Staff Augmentation Process – Steps
The strategy in which additional skilled professionals are brought into the organization temporarily to add to an existing team to assist in performing certain tasks on a project basis is called staff augmentation. The ideal way to proceed is by following the steps below.
1. Identify the business requirements and talent gaps
The first step is to check the IT requirements to meet your business goals. Project managers should do a skillset mapping of the existing skills to note down the required skill set to fill skill gaps in the in-house team.
2. Define the job description
Specify the required qualifications to acquire the right resource for the job.
3. Team up with a reliable staff augmentation firm
Many industries, like finance, healthcare, retail, manufacturing, and more, require IT staff augmentation services today to expand their manpower. Like most businesses, your organization requires a knowledgeable staff augmentation provider with a proven track record to accomplish your task. Before picking your staff augmentation partners, check the following:
- Their experience in servicing past clients
- If they have a good local and international market reach to procure talent
- If they have the right tools to perform business functions
- Their terms and conditions of service
- Cost affordability
- Feedback from past clients
Choosing a trusted software development partner as your staff augmentation provider is also beneficial so that you get acquainted with skilled IT people who have worked on successful projects earlier.
4. Assess the applicants’ candidature
By reviewing the profile, assessing their performance, and conducting interviews, your staff augmentation partner should be able to procure the right resource for your organization.
5. Hire the new staff
Once you finalized the resources, hire them to proceed with your software development projects.
6. Establish a foolproof work culture through best practices
Some best practices include the following:
- Ensure that the appropriate hardware and project management tools, including laptops, wi-fi connectivity, and other devices and accesses, are provided to proceed with their job.
- Open and transparent communication among staff and within remote teams drives an efficient work culture within your organization. You may arrange social gatherings online to allow the additional staff and the in-house team to socialize to bring down any barriers in communication.
- The employees need to work with a team spirit to meet the software development project goals, for which you can establish a well-defined code of conduct.
7. Evaluate the results
Monitoring the performance of the external team lets you suggest changes in how they work as necessary. Reward the staff who perform well as a means of encouragement.
Benefits of IT Staff Augmentation for Business Processes
The IT staff augmentation market in the US, valued at $32.5 billion in 2021, is projected to flare up to $43.68 in 2027, indicating a surge in demand for the services.
The staff augmentation model has several advantages over the traditional method of hiring full-time employees, which business analysts explain as follows.
1. Access to skilled staff with top technical expertise
At times, the necessary skillset may be absent within an organization, so an external workforce is hired for a short time to outsource the task. Availing of staff augmentation solutions can bring forth the cream of the top technical experts, who solely work on the specialized skill, to participate in project management.
Some roles in demand nowadays are front-end and back-end developers, quality assurance engineers, data engineers who deal with large chunks of sensitive data, certified UX and UI designers, and certified experts in robotic process automation and artificial intelligence.
2. Reduction in operational costs and recruitment efforts
Staff augmentation efforts reduce operational costs by building a new infrastructure for the required skills. The time and effort spent in recruiting new talent is minimized due to outsourcing the task.
3. Better control over projects
Team augmentation services offer great flexibility and scalability to adjust the demand in output to market fluctuations while maintaining a competitive edge and improved innovation.
4. Better efficiency
Staff augmentation services help boost productivity by dividing the workload among new members to deliver quicker and higher quality output within the project timelines.
Future Trends In Staff Augmentation
- Today’s globalized economy leads to increased remote staff augmentation by leveraging the latest technology that allows teams to collaborate and share work remotely. Therefore, expanding the staff augmentation model from a specific location to global outreach is possible.
- The rise of niche staffing agencies is another possible future trend. It is beneficial as it improvises the approach of generic staff augmentation by narrowing it to recruiting a niche talent to yield higher quality output.
- Cross-training of staff is a possible trend in the fact that the existing employee base in a company is exposed to new skills through staff augmentation.
- The boosting popularity of artificial intelligence (AI) in all fields predicts the foray of this technology into the staff augmentation strategy as an upcoming trend. Most steps, like resume screening and skill assessment, may become automated using AI.
- Despite the advantages mentioned above and projected trends, staff augmentation carries the risk of the lack of institutional knowledge in the augmented staff, as they need time to understand and adapt their work style to the company’s existing policies. Also, a repeated requirement for staff augmentation may lead to greater operational costs in the long run when compared to hiring permanent employees.
The Best Staff Augmentation Services For Your IT Requirements
KloudPortal is the best staff augmentation company that brings the most knowledgeable and skilled engineers to your service. The award-winning company specializes in its timely delivery of services in the most trustworthy and reliable manner, and with its versatile pool of talent, it also functions as a digital marketing agency specializing in services like SEO, content marketing, keyword analysis, and social media advertising.
Wait no more to book an appointment with them to discuss all your business needs!
Priyamvada Bulusu
About The Author…
Priyamvada B admires Nature, loves painting and takes interest in poems and short stories. She has a Masters Degree in English literature and a Bachelor’s degree in Science. She loves learning new things and solving puzzles based on logic. While she has a flair for creative writing, she is also good at researching valuable information and presenting it to the readers in the form of technical content writing.