What is staff augmentation? In this article, we’ll explain exactly what it means, how it works, and some examples of companies that use it in their business models. Staff augmentation is when companies hire freelancers or contractors to help them out with day-to-day tasks, projects, or jobs that aren’t necessarily crucial to the company’s day-to-day functioning but can be beneficial to its long-term success if handled correctly and done on an as-needed basis, rather than hiring an employee full-time to do the job from within the company itself.
What Is Staff Augmentation?
Staff augmentation is the process of contracting a company or an individual to supplement your staff, with the goal of expanding your workforce without adding full-time employees. Staff augmentation can be a cost-effective solution for companies who need additional staff but don’t want to hire full-time. Companies may contract professionals in accounting, legal, IT services and other fields as needed.
Individuals looking for work are also often hired on a contract basis by staffing agencies or consulting firms. Staff augmentation allows both parties to benefit from their relationship: the employer gets access to skilled professionals when they’re needed and the contractor earns income when they’re not busy elsewhere without committing to long-term contracts.
The Pros and Cons of Staff Augmentation
Pros
Guaranteed Talent
Staff augmentation is the process of outsourcing work to an external team, who are not employees of your company. This process can help you avoid hiring full-time employees while still getting the jobs done. It’s also a good way to combat employee churn, especially if you have a difficult time retaining talent. For example, let’s say you want to hire someone for customer service but they don’t have any customer service experience. You could use staff augmentation as a solution by having that person interact with customers through calls or emails without having them worry about learning anything new on the job.
Hiring Efficiency
Staff augmentation is a staffing methodology that involves bringing in a team of freelancers to work on your project, rather than hiring full-time staff. Hiring efficiency can be achieved through this process because the freelancers are not only working for you but they are also working for other companies. When they are done with their current assignment, they will automatically move onto your project, allowing you to focus on other aspects of running the company without having to worry about finding additional talent.
Read More : Pros & Cons of IT Staff Augmentation Services for Your Business
Increased Flexibility
Staff augmentation gives you increased flexibility to quickly adjust your workforce to meet the needs of your company. When a new project comes up, you can quickly find the right talent without having to go through a lengthy hiring process. Or, if there’s an upcoming shift in business strategy, you can adjust staffing levels on-the-fly with ease. For example, say you have 5 analysts and one leaves. The team may need to add 2 more people to fill the gap before they fall behind in their workloads. With staff augmentation, it would take no more than a few hours to have them onboarded onto the team.
Cons
Quality Risk
Staff augmentation may also pose quality risk, as employees will be working outside their skill set in various projects. Over time, staff members might start to get rusty and not deliver the best results they would have otherwise achieved. You also run the risk of losing or acquiring new talent if your employees aren’t performing at a high level.
Time Delays
Staff augmentation can be a great way to grow your business, but it’s not without its cons. One disadvantage of staff augmentation is that you won’t have the same level of control over the work as you would with an in-house employee. This could cause delays in projects or other unforeseen problems if you’re not careful.
Long-Term Dependencies
Staff Augmentation can be a good option for your business as it allows you to have skilled workers to help with tasks. But, there are some cons of using this service. With Staff Augmentation, you may not be able to build a long-term relationship with the people working for your company and employees on staff might feel less motivated to do their best work.
Types of Staff Augmentation
Commodity
Staff augmentation refers to the process of outsourcing certain tasks or responsibilities to another company. Staff augmentation provides a cost-effective solution for companies that are struggling with their workloads. Not only does staff augmentation provide staffing solutions in difficult times, but it also provides flexibility during periods of expansion.
For example, if an organization has high levels of revenue during a period of rapid growth, they can often outsource low-level tasks such as data entry or file maintenance until they need them again. In essence, staff augmentation allows organizations to scale up and down as needed without investing in expensive overhead like permanent employees.
Skill-Based
Staff augmentation can be a cost-effective, on-demand way to fill positions in your company. This method of staffing is also known as workforce management. There are two types of staff augmentation: skill-based and project-based. Skill-based staff augmentation involves hiring individual employees to do specific tasks that are not in line with the skillset of your existing workforce.
Highly-Skilled
Staff augmentation, also known as outsourcing, occurs when a company hires an external company to provide additional labor. This can include highly skilled professionals or even unskilled laborers. Outsourcing to a staffing agency can be advantageous for many reasons: it can save time by providing pre-screened workers, it can provide talent in areas where the company doesn’t have the skills internally, or it can provide temporary help when there’s high demand for labor.
Conclusion
Staff augmentation is an excellent way to expand your workforce without adding overhead costs. With the right staff augmentation company, you can hire the perfect person for a specific project or task, pay them by the hour, and then let them go when their work for you is done. This makes it easy to fill in gaps in your workforce without any long-term commitments on your end.
Staff augmentation is a cost-effective way to get your project completed on time. Your offshore development center in India can take the burden off your hands. With their support, you can focus on what matters most to your business.
