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Staff augmentation
A way for businesses to scale up or down quickly using temporary workers instead of permanent employees.
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Staff augmentation is an outsourcing strategy which allows large- and small-scale companies, to make additions of skilled professionals to their existing workforce.

 

By using staff augmentation as a strategy, companies engage with top level of professionals for individual projects. Consequently, it does not incur the same amount of hassle or costs of hiring new full-time employee. This recruitment principle is most popular among IT companies due to their seasonal and project basis needs. These companies by and large partner with supplying organizations to gain admittance to a short-stretch workforce for a particular period. In view of the need of the association, staff augmentation can take diverse structures, varying, from increased workforce on location to remotely located experts. Increasingly, IT Companies are leaning towards staff augmentation over other conventional systems of staffing owing to the long list of advantages the former offers.

 

Numerous little firms like to enlarge their whole workforce with a very microscopic percentage of permanent staff. Staff augmentation has increasingly become synonymous with IT firms, as the two serve as impeccable demand and supply accomplices for project deliveries.

Staff augmentation is a route for businesses to scale up or down rapidly utilizing transitory laborers rather than lasting representatives.

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What Is Staff Augmentation in layman’s language?

In simple language, it’s hiring on a contractual basis rather than as a permanent employee basis for skills and erudition succor.

 

Often most businesses, sooner or later, need a couple of more involved hands on deck. They require individuals who are talented, prepared, trained and qualified for the work that is needed from them.

 

Procuring these individuals in the conventional way can be a tedious and drawn-out procedure including job advertisements, interviews, referencing, onboarding and perpetual administrative work.

 

This is obstructive if the business has mission-based due dates to satisfy. When rapid access to skills or more people are required, staff augmentation seems to be the secret weapon to be deployed.

How Does Staff Augmentation Work?

Staff augmentation is as direct as utilizing brief specialists to fill transient positions inside your organization, ordinarily through an agency

For instance, assume you have an extraordinary undertaking that requires another three hands on deck, however the project is only six months long. Permanent employees could be hired but once the project is over, there will be no work for the new permanent employees and terminating them would be unprofessional and chaotic. A patent arrangement is to get skilled and qualified specialists who can get straight down to business and merger into your team. The thought is to lift or “augment” your ebb and flow workforce so flawlessly that your permanent employees won’t understand their associate is a temporary worker.

What’s a Staff Augmentation Firm?

Staff augmentation firms, keep a cadre of talent in their books which businesses or companies can take advantage of at whatever point they need extra human resources.

These resources are employed straight by the staff augmentation firm, and does all the behind-the-scenes work of enlisting, background screening, appointing and payroll. All a business needs to do is characterize a need, and the staff augmentation firm will provide an individual or a group of quality aspirants.

 

Another element is the profundity of service. Since the agency maintains a substantial and different workforce with various qualifications and ranges of abilities, you can quickly staff an entire project to counter business targets. The staff augmentation agency can enable you to assess your current staff and figure out which extra aptitudes are required, which makes the procedure turnkey for the for the client organization.

Staff Augmentation Firm?

Who Uses Staff Augmentation?

Staff augmentation is frequently used in the IT and software engineering industries, however it may very well be useful for any business that needs human resources to manage a unique undertaking or business spike. Here are some regular scenarios:

 

  • Your permanent staff has already been working overtime, but a new project has been acquired. You need additional bodies to guarantee that customer service does not waver.
  • An employee who possesses critical knowledge has announced plans for an extensive period of absence, for example, a sabbatical, illness recovery or maternity leave, and you are now, in need of momentary cover to plug the skills gap.
  • The company has been unable to enroll the right talent, maybe procuring a few people that did not work out.
  • You’re contemplating expanding your team permanently yet don’t know whether you have enough need. Staff augmentation can enable you to test a bigger staff before making direct contracts,

 

Whatever your staffing needs, augmented staffing works best when you have an administration system set up to provide project oversight. That way, you can fill crucial positions with a variety of contractual workers and freelancers in the knowledge that they will slot right into your current operational structure, just like the regular employees.

Be it sugarcrm developers or web application development or BI team, Mind IT can help you to augment your IT team.

Is Staff Augmentation the Same as Outsourcing?
How Much Does Staff Augmentation Cost?

If relied on as a permanent working model, staff augmentation will certainly represent an overall higher labor cost. The staff augmentation firm will add an overhead and margin to the direct cost of labor, the contractors themselves may also cost extra than you would pay for a permanent workforce performing the same function. In the short-term, the reduction of hiring/de-hiring costs might counterbalance the increased labor cost. When used as a long-term solution, however, that offset may pan out differently and subsequently will probably be lost.

Is Staff Augmentation an Onshore or Offshore Resource?

Staff augmentation can be onshore, offshore or both. Many staff augmentation firms specialize in either onshore augmentation, where the temporary workers work solely for you from your offices, or offshore, where the contractors work exclusively for you from the company’s offices located overseas. Offshore augmentation services tend to be more cost-efficient.

Is Staff Augmentation the Same as Outsourcing?

Staff augmentation is not the same as outsourcing –they are two completely different delivery models. Outsourcing, allows companies to execute an entire project using resources of another firm; the responsibility for the entire project is handed to another firm. This firm would complete the work using its resources, services and workforce. The responsibility regarding accomplishing results lies completely with the outsourcer. Outsourcing tends to be a good choice if your primary goal is to minimize expenses and project risk.

What Are the Benefits of Staff Augmentation?

The main advantage to staff augmentation is that the contractors hired can jump straight to work without needing to be walked through your process. There is hardly any hassle of recruitment formalities, therefore valuable time isn’t squandered with recruitment, background checks, individual verifications and onboarding. Perhaps more significantly, the burden of additional payroll duties is eliminated. You can simply ramp up and down to meet fluctuating staffing demands without boring the expense of hiring permanent, full-time employees. Some other pros associated with staff augmentation include:

Experience Matters

Augmenting your staff with trained professionals provides you with the opportunity to assign projects and tasks with confidence. Simply allocate projects and tasks as required and an augmented staffer or team will deliver the results you need in a timely fashion. An experienced professional brings their own set of skills to your project, saving up your time and enabling you to concentrate the big picture.

Cut Costs Without Sacrificing Quality

Hiring a permanent employee when you know you only need someone only for a few weeks is probably not going to be very cost effective. Hence, with augmented staffing you can engage with a professional when necessary – eliminating the long term, costly commitment.

Choose the Skills you Need Most

By specifically targeting the skills you need, allows you to get effective employees placed swiftly and affordably, whether they are needed for a single project or for the entire business. You will be able to pick the right individuals with the precise skillsets required without having to hire a single individual in hopes that they can mold themselves accordingly which would leave space for uncertainty.

Integration

For organizations, it is more operational to integrate contract resources with existing business processes rather than to manage outsourced teams. An individual can adapt to the processes of an organization much more quickly than compared to two separate organizations coming together.

Scalability

Staff augmentation, allows you to scale up and down without taking on payroll liabilities, in addition you can adjust your team size based on revenue upturns or client need. It’s easier to add or subtract resources to match demand.

Meet project timelines

When there is an active project in need for more resources to be able to be completed on time, staff augmentation is typically the best option, and often the only option.

Control over staff

You can thoroughly manage your resources as the contractors will slot into your current working structures.

Reduce employee burdens

Staff augmentation will reduce the burden on the permanent employees, which can reduce the degree of stress and rate of absenteeism.

Reduce cost of acquiring skills

Augmenting staff which is already equipped with the skills required helps avoiding to invest in internal skill development.