Ultimate Comprehensive Guide to IT Staffing Augmentation in 2023

Many companies encounter initiatives that need to be valued while also requiring a changing number of professionals to keep up with demand. IT Staff augmentation has become more common as teams attempt to balance profitability and productivity.  

Although you’ll often hear about IT staff augmentation services, this tactic is primarily used for tech talent like software engineers. It can also be used by other businesses that need to bolster their in-house teams with additional professionals with particular skill sets.  

If you require experts to compensate for short-term shortages in your team, you will need to learn more about resources and staff augmentation. In this post, we’ll go over:

• What is the strategy   
• How staff augmentation performs  
• How to use it  
• Pros and cons of Staff Augmentation service

Defining Staff Augmentation Service  

Staff augmentation is a strategy that temporarily utilizes an external workforce to work on project tasks to fill gaps and meet submission deadlines. It is a hybrid model in which an organization’s in-house team and external experts collaborate on the same project, albeit each time with independent parts to work on.

This strategy necessitates a prior assessment of the current staff and the project to determine additional skills that aren’t being used regularly. To achieve goals, outside experts from a staff augmentation service provider will temporarily augment that organization’s capabilities.

The advantage of this approach is that the augmented staff that becomes an extended part of the team does not become regular employees, so they are only tapped and paid as needed. This also means they can quickly end the partnership because they know the work is done on a per-project or per-engagement basis.

How Does the Staff Augmentation Work  

To add to the confusion, IT Staff Augmentation services is an outsourcing model that allows you to hire IT talent as an extension of your in-house team, regardless of location.  

As previously stated, it is simply another type of IT outsourcing. When you outsource an IT development project, you are typically given a set timeline and a fixed budget, depending on your selected working model.  

Staff Augmentation enables you to hire a dedicated team of experts who will work for you around the clock. It’s more like having an in-house team outside of your immediate vicinity.  

The vendor’s company takes most of the credit for finding the right work candidate for staff augmentation. There are some ways by which you can select the perfectly picked and qualified team members in the staff augmentation:

Analysis:

This entails defining your project, its goals, and what you expect from the external resources with whom you will collaborate. It will assist you in determining which specialist you will require and what skills they will need to help you achieve project goals on budget and on time.  

Outsourcing Talent:

When hiring external experts, consider the skill set required. If possible, interview all of the candidates presented to ensure that you get the ones who best cover the skill gap in your current in-house team and that you meet your business objectives.  

Onboarding:

While the staffing agency handles all legal issues, you can onboard the chosen candidate by clearly defining all of his roles, responsibilities, and even limitations to avoid confusion.  

Complete Support:

Service providers ensure managed services by assigning an account manager or an HR manager to assist in developing a productive relationship.

The Need to Use the Staff Augmentation Service 

The service has been trendy in the market in recent times. And there are many reasons why this service has significantly benefited the business.  

You may wonder, “Do I need staff augmentation when I don’t have enough in-house experts for projects?” Consider these three factors to help you decide if this model suits you. 

Project Length:

The Staff Augmentation service is ideal for the short-time project. It gives the best help when it comes to a project which requires few resources and extensive technical assistance. At that time, you can easily take the staff augmentation service.

Confidentiality: 

Many projects need confidentiality and less involvement of people. And for that reason, outsourcing is the best reason for the staff augmentation service. They give you a trustworthy and reliable team for the project.

Decreased Cost: 

When you outsource the team, the project cost is lesser than working in a group. The team holds tremendous potential and value for the project but at a lower price. You will only pay the fixed decided amount in the staff augmentation service. 

Type Of Staff Augmentation

There are six major types of IT staff augmentation. We will give you brief details on each type of staff augmentation with pros and cons. After that, you can get a good idea about the kind of service required for your project.

