All You Need To Know About Staff Augmentation
Whenever technology companies hire an external partner for their project requirements, they often consider two methods of engagement, staff augmentation and outsourcing. Outsourcing traditionally means hiring a team and assigning them the responsibility of completing your project independently.
This is different from staff augmentation, which means hiring professionals from outside the company to work alongside your employees as an extension of your internal team. In this method, you add staff to your team from a trusted partner and manage their deliverables the same as any other employee. This is highly useful for situations when you require experienced professionals for your in-house projects but need access to lower cost options, or simply don't want to have to handle the logistics related to hiring and managing additional employees.
Staff augmentation solutions can also help reinforce your in-house development team with specific skills and niche technologies. The augmented staff members work to complete your business objectives and become an extended part of your company.
There can be many use cases for this strategy. You can use staff augmentation for singular projects, for example, when launching a new product. The augmented staff can also be used to quickly meet deadlines or to handle a specific part of the project.
Businesses can also use staff augmentation to handle the workload while they hire full-time employees. However, many experts believe that a combination of both internal and external resources is the best for project development. This blends development skill sets with business expertise and brings fresh eyes to your project. This also reduces the ramp-up time and allows you to quickly fill the gaps in your team.
Why should you use staff augmentation?
Staff augmentation has many benefits. Since all added resources work under you, you fully control the team. This allows you to track progress and monitor your project at all times. However, this also means that the accountability for project completion lies with the hiring company itself. Since the client handles all aspects of the project, they should have project management experience.
Staff augmentation allows you to scale your workforce based on your requirement. You can always increase or decrease the size of your team without worrying about recruitment, hiring, and HR management costs.
Staff augmentation enables you to access a very large pool of talented professionals. The augmented staff members can also be remote, which means you can hire workers with niche skills from around the globe without worrying about geographical limitations, currency conversion issues, etc.
Staff augmentation normally costs less compared to classic recruitment. Since the augmented staff works remotely, you also save on infrastructure costs such as equipment, electricity, and rent. Furthermore, you don't have to spend on other incentives such as bonuses, shift allowances, and reimbursements. In the event that you need to reduce your team, none of the traditional HR related issues with employee separation and severance need to be addressed. This is all part of the value proposition of using a partner. In most cases, when you release a resource, they are quickly added to teams with other clients.
Staff augmentation significantly reduces recruitment time for new hiring. Project managers don't have to shortlist and vet resumes or go through salary negotiations. Instead, they can quickly add the new resources and get them started on the project.
What should you keep in mind when using a staff augmentation vendor?
You should consider a couple of things before approaching any staffing vendor.
- Skills gaps: You should first identify the skill gaps in your company and compare them with your project requirements. There are two types of project requirements, functional and non-functional.
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- Functional requirements: These define the system functions and its components. They characterize the specific behavior of a system upon completion. These requirements are also a part of performance testing and are used to define your system's efficiency.
- Non-functional requirements: They determine whether all the use cases for the software product are completed or not. These include points such as business I.P, security etc.
- Functional requirements: These define the system functions and its components. They characterize the specific behavior of a system upon completion. These requirements are also a part of performance testing and are used to define your system's efficiency.
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Before communicating any requirements to the vendor, you should also assess your deadlines and project duration.
- Culture: While researching staffing vendors, you should also research their culture and location. Choose the one that matches your cultural and linguistic requirements. For example, US clients prefer hiring LATAM developers for their projects since their culture and communication styles are similar to the United States. LATAM Staff Augmentation providers such as Jalasoft have a proven record of bringing highly resourceful and dedicated professionals to their projects.
- Communication: Efficient communication is necessary for the successful completion of the project. It's important to share the business's vision and goals with the vendor. This allows them to assess your requirements and recruit accordingly.
You should also inform your augmented staff members about your internal communication tools. For example, if your company uses a specific toolset for email, calls, and ticket management, the new staff should also use it. Businesses can significantly reduce miscommunication and collaboration issues if this step is done correctly.
- Setting Expectations and cost for the project: If you've already chosen a vendor, it's important to have a conversation about the goals and expectations of the project. Clear project objectives will help them better plan their hiring strategy.
For this, businesses need to share the project's functional and non-functional goals with the vendor. While setting up the SLA, you should ensure that your expectations are realistic and achievable.
Similar to project goal expectations, you should have realistic cost expectations too. Along with Staff augmentation costs, you should also consider hidden costs such as project onboarding (KT) costs, induction costs, and process refinement expenses.
Conclusion :
The benefits of staff augmentation far outweigh the risks associated with it. Staff automation increases productivity, reduces costs, and helps you keep the project on schedule by skillfully filling the gaps in your current team.
At the same time, you should be careful while selecting your staff augmentation partner. You must carefully vet your vendors and set clear expectations before signing the SLA contract. Choose meaningful metrics for the success and failure of the project. Effective communication and clear expectations will go a long way in ensuring the efficiency of your partner solution.
If you want to know more about Jalasoft or see if our services are a good fit for your company, we invite you to contact us in our form below.
