly fill in any resource gap and help you meet your goals.
Your project scope is not fixed: If your project scope is ever-changing or unpredictable, it makes more sense to hire external resources than invest in permanent team members. This will enable you to scale up or down depending on your project requirements.
You want to enhance your team’s quality: Adding a few experienced personnel to your existing team can help bring in new ideas, best practices, and perspectives. This will benefit the entire team and enable them to perform better.
5 Tips For Successful Staff Augmentation
• Set clear objectives and communicate them to the external resource: Before hiring a staff augmentation service, make sure that you have clearly defined objectives for the project. Then share these objectives in detail with your external resources so they can better understand your requirements and expectations.
• Define timelines and milestones: Create detailed milestones with estimated timeframes and deliverables. This will help you track the progress of your project and ensure that it stays within budget and on schedule.
• Leverage existing relationships: If you already have vendors, contractors, or partners in the IT industry, leverage their expertise and contacts to find the best staff augmentation resources available.
• Monitor performance: Once the external resource is hired, make sure that you monitor their performance regularly to ensure that the project is running smoothly and within the specified timeline.
• Make use of proper tools: Make sure that you have the right tools and technologies in place to enable successful remote collaboration with staff augmentation resources. This will ensure efficient communication and coordination, even at a distance.
By following these tips, you can ensure that your staff augmentation journey is smooth and successful. With the right resources onboarded to the team, you can achieve superior results for your project in a cost-effective manner. So, if you want to take advantage of the benefits of staff augmentation, make sure that you plan it carefully with these tips in mind. Good luck!
