In a world where 63% of companies have remote workers, IT staff augmentation is not just a trend but a necessity for growth. It’s that strategy that can keep your business at the forefront of innovation.
Staff augmentation can occur in various forms, depending on the specific needs and objectives of your business. But in any case, It’s a flexible approach to hiring that offers the freedom to adapt your workforce as needed, without the long-term baggage of full hires. This versatility is one of the key advantages of the staff augmentation model.
In this guide, we’re covering everything you need to know about IT staff augmentation, from defining what staff augmentation stands for to how it can transform your business. We’re going to peel back the layers of this innovative hiring model and show you how it’s changing the game in talent acquisition. Let’s start by explaining what staff augmentation is.
What is Staff Augmentation?
Staff augmentation is a strategic approach where a company temporarily hires specialized personnel to supplement its existing team to enhance its current team’s capabilities.
For example, one of our clients faced challenges in adapting to rapidly evolving regulatory standards. They needed proficient Cloud engineers to swiftly grasp the intricacies of compliance and motivate their dev team. Through a few months of staff augmentation, they successfully onboarded skilled professionals, enabling a seamless transition of their assets and ensuring compliance with all regulatory mandates.
This hiring model it’s a cost-effective solution that provides access to top-tier talent while maintaining direct oversight over project execution. This approach is especially valuable in industries like IT, where specialized skills are often needed on a project basis.
The advantage of staff augmentation compared to other outsourcing strategies is that, as a business owner, you have direct control over the staff you bring in and still spearhead the project management side of things. Let’s explore in depth how this effective strategy works.
Key Benefits of Staff Augmentation in IT
With staff augmentation, you can supplement your existing workforce with specialized, experienced professionals who can help you solve complex business problems.
Let’s take a look at some facts that make staff augmentation an important tool to bolster your company’s employees.
1. Pay For What You Need
Staff augmentation will allow your organization to only pay for what you need. If you don’t need to hire someone on a full-time basis, you can choose to sign a contract with your staff augmentation vendor to give you the exact staff you need for that given period.
2. It Saves Time
Your only job is to provide the requirements and pay the hired staff. The rest of the work is done by your staff augmentation vendor. This will not only save you time, but it also saves costs.
3. Allows You To Have Control Over Your Crucial Projects
With staff augmentation, you won’t have to outsource the entire project to an outside company. You only fill a few gaps within your already existing staff to attend to a specific project you need to accomplish within a given period. So, your in-house staff can work with the outsourced staff to handle the project.
Having your in-house team allows you to fully control how the project is executed and ensure the outcome meets the quality standards of your organization. For the best results, we recommend assigning the quality assurance role to one of your in-house staff.
4. Boost Productivity in Your IT Team
Instead of giving all the tasks to your available staff, staff augmentation allows you to outsource the complex and unique tasks that your in-house team can’t handle. This boosts productivity since each team member is assigned a job they know to do best.
5. Access To A Vast Pool Of Talent
IT staff augmentation vendors usually have a wide range of IT experts, including front and back-end developers, cybersecurity experts, product designers, network engineers, etc. Partnering with any reliable IT staff augmentation vendor gives you access to all this talent at any time. You don’t have to go headhunting in other companies or running job adverts to save your business from failing to get the right talent.
6. Low Operational Costs
Staff augmentation can also offer cost savings. By bringing an experienced professional on board from a staffing agency, you can avoid a significant portion of the costs associated with recruiting, and legal taxes.
When you hire remote talent, you get to hire people who live in countries where the cost of living is lower. This allows you to lower your operational costs without prejudicing your projects. You get unmatchable talent for a lower price.
Types of Staff Augmentation
| Name | Description | Example uses |
| Commodity | Used when the hire doesn’t need to have any specific skill set. | Retail, basic work in factories and warehouses (such as good relocation) |
| Skill-based | Used when the hire needs to have a certain skill, but the skill level isn’t critical to the job’s performance. | Transcription, Data processing, Copywriting |
| Highly-skilled | Used when the hire needs advanced skills that can only be attained through training and experience. | Software Development, Contract Law, Brand Design |
Staff Augmentation Models and How to Choose
- Traditional staffing providers: These agencies focus on providing companies with temporary employees from different industries. Traditional providers are a great option for projects where a high level of skills is not a need.
First example: Adecco
- Boutique staffing agencies: Small recruitment agencies that focus on finding specialized and skilled employees for specific projects.
Second example: DistantJob
- Vendor staffing providers: These are large-scale staffing programs that are managed by a single vendor. Suitable for companies who prioritize low cost and need to scale their teams fast.
Third example: Randstad
- Online platforms: These are platforms that provide hiring managers with instant access to freelancers and independent workers. It’s best for companies who want to save money on the hiring process and who don’t need specialized employees for critical projects.
Fourth example: Upwork
- On-demand talent platforms: Grant access to highly skilled talent that can be hired quickly. Best for companies who want to hire a remote employee fast.
Last example: BTG
What is staff augmentation consulting?
When you can’t choose a staff augmentation model reliably, or the best one for your specific case isn’t apparent, you can always hire a staff augmentation consultant to help through the hiring process, giving you insight and assuring your company and its data are protected when writing the contract.
What is the difference between Staff Augmentation and Outsourcing?
Some people confuse staff augmentation with outsourcing. However, these two hiring strategies are fundamentally different. With outsourcing, you are required to hand over the entire project to an external entity to handle it. That means this entity will have control over how the project is done and bear all the risks involved, presenting disadvantages for businesses.
Using staff augmentation is traditionally used when companies are looking for specific people to temporarily bolster their ranks to develop a project instead of a full team. With staff augmentation you maintain control over your projects, including how they are done and when they are delivered. This allows you to keep the quality standards of your organization for every project that is done.
Conclusion
If you choose to use staff augmentation as your hiring strategy, you can always contact us to help you get the best IT staff to fill the gaps in your organization. We will help you find top, experienced, and carefully vetted staff that is fit to do the tasks at hand. While choosing whom to assign you, we go beyond just the skills and experience.
We ensure the staff we assign you are a perfect fit for your company culture, and we also take care of all the legal processes involved. This will enable you to focus on the core activities of your company as we handle all the recruitment processes on your behalf.
Scale your IT team with DistantJob today!
Staff augmentation is a practice of temporarily increasing a company’s workforce with outside consultants or contractors to meet specific project needs.
Staff augmentation is a professional addition to an internal team, while outsourcing is the transfer of specific business operations to an external service provider.
