In the current business landscape, staff augmentation has become indispensable for several organisations to remain competitive. Even large corporations can find it challenging to assemble ideal teams for specific projects. Shortage of essential skill set, overburdened teams, limited financial resources to hire new talents permanently, all of these factors can be a hindrance to achieving the company’s full potential. Staff augmentation has several benefits, including filling the gap of the limited workforce for project completion, speedy appointment in case of crucial vacant positions, and enlistment of specialist consultants with particular area expertise.
Strengthening Back-of-House Workers for Enhanced Operations
To identify the perfect fit of developers and their skillset, customers need to specify the number and skill requirements. Recruiters can use this information to find the most suitable candidates from their databases. After getting approval for the list of candidates, customers can hold interviews for the remaining applicants. Once the selection process is complete, the successful applicants will receive suitable employment offers from the staff augmentation providers.
Consequently, the process can be divided into the following stages:
- The staff augmentation partner or recruitment agency will receive job specifications and skill requirements from the client company. In case of any need for clarification or additional information, either party can contact the other.
- After the initial phase is complete, the staff augmentation firm conducts an extensive search to identify appropriate candidates from their talent pool. Subsequently, the eligible candidate’s resumes are forwarded to the customer for their review.
- In the third phase, the client company administers their own tests to evaluate the applicants. The feedback is then provided, and the applicants are screened accordingly. Additionally, to make a final decision, social and technical interviews are usually conducted as standard practice.
- In Step 4, the candidate receives a job offer, and in Step 5, they commence employment with the company after accepting the offer and completing the necessary documentation.
Staff augmentation provides numerous benefits, such as rapid hiring, impressive retention rates, and a hassle-free onboarding process. The candidate screening and associated costs, which are usually part of the recruitment process, are avoided. Moreover, experienced personnel reviewing various organisations can boost precision and efficiency, as many recruitment staff might lack the technical expertise to thoroughly evaluate candidates. This is especially helpful in the onboarding process, as it guarantees that new hires are trained by individuals who possess advanced knowledge instead of HR professionals who may not have the same level of familiarity with the subject matter.
In-House Staff Supplements versus Conventional Hiring Practices
Constant Rate:
If you need a model that would be more appropriate for short-term projects than staff augmentation, the fixed pricing model could be the perfect solution. Thus, the fixed pricing model can be exceptionally effective, particularly in scenarios where software development outsourcing is necessary.
Efficiently Managed Operations:
Managed services include data backups, system administration, data warehousing and storage, among others.
Allocation of Resources:
The Time and Materials (T&M) engagement model is an ideal choice for continuous tasks since it can be adapted for project-based tasks and accommodate new requirements. To ensure a balance between efficiency and quality is achieved, this model necessitates consistent updating.
By outsourcing a project, a company entrusts the responsibility for its development to an external team. This includes not just software developers, but also experts in analysis, design, quality assurance, management, and other related fields. In contrast to more conventional methods, this can be perceived as a comprehensive form of staff augmentation. Rather than just filling open positions in current teams, the outsourced company assumes complete accountability.
Diverse Approaches to Staffing:
Recruiting strategies for staff augmentation can employ a range of techniques to evaluate potential candidates. These can include, but are not limited to:
Requisite Expertise:
To qualify for this form of staff augmentation, candidates must exhibit a sufficient level of expertise. However, a detailed overview may not be necessary. For instance, if a person is a web developer, it may not be apparent if their area of specialization is Ruby or JavaScript.
Range of Capacity:
This approach to classifying staff augmentation candidates prioritizes their individual qualifications and past experience over pre-existing classifications. For instance, when a staff augmentation company specializes in a particular field or when skills are already classified, the criteria can be utilised to distinguish between recent college graduates, those with some experience who have worked in various organizations, and highly specialized veterans with ten or more years of experience.
Tools for Enhancing Current Employees
Generally, there are three types of tools for staff augmentation:
Guru is a remarkable illustration of a platform that incorporates all professions, not solely technological ones. It features nine main categories, with one being programming, and the latter is subdivided into subfields based on job description and programming language. Although this provides freelancers with an excellent opportunity who are not restrained by major corporations, there is the possibility of oversupply of talent on these extensive platforms, which could lead to a competitive atmosphere for every job opening that is advertised.
Websites that exclusively target the technology sector gain from greater specialization in that domain. For instance, Works is fully devoted to computer science, providing freelancers with expertise in Ruby web development, software development, database management, and many other fields. Due to this specialization, companies and contractors can benefit from targeted meetings to discuss their requirements and objectives. This enables businesses to ask precise questions while contractors can create a favourable impression.
