Hiring Efficiently: 5Ws of Software Development Team Augmentation
What Is Staff Augmentation?
For companies to stay competitive, adopting talent management innovations proves to be a powerful staffing option. Staff augmentation is a result-centric approach to IT cooperation to enhance flexibility, boost productivity, and supplement the in-house team. This method is designed to drive growth and agility. Compared to managed services projects (MSP) and project outsourcing, staff augmentation requires higher customer involvement in team management, thus allowing businesses to control the project flow and the IT staff involved.
Outsourcing and staff augmentation are often considered similar concepts, but there is a clear distinction between them. Staff augmentation is best suited for small short-term projects for a period of 6 months to 1 year or niche projects for a period of 1 year to 3 years, offering greater flexibility and scalability. By choosing this model, the client will have more control over the team. It is best when the business objective is to have more resources to cope with the problem rather than focus on the result (more relevant for niche projects).
The IT staffing industry reached the greatest global market penetration of 37%. 46% of IT staffing buyers expect their organization's budget for talent acquisition technology to grow over the next 12 months.
Expanding business capabilities through the use of external augmentation service providers enables:
- Enhanced Efficiency (time-saving on the vacancy closing stage; the ability to quickly attract specialists to perform specific tasks, taking into account gender quotas);
- Operational excellence;
- Cost-saving (reducing the number of full-time employees decreases the tax burden on the company and, accordingly, reduces the cost of maintaining the company's staff);
- Access to new technologies;
- Broaden expertise.
Possible pros of augmentation service for IT engineers may include but are not limited to:
- in some way, it helps to avoid routine and join a challenging project;
- it provides the opportunity to be transferred to the client’s company (BOT model);
- it reduces the risk of facing a labor rights violation by the company.
Who Needs Staff Augmentation Assistance?
By augmenting staff, organizations can ensure business continuity and speed up innovation. Modern business leaders scale their software development teams flexibly, taking into account current project requirements, budget, and cash flow. Succeeding in a fast-changing IT environment therefore requires a high-performing workforce and a sophisticated strategy that is aligned with organizational goals.
IT organizations and tech start-ups address augmented staff when they need a specific set of skills or an extended project team without the necessity to hire a full-time team. The success of every project depends on hiring the right team.
Why Opt Software Development Augmentation?
By relying on an augmentation service, the company gets control over an employee or a team. It has the right to manage an out-staffer or a team, just like other in-house employees.
Another benefit is budget savings. Out-staffer is a cheaper human resource compared to the in-house employee, as he/she eliminates risk management costs and overheads.
Team flexibility: whenever a business faces new objectives, the company can scale the team up or say goodbye to the out-staff team or employee at the end of the project and, if necessary, resume cooperation or hire a new professional/team.
The client can focus on business objectives and devote all their time to the project's development, and the contractor will take care of all the organizational issues.
High efficiency and productivity: outstaff specialist strengthens the project team and helps to achieve KPIs faster and more efficiently. Just keep in mind approx. calculations for both strategies:
- low-cost and quantitative - in 4 months due to the iterative approach and speed-up training;
- expensive and effective - in 2 weeks to 2 months, depending on the scope of tasks.
Thanks to augmenting, the client engages fewer official employees, and thus, achieves reduced project cost.
As a result, the client company pays fewer taxes, salaries, and related expenses.
Some outstaffing service providers have experience in developing software products and can supplement your project with skilled employees only when you need them.
They undertake duties on the registration of all employees hired with that company, and the client does not have to be bothered with the infrastructure issues, calculating vacation budgets, sick leaves, and other social guarantees. Office space maintenance, providing IT specialists with hardware, offering other perks — all of this would do the service company.
Employees can work under the “white label.”
When Is the Right Time to Rely On Augmentation Service: Pain Points
A specific vacancy is one of the main reasons to delegate the recruiting process to an HR Department of an Offshore Development Company. The right vendor already has its in-house team and can search for IT specialists additionally, as it has its HR department. The main benefit would be that the client gets a specialist who knows the process.
If the business needs to find a narrow-profile specialist, the vendor has a verified recruitment process and a comprehensive database of employees in the IT sphere.
The augmentation service would be relevant in the area of Ukraine in the following cases:
- No in-house human resources service;
- Upcoming global recruiting;
- Lack of benefits of scaling in-house team;
- Demand for candidates for management positions;
- Searching for specialists in emerging technologies;
- Lack of talent in the local market;
- The need to quickly and efficiently implement a specific task;
- Lack of training facilities and educational processes for IT specialists;
- Highly competitive customer market compared to the provider market;
- Employee support cost reduction.
By partnering with such a vendor, the client will get a qualified HR department to inform about all the nuances of the recruitment process flow. Also, the vendor will support the already selected candidate at the adaptation stage and further cooperation.
Where to Find the Right Augmentation Services Vendor?
To avoid possible pitfalls, consider the following recommendations on how to find a reliable augmentation services provider and not just another recruitment agency. Augmenting talents of any kind can be a win-win situation for both the client and the contractor if the agreements are clear and beneficial.
Once you have researched the market for outsourcing companies to reach out to a trusted service supplier pay attention to the following:
- Reputation and professional achievements - check clients’ reviews, employees’ rates on working atmosphere, benefits, salaries, and management (Linkedin, Indeed, Clutch, GoodFirms, etc).
- Reliability. A sustainable supplier has a lower staff turnover than the market average where engineers want to work for a long time.
- Tolerance and ethics - effective collaboration depends on teamwork and relationships. A supplier should be ready to meet the customer's requirements and to respond to questions and changes.
- Ability to deal with challenges - before signing any contracts or negotiating a future partnership, ask how a supplier reacts to challenging and non-standard situations and how quickly they deal with them.
- Ability to scale - any vendor should get prepared to offer scalability if required. Ensure that the company you are considering working with is ready to provide you with staff and resources when needed, without delays.
- Communication skills - augmented staff should be able to work in multicultural environments. Reliable outsourcing companies will guarantee their developers and other specialists high English-speaking standards.
Staff Augmentation With NetLS
NetLS, as an IT staff augmentation services provider, offers the best-in-class staffing and recruiting support the IT company needs to find the people who will drive its growth and success. Our experts will help to meet the organization's needs in terms of qualified IT personnel and its development:
- Attract candidates to the customer's team;
- Conduct profile interviews on competencies;
- Select the best applicants who may or may not respond to a vacancy on job sites;
- Search for a competent candidate for IT specialty;
- Search for candidates in other countries and regions;
- Ensure the confidentiality of the search if the customer requires it;
- Organize client interaction with candidates;
- Adapt the developer to the client's needs;
- Support the client with systematic monitoring of the specialist, his performance, and regular reports;
- Lay Off (in case the client is not satisfied with the performance, the price is not satisfactory, and it is necessary to rotate to another engineer, the client's need or budget has run out), unlike recruiting companies.
NetLS’s team is engaged in the searching, evaluating, and selecting of engineers. Our clients and candidates receive the best service and accordingly, IT specialists of all levels to achieve their goals ASAP. You can order technical staff augmentation services by contacting our manager and receiving comprehensive advice and all necessary calculations on your question.