Nasrullah Patel April 20, 2021 When you are working on a huge software development project, you may worry about hiring a development team. But with the staff augmentation model, you can get it on a per-project basis, and it will be easy for you to focus on your business goals.
While many companies possess the expertise to handle all their demands, some may not have specific knowledge or expertise about a particular area. During such situations, companies need to augment their current staff with new professionals. So if you are looking to augment your existing software development team, then this blog is for you.
In this blog, we will discuss with you the meaning and advantages of a staff augmentation model. Also, we will show you the things that you need to consider while hiring a staff augmentation team.
What is staff augmentation?
Staff augmentation is an outsourcing service where a software company gets developers on contract. These developers can help them accomplish their business goals by working from their home or workplace.
Nowadays, many companies are hiring industry specialists with the help of staff outsourcing to meet their aggressive project requirements and deadlines. This method is viable for employees and employers to work on a project-to-project basis.
After understanding the meaning of staff augmentation, let us look at its benefits.
6 Surprising benefits of staff augmentation services
Staff augmentation services act as a bridge between skilled people and the availability of short-term positions in software companies. They offer great flexibility to the software companies to extend their current workforce with experts who contain an ideal skill set for a specific project.
In the industries like IT, where projects are constant and high-scale, having a staff augmentation model can get the work done with the right talent for each project. But the advantages of a staff augmentation model are not just limited to this, there are also some more benefits of it which are as follows:
1. Access to larger talents
A permanent hiring process restricts a firm’s ability to leverage the best talent available in the markets. But staff augmentation serves as a means of short-term hiring that allows the businesses to access a larger pool of skilled professionals. Staff augmentation recruits are domain-centric so that they bring a new thought process on board.
Besides this, staff augmentation enables firms to connect with experienced professionals who can benefit them a lot even for a shorter duration. This is less expensive than hiring full-time employees.
2. Cost-effectiveness
Cost-saving is one of the most essential benefits of staff augmentation. Let us say if you are having your business in a country such as where the standard of living is too high. If you hire a candidate in such a country, then you have to pay heavy taxes, social security, insurance cover, and many other expenses. Instead, if you hire a candidate from a country where the standard of living is not so high, then you can get the best talent at a minimal cost.
Apart from this, staff augmentation also reduces the training costs of newly recruited employees, as the company recruits the augmentation candidates because of their expertise in a specific segment and they require minimal acclimatization training.
3. Expansion and Adaptation
Software companies often aspire to scale up their operations to make the most of the profitable market conditions. But the risk of failure and lack of enough capital becomes an obstacle in such business expansion. At this time, staff augmentation is of great help to the software businesses as it allows them to extend dedicated developers without investing in a full-fledged workforce.
Besides expansion, staff augmentation enables the software companies to adapt to the fluctuating market conditions. Staff augmentation equips such companies with a great responsiveness that allows them to fulfil new demands using a project-oriented development team.
4. Operational efficiency
Initially, startups and small businesses incur a huge operational cost with a minimal return on investment. Staff augmentation services offer flexible working platforms to new startups and businesses. Such businesses can hire remote developers or they can hire dedicated developers team.
Along with a reduction in infrastructural costs, staff augmentation services can significantly reduce the cost of operations by easing the hire of software professionals. These savings can later result in higher business revenues.
5. Continuous nurturing
When you have a fixed workforce, you can only access the knowledge that your staff possesses. Your business growth becomes stagnant because of the lack of new ideas and opinions.
But with staff augmentation, you can get a new outlook by getting a diverse set of professionals. It will give you the ability to propel your current operations by implementing new ideas.
6. Better control
While firms leverage professionals of staff augmentation organizations, they can still control their project management. Staff augmentation ensures that it only outsources the employees to an external agency.
This control over management allows firms to maintain a stronghold over their projects and shape them as per their desire. But sometimes the company may face issues with the project management and execution. However, staff augmentation solutions prevent such aberration by allowing parent firms to take full charge in their hands.
Things to consider for hiring the best staff augmentation services
When you are considering staff augmentation, the most important thing is to determine the goal that you want to achieve. For example, if you are looking for a machine learning expert, then prioritizing cost will be unrealistic. Likewise, if you need 100 labours to do some task, then you do not need to hire based on a high level of skill.
With a vast availability of staff augmentation models, it’s critical to weigh the pros and cons of each arrangement before selecting. That is why we have presented here a few points that can help you make better decisions:
1. Determine staffing needs
Why do you need to extend your development team? This is an important question to answer before you hire a staff augmentation team. Maybe you need highly skilled software engineers to fill the skill gaps or you are looking to cope up with the inadequate office space. Alternatively, your project managers need extra engineering resources to complete the project before its delivery date.
Whether you’re looking for product designers or front end developers for a specific project duration, or you want a web analytics developer or accessibility specialist for specific phases, you’ll need to evaluate your staffing needs. For this, you can consult with your HR team, managers and employees to know where you need to boost specific skill sets.
2. Conduct research on your staff augmentation company
After creating your staffing blueprint of outsourcing requirements, you can begin your search for a staffing partner that has the tools, experience, and expertise to help your business stay ahead of the tight competition.
Research about your staff augmentation company’s work history and past performances. For this, you can consult with their previous clients to know if the company’s performance satisfied them. Ensure that your staff augmentation vendor has adequate experience in the field that covers your required resources.
3. Type of contract
If your staffing partner can offer you some boilerplate work agreements or standardized one-size-fits-all contracts, that could be a sign they lack the resources or experience to handle the project that would help you the most.
Get a staff augmentation firm that can offer you tailormade work agreements to fit your unique business requirements along with taking the time to understand your firm’s development environment, ensuring that you have access to the outstanding technical talent you need when you need that talent the most.
4. Project schedule
It is extremely important that the staff augmentation company can keep pace with the project development schedule. Cooperate with a staff augmentation partner that can efficiently meet your operational schedule. It needs to provide you with a detailed resource management plan, skilled augmented, remote onshore or offshore development teams, adequate office space, dependable IT services, a pool of exceptional engineers or creative designers.
5. Communication protocol
The communication method of a staff augmentation company is one of the most critical factors that determine the success of the project. Ensure that your chosen staff augmentation company has simple and clearly defined communication protocols that provide you with constant project development updates irrespective of location.
Furthermore, a transparent communication protocol fosters an uninterrupted workflow that is easily monitored and adjusted as per the consistent feedback of team members.
Summing Up
Staff augmentation can leverage the capabilities of professionals with intensive skill sets cost-effectively and efficiently. It can also benefit the millennial generation. They prefer working on projects that require their domain of expertise rather than undertaking traditional jobs.
So what are you waiting for? Hire a top software development company today and access to a pool of proficient developers who have vast expertise in different technologies. Thanks for reading this blog.
Business & Finance Articles on Business 2 Community
(84)