Codeable is a platform developed to serve WordPress experts and enable them to distinguish themselves from the competition. Nevertheless, this may not be the top choice for most job seekers.
Advantages Gained via Staff Augmentation Teams
Several advantages of utilizing staff augmentation teams encompass:
Increased productivity in many aspects
Staff augmentation is a method that involves employing contract workers to perform specific tasks instead of assigning an array of responsibilities. This strategy typically leads to greater productivity than having a full-time employee handle multiple tasks.
Strengthening of intellectual property rights protection
Staff augmentation hires are cognizant that they do not possess the same Intellectual Property (IP) rights as full-time employees. This transparency eliminates any ambiguity regarding ownership of IP, rendering staff augmentation a safer choice when establishing a team.
Recruitment process should allow for more flexibility
Through the use of staff augmentation, greater flexibility can be achieved in two ways:
The accessibility of adept personnel has increased, enabling businesses to have more freedom in selecting the appropriate staff, as they are no longer confined to the local region.
Businesses utilizing staff augmentation can swiftly discover appropriate replacements, as it is easy to substitute any team member who fails to meet expectations.
Low-cost hiring
Apart from the advantages of decreased costs and enhanced productivity, staff augmentation can also be beneficial because of its superior cost transparency.
Staff Augmentation: Challenges that Arise from its Usage
For several businesses, staff augmentation poses various challenges, including the following:
Conflicts originating from communication gaps
The most significant challenge we encounter lies in establishing effective communication during the interview process, which has been further complicated due to current quarantine regulations mandating remote interviews. Consequently, the communication quality may unduly impact the evaluation of a candidate’s competencies and their capacity to work harmoniously with the team. Hence, it is imperative to choose a dependable staff augmentation firm to collaborate with. To guarantee the best feasible selection, it is vital to have open communication with the firm before finalizing the decision.
Environmental influences
For businesses employing contingent staff, this is the second most significant problem they face. There could be language, cultural, or physical barriers at the national, regional, and even individual levels. Time zone differences could also be a concern on an international level.
Tools for Staffing Agencies
Staff augmentation platforms and the freelancers who utilize them must exhibit a broad range of capabilities from both ends if they aim to maximize their potential as a trustworthy personnel source for businesses. This encompasses, but is not restricted to:
Video Conferencing via Skype or Zoom:
Skype, Zoom, and Google Hangouts are all instances of video conferencing software that allow users to interact live and face-to-face through a computer display. Skype is the only alternative that also facilitates text, calling, and file sharing, whereas Zoom and Google Hangouts are restricted to video conferencing solely.
Google’s Gadgets:
Microsoft Office is presently offered as a web-based set of applications. This suite provides a variety of utilities for managing and converting files in different formats, as well as for collaborating and distributing them with others. The suite comprises:
Save Files in Google Drive:
This office tool is vital for storing data while on-the-go and acts as a digital hard drive. It is adaptable with an extensive range of document formats, encompassing text documents, spreadsheets and presentations, and multimedia elements such as pictures, music, and code snippets.Documents in Google Drive:
This word processor operates similarly to Microsoft Word but is optimized for cloud usage. It provides a lesser extent of functionality than Word, but it guarantees that users can access the most current version of a document via a shared link. Users can administer who can view a file and who can modify it by adjusting the permissions. Furthermore, it can convert documents from the doc format to the standard Google Docs format, and vice versa. Various formats that can be converted include e-books, different document files, and .txt files.Google Slides and Sheets:
They also act as a substitute for Microsoft Office’s suite of applications but in a web-based format. These are similar to Microsoft Office’s programs for PowerPoint and Excel.Dropbox:
While akin to Google Drive in concept, this service accentuates serving as a repository of past documents and academic works.
Github:
Programmers can reap the advantages of this service, which is akin to Google Drive and Dropbox but tailored particularly for them. Users can upload and distribute an array of files, including code with various format tags, development blueprints, documentation, and other materials. It additionally showcases a search engine, file manager, link sharing, uploads, downloads, and other valuable features.
Slack:
Through Slack, users can convey messages via text, share files, and gain access to a plethora of supplementary features. Teams can be structured in multiple ways, using the available classification alternatives.
Toggl:
Toggl and other appropriate tracking applications are essential for managing time and monitoring projects.
Conclusion
Staff augmentation is not an overall answer to all business challenges, but it can offer several benefits such as enhanced agility and productivity. Hence, it is worth contemplating by companies of all sizes, ranging from startups to large multinational corporations.
