IT Staff Augmentation: The Importance for an IT Organization
IT staff augmentation is done to hire skilled employees temporarily instead of hiring them permanently. For IT staff augmentation, a company first ensures proper evaluation of the existing staff to determine whether external resources are required by the organization or not. Staff augmentation is a perfect option if IT companies are in need to quickly scale their team or are trying to fill temporary talent acquisition needs. Staff augmentation brings lots of advantages like flexibility, transparency, and cost savings.
Why Companies Go for IT Staff Augmentation?
Staff augmentation solutions are sought for various reasons. Companies that need to expand or decrease team size depending on the project they are undertaking find it difficult to manage manpower resources. Their talent requirements keep changing. Through a staff augmentation program, they are able to overcome such challenges successfully and increase their organizational efficiency. Companies opting for staff augmentation are able to access a larger talent pool whenever they need it and are able to scale up or down cost-effectively.
IT staff augmentation is becoming a buzzword in the IT industry because of the frequent need for different temporary talent acquisition needs or to meet project-based manpower needs in time.
Through IT staff augmentation services, companies can hire on the go, whether they need programmers, designers, QA engineers, system administrators, front-end or back-end application development specialists, or any other IT professionals with specialized skills.
In general, any company seeking to contract with an IT staff augmentation company or service provider does a careful study of manpower challenges and pain points before making a decision.
1 . The firms identify the skills in which they are deficient.
2 . Based on the requirements, the hiring process is carried out.
3 . New employees are integrated with the existing employees.
4 . Firms request support from the staffing organizations for building productive relationships with the augmented staff.
While the global pandemic changed the dynamics of organization sectors such as entertainment, travel, education, etc., a huge number of IT industries witnessed an increase in productivity, and one of the factors is IT staff augmentation services.
As the IT sector had already embraced staff augmentation services for hiring the deficit talent, the ability to meet talent and project needs did not suffer much. Post pandemic, the IT staff augmentation market size grew globally to $132.9 billion from $92.5 billion in 2019.
Top Benefits of IT Staff Augmentation
Access to Diverse Regional, National, and Global Talent Pools
Earlier, businesses used to rely on local talent pools and often had to let go of projects or lacked the ability to scale up when it was not possible for them to meet diverse talent requirements. With IT staff augmentation services, hiring managers at this point don’t have to browse a restricted set of alternatives. They can look far and wide, finding precisely the individual they need for their venture.
The entire process, from finding the right employee to finally hiring them on board, is quite time consuming and cumbersome. Hiring managers follow multiple routine steps like interviewing candidates, negotiating on employment terms, and performing all the required paperwork before finally hiring the employee. Also, employees not able to meet varying project needs either resign or are asked to leave, and the exit process also involves a number of steps. But staff augmentation rescues the managers from all these additional burdens. They only need to let the staff augmentation service provider know about their manpower needs.
Optimize Manpower Hiring and Management Costs
Staff augmentation lessens manpower expenses on numerous levels. To begin with, companies don’t have to pay for additionals like taxes, maternity, and sick leaves and manage payroll and compliance for the temporary staff they need for a few months. Secondly, they do not need to keep looking for outsourced teams to meet varying project needs. Their IT staff augmentation company manages it all.
Minimize Training Costs
Companies expend a lot on training their employees, which is otherwise saved with staff augmentation. IT companies train their engineers to keep them abreast of the innovations and latest technology trends, thus increasing the operational costs. The IT staff augmentation company ensures training of the staff or providing the firm with employees that already have hands-on experience and the desired skills.
Scalability
Staff augmentation is a phenomenal answer for those organizations that consistently experience shifts in customer demands. From senior software developers to coders and junior developers, team size can be scaled up or down based on business requirements, without worrying about searching for talent, hiring procedure, costs, or other related factors.
Staff augmentation is an advantageous and successful staffing strategy that can be utilized in an assortment of circumstances to support positive organizational performance.
Increased control when compared to a managed services model.
Staff augmentation helps you retain control over your manpower resources, their availability, productivity, tasks allotment, work management, etc.
A service provider of a managed services model has to deliver an “outcome” or results based on work outsourced. It is less about talent acquisition or meeting manpower needs and more about the outsourcing outcome.
The scalability is tied to service and acquiring the required manpower resources in a staff augmentation model. When companies are managing projects on their own and require temporary IT manpower now and then but not on a permanent basis, the staff augmentation model wins over other models.
Increased Control on Projects When Compared to Project Outsourcing
The primary distinction between project outsourcing and staff augmentation is that with staff augmentation, the organizations recruit technical talent while keeping up direct authority over their employees. In project outsourcing, the company is outsourcing a project or most operations of a project to a third party or external firm.
Types of Staff augmentation Services
Short term services: It is utilized when the companies need employees for one-time projects or during hectic periods, or while the in-house employees are on vacation or leave.
Long-term services: This type of service is utilized for projects that work for a longer duration of time.
Traditional staffing providers: This option is about providing temporary employees that are suitable for non-critical projects.
Specialized staffing and consulting firms: This option is about providing expert and highly-skilled talent suitable for projects requiring specific skill sets.
On-demand talent platforms: This option provides access to highly skilled talent on an on-demand basis.
Direct independent relationships: These are related to independent contractors engaged by organizations.
Choosing the right staff augmentation model and making it work
An IT company should first evaluate their current staff to determine the existing deficiencies in terms of talent in the company. An in-depth analysis of the staff is essential in filling the gaps in talent existing in an organization. Once the gaps are identified, organizations should evaluate if the requirements are for a long-term basis or are limited to a one-time project only.
Once the organization has evaluated the permanent and temporary skill-set requirements, the process of looking out for a firm to make the right talent available gets started. The model you are choosing should be the one that best suits operational and functional efficiency needs.
When is staff augmentation the right choice :
1 . The company wants to reduce the cost of hiring temporary staff
2 . When talent needs are varying for projects that are managed by the company itself
3 . A project requires IT manpower resources with specific skill sets not available in the existing staff
4 . When a company needs to hire on the go frequently
Conclusion :
The staff augmentation model has become essential to meet the expansion plans of companies that cannot invest a majority of their time, resources, and money in searching, identifying, hiring, and then disengaging professionals on a frequent basis. The success of the IT staff augmentation model, however, depends on the service provider’s efficiency to meet all temporary staffing needs. Finding one when there are thousands out there promising extraordinary benefits is no less a daunting task. How do you find a service provider with a great track record, with access to regional as well as global talent, and is 100% reliable?
Alliance Recruitment Agency has helped hundreds of companies find their ideal IT staff augmentation services provider. The agency has an excellent database and knowledge base that is easily leveraged to identify IT staff augmentation companies that fit the bill based on the most complex criteria.
With ten years of experience in IT staffing, Alliance Recruitment Agency has built a global network of teams. The agency offers end-to-end assistance from assessing client needs for staff augmentation to finding, selecting, and assessing vendors. You will never make a wrong decision if you partner with Alliance Recruitment Agency for finding your ideal IT staff augmentation company.
You are welcome to contact us to know more about this model for meeting your diverse staffing needs!