Traditional Staff Augmentation  

• Traditional staff augmentation entails approaching a staffing agency and hiring some of its resources to supplement your in-house team. This provides the conventional setup of staff segmentation of a temporary workforce sourced through a staffing agency or service provider.  
• Traditional staff augmentation is excellent because it can be used for any project, including IT and non-IT engagements.  
• Traditional staff augmentation gives you a lot of flexibility in terms of how many external resources you want, as well as many different options for which specific resources you wish to staff on your team.  
• The most challenging step in traditional IT staff augmentation services is often locating an appropriate service provider/staffing agency with qualified resources.

Independent Contractor  

• Using independent contractors entails looking for contractors and working directly with them.  
• Independent contractors are ideal for projects that lack a clear initial focus, as they are frequently willing to provide input on overall direction. Independent contractors are also helpful when you only need to fill one specific gap in your team.  
• Independent contractors are usually very flexible and of extremely high quality. The best part about hiring an independent contractor is that they typically have a diverse skill set, which means you can hire just one contractor to fill multiple gaps.  
• The difficulty in hiring independent contractors is locating a dependable and high-quality contractor.

Master Vendor Staff  

• Approaching a staffing agency to provide a large number of temporary workers is what master vendor staffing entails.  
• Master vendor staff is ideal for businesses that require temporary staffing due to an unexpected increase in capacity that the company cannot meet.  
• The main advantage of master vendor staff is that it is frequently low cost and easy to scale up to meet extraordinary demands.  
• However, when hiring many temporary workers in this manner, it is more difficult to ensure quality, and you may have inconsistent workers.

Boutique Agency  

• A boutique agency is a small staffing firm focusing on a specific, high-quality skill set.  
• Boutique agencies are ideal for businesses with unique requirements or skill sets.  
• Boutique agencies provide some of the highest quality workers available.  
• The main disadvantage of boutique agencies is that they are significantly more expensive than the other options.

Gig Platforms  

• A gig platform, similar to a freelancer, is an online platform that houses a talent pool for highly skilled workers.  
• Gig platforms are ideal for minor and short-term tasks.  
• Gig platforms offer flexibility and speed if you need to get your project up and running quickly.  
• Gig platforms have varying levels of worker quality, so you’ll have to be lucky or do a lot of upfront vetting.

On Demand Talent Platform   

• On-demand talent platforms are online platforms that house a talent pool for highly skilled workers slightly more structured than gig platforms. Your typical on-demand talent platform will do most of the vetting for you.  
• These platforms are generally helpful for all types of projects because the platform will do a lot of vetting.  
• On-demand talent platforms are excellent in flexibility, quality, and speed.  
• Because the platform will do some initial vetting and management work, they may be a little more expensive than gig platforms.

Benefits of Staff Augmentation  

As we all know, Staff Augmentation is the trendy service in business. But we cannot deny the fact that there are significant benefits of the resources and Staff Augmentation service.

Flexibility  

You can begin with any service if you need IT staffing for an app project. Later on, you can keep the developers on as full-time employees. You can hire as many specialists as you want when working on a project-by-project basis that necessitates a temporary increase in staffing.  

Cost Effective  

Getting more full-time employees to work on a new project requires more resources than temporarily staffing specialized professionals to work on a project. This way, you save money on employee benefits and salaries.

High Productivity  

You hire temporary employees for a specific task or project. As a result, their time and effort will be focused solely on this task, allowing for increased efficiency and productivity.

Knowledge and Control  

With staff augmentation, you keep an in-house team with core competencies. This means that even if you hire temporary specialists to work on a project, the in-house team can still understand and control the technical decisions made.

Speedy Integration and Workflow  

When you need to hire a full-time team member, you must deal with a slew of expenses before they can join your team and be paid. But when you work with a designated group, it increases workflow and integration into the projects.

Offers Objective Perspective  

Companies planning on continuing projects will benefit from an outside perspective from a temporary specialist. They can come up with novel ideas. It can increase productivity and even provide a better solution for the project.

Wrapping Up  

IT Staff augmentation is the most cost-effective option for short-term projects that require more specialists. It increases team productivity and makes the deadline more attainable. The best part is that you can select resources from a pool of experienced specialists, and you can be confident in the project’s quality.