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Often, industries experience a seasonal demand for skilled workers or for certain high profile/ complex projects in order to strike a balance between productivity and profitability. This led to the emergence of staff augmentation.
What is the Staff Augmentation Process?
Staff augmentation is a concept of employing individuals on a contract basis rather than permanently. These individuals are highly skilled workers deployed to a client’s business to help meet their project goals by a third-party staffing provider on a contract basis. Staff augmentation process helps companies expand their workforce with skilled individuals without having to worry about long term overhead costs. Until the contract lasts (project period) the skilled individuals augmented in the client’s location work as part of their internal team, or remotely, as required.
Staff augmentation is a brilliant option for those companies that are not ready to bear long-term overhead expenses by offering permanent employment to individuals but do need skilled employees according to seasonal workload demands on a contract basis.
Why is Staff Augmentation essential for your Business?
Staff Augmentation helps you create a flexible workforce, which you can scale up or down based on your workload demands or specific project requirements. For example, if there is a seasonal spike in sales or you need to fill a position due to a turnover or a role that requires a certain set of skills or experience for a particular project, you will require temporary workers or contractors to help meet your business needs, without incurring expenses of hiring full time employees.
What are the Benefits of Staff Augmentation?
Staff Augmentation presents businesses with numerous benefits and allows them to have a competitive advantage in the industry. Some of the major benefits of Staff Augmentation are-
1. Cost-effectiveness
While you can recruit full-time employees during a seasonal workload or for a project, it’s not really the best option, if you already have enough employees onboard during regular days. Hiring individuals full-time during such times leads to incurring overhead costs, spending company resources, to onboard and train them.
Staff Augmentation allows you to hire employees on a contract basis for a limited period, when your business demands, avoiding costs associated with full-time employment, like benefits and compensation.
2. Specific/specialized skills
While you may have quite a skilled workforce, some projects that come your way may require a different/ specialized set of skills, that your in-house team may not possess. Staff augmentation allows you to fill these talent gaps by deploying individuals with specific/required skill sets required for the project. But how can recruiters find these individuals with specific skill sets? It helps to place focus on finding specialists who excel in a certain set of skills, or individuals from specific institutions or background. This will help narrow the talent pool and bring light on potential candidates, among other things, making it easier to fill the position.
3. A Quick fix
Most businesses face a heavy workload season in their organizations, with the incoming or more projects. No matter how well you delegate the work, the internal team alone does not suffice to handle the extra work effectively. Also, certain projects would require additional expertise that your internal team may not possess. Staff Augmentation is an effective solution in times like these as it enables you to hire skilled individuals for that particular period. It allows you to take up additional work or complex projects and deliver exceptional results as you have a skilled set of individuals working on it, thanks to the staff augmentation process. Staff augmentation is great for times when you require skilled individuals immediately and start working on a project without the need for training them for the same.
4. Control over Projects
While outsourcing does help ease your work, a significant drawback associated with the same is the fact that you may not have complete control over the employees or your project. While staff augmentation is also a type of outsourcing, it’s one where you add outside personnel to your internal team temporarily. This allows you to have complete control over the work they do and ensure that there is no decline in productivity.
5. Fresh Perspectives
A fresh perspective has never hurt anyone. Sometimes, your internal team may develop a single-minded vision while addressing certain problems which can result in overlooked mistakes. A temporarily augmented employee will provide you with a fresh perspective on the matter, and this staff augmentation approach will act as a pair of fresh eyes that can catch any mistakes or prejudices, if any, reflected in the work. Their fresh perspective can help you improve in areas that may have been overlooked previously. It can help in improving diversity of thought and enhance the overall productivity of your organization.
How does the Staff Augmentation process work?
Staff Augmentation has been around for many years, and it happens to be one of the most powerful tools if you know how to use it right. However, most businesses are unsure of where to begin while incorporating the staff augmentation process. So, here’s a guide to help you around the method and reap its full potential.
Step 1:
First, determine what skills or experience you require of the individual you are looking to employ temporarily to operate your business or work on a project.
Step 2:
Decide on how many people you require to complete the work you need done.
Step 3:
Once you decide on these criteria, it’s time for your staff augmentation service provider to start looking for specialists who fit your project / business needs.
Step 4:
Recruiting firms have a huge database of skilled professionals they can pick from after a diligent screening process.
Step 5:
Once the screening process is complete, the recruitment partner will set up interviews with each of the candidates to choose the ones that perfectly fit the role.
Tip: It’s an innovative idea to have a trial period or a test period in place for the employee/s chosen to see how they are fair at the job before you decide on them.
If you want to attract and employ the best candidates to work as part of your internal team, or work on specific projects, advertisement is the key. Post job openings on sites like LinkedIn, Indeed or other networks. Include an excellent job description of the skills you are looking for and state the details and requirements of the project clearly.
Resumes will start pouring in once you have put your job opening out there in a strategic manner. Evaluating each of these candidates is the next critical step. To do this, you need to follow a checklist to grade the candidate right and see if they meet the basic set of requirements that align with your project outcomes. You can proceed to the next phase after this.
Once you decide the candidate is a potential fit, set up an interview with HR to get a better understanding of the candidate on a personal and professional level. A thorough evaluation at distinct levels will help assess the candidate better and see how fit they are for the job.
Example of the successful implementation of the staff augmentation model
Imagine a software development company that has a team working on a critical project with a tight deadline. The project requires expertise in a specialized programming language that the current in-house team lacks. So, you need an individual that can fill in this talent gap but also you do not want to bear the overhead costs of hiring a full-time employee with this expertise. This is where the staff augmentation solution works.
A staffing agency or an expert third party staff augmentation services provider can help you find a skilled developer experienced in the required programming language.
An external developer, with the right set of skills and expertise required for the project is then brought in to work alongside the in-house team for the duration of the project. This allows the company to achieve the desired project outcome or business need without the long-term commitment and expenses associated with a full-time hire.
Are you looking for Staff Augmentation Services?
Staff Augmentation Services are an excellent resource for most companies, but especially the IT companies who are looking to increase productivity without inheriting the overhead costs of hiring a full-time employee.
The staff augmentation model allows the company to scale its workforce up or down based on project demands, ensuring flexibility and cost-effectiveness. It’s a strategic approach to address short-term skill gaps or increased workloads without the complexities of permanent hiring.
As a leading staff augmentation services provider for decades, Alp Consulting has rich experience and a huge database of talented, skilled individuals with a potential to add value to your team and organization that you don’t want to miss out on. As your staffing provider, we make sure that we understand your workforce needs and follow a particular set of protocols to attract and augment the best staff to your organization that are more than capable of fulfilling your business needs or helping you achieve outstanding outcomes on the specific project you require them to work on.
