Staff augmentation has proven to be a useful model for SMBs and enterprises whether it is for a long-term project or a short-term. Many companies working on this model of upstaffing overlook important factors that can lead to hiring the best talent and leveraging them optimally for their projects. Therefore, it is essential to understand the staff augmentation best practices that are not only useful for finding the right candidates but also for the successful delivery and completion of your project.
In this blog, we discuss staff augmentation, and why do businesses need it, and the best practices for adopting the staff augmentation model.
What Exactly Does Staff Augmentation Mean?
Staff augmentation is the process of outsourcing certain roles to meet the organization’s hiring and staffing needs for either short-term or long-term projects. In this model, the company analyzes the current skills to determine and evaluate the need of additional skills.
When Do Businesses Need Staff Augmentation?
There are different scenarios when the business starts to adopt staff augmentation model, and it all depends on an organization’s requirements.
However, here are three most-occurring scenarios that companies face which compels them to use staff augmentation model. Let’s look at them.
- Having a limited staffing capacity and time to train resources
- Wants continuity with business operations by hiring offshore and nearshore team
- Gap in workforce that disrupts the flow hence creating the need for additional staffing
IT Staff augmentation benefits include access to specialized skills and expertise on-demand, allowing for flexible scaling of teams to meet project requirements efficiently.
Staff Augmentation Best Practices
Staff augmentation comes as a simple and easy process but there are some important considerations that a company must make. It helps in the decision-making process and as well as understanding technical elements for hiring the top talent for your project.
Establishing Goals and Objectives
Before you start to augment the team, it is best to know the goals and objectives you expect from them. By establishing goals and objectives at the initial stage, it would be easy to set your benchmarks and evaluate the results after the project completion. It can include identifying timelines, specific tasks, outcomes, deadlines and more.
Identifying Any Gaps
It is a very essential part of adopting the staff augmentation model as it helps in auditing the team and finding the gaps in skillsets. By identifying the gaps, you can better assess the needs and hire dedicated developers that can bridge the gap competently. You can do in-depth analysis and get better insight into what you lack and how to improve it.
It is evident that the breadth of knowledge among the developers who deal with multitude of projects is broader than those who handle similar type of projects. Therefore, identifying gaps leads you to hire the best candidates that can fill the space and produce better results.
Reviewing Companies Before Choosing One
You will find several companies with talent acquisition and staff augmentation services to provide solutions for your project. However, the best staff augmentation practice is to thoroughly review the companies before finalizing one.
You must be thinking what factors should I consider while finding the company for the services?
Let’s look at this.
By keeping these factors in view, you can shortlist the best companies and select the one that matches your requirements perfectly.
Offering a Strong Onboarding Process
After hiring the team, the first most important task is providing a holistic onboarding that can familiarize them with your company, its goals, systems, and processes.
A good onboarding process is one of the most important factors in IT staff augmentation best practices because it helps new hires settle in quickly and feel confident in their roles. Plus, it shows them that you care about their success and want to set them up for it. So, by making sure your team gets a solid onboarding, you’re not just helping them, you’re helping your company too!
Offering Team Synchronization and Motivation
When teams are hired and they start to work, many employers overlook the factor of syncing the team along with the required motivation. While talking about staff augmentation best practices, motivation and synchronization for the team is extremely significant.
Team synchronization will help you to make them more insightful about your project and the goals they need to meet. Also, motivating the staff hired for your project is essential so they don’t get off track and work on meeting the objectives.
Here is how you can synchronize and motivate your team:
- Define specific objectives for the team to focus on.
- Encourage transparent dialogue to foster collaboration.
- Acknowledge and reward team achievements to boost morale.
- Provide opportunities for skill development and advancement.
- Cultivate a supportive workplace culture for motivation
Transfer of Knowledge
For project continuity and success, transfer of knowledge is another significant factor. When a dedicated team or resource aligns, you must share all the relevant documentation, project guidelines, and internal processes. It helps them to stay informed about the requirements of working on a project and organization that further leads them to producing the required results.
Set Performance Metrics
For any project, performance metrics is the most important factor for evaluation of the overall performance. Staff augmentation metrics are key performance indicators (KPIs) that measure and analyze its efficacy. It gives insight into the team’s performance and the need for improvement.
To determine KPIs for evaluating staff augmentation efficacy, all performance metrics must be considered. Here are a few important KPIs that you can use for evaluation.
By evaluating these metrics, you can get detailed insights to understand how well it works and find the room for improvement.
Add Confidentiality Terms
SMBs and enterprises must work exclusively on adding confidentiality terms when working with nearshore and offshore teams. It helps in adding an additional layer or protection. For this, both parties must sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) to ensure that data is safe and protected; any action can be taken in terms of non-compliance.
Our Engagement Models for Staff Augmentation
Are you looking for expert web developers for various tech stacks? Devace Technologies brings you the three hiring models that you can choose for hiring the talent according to project requirements.
Staff Augmentation
One of the flexible hiring models is staff augmentation in which you can augment your existing team with additional skilled professionals as needed. These professionals work alongside your in-house team, integrating seamlessly into your project. It’s an ideal solution for short-term projects, seasonal workloads, or when you need specialized skills that your current team lacks.
Hire Dedicated Developers
In the Hire Dedicated Developers model, you have exclusive access to a team of professionals who work exclusively on your project. These developers become an extension of your in-house team, fully dedicated to achieving your project goals. This model ensures greater control, focus, and efficiency, as the dedicated team aligns closely with your project’s vision and objectives.
Software Outsourcing
It involves entrusting all or part of your project’s development tasks to us. We start from scratch and work on the entire development process, from requirement analysis to delivery. It allows businesses to leverage the expertise of specialized professionals, reduce development costs, and accelerate time-to-market. Outsourcing is particularly beneficial for businesses looking to focus on core activities while leveraging external resources for non-core functions.
Devace Technologies as Your Staff Augmentation Partner
We are a leading staff augmentation and outsourcing company that helps SMBs and enterprises in finding the right talent. From full-stack developer, Magento to Laravel, react.js to JS, and many others, we bring hand-picked candidates that are technologically efficient to help you achieve your goals.
Bottom Line
By following staff augmentation best practices, you can help your businesses to achieve their goals and objectives within the set time frame. With the right talent, you can complete your project and secure revenue without getting any obstacles in the way.
At Devace Technologies, we ensure you get the best candidates with the right skills and expertise to complete your project. Get in touch with us today!
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the methods of staff augmentation?
The methods of staff augmentation include project-based, temporary, long-term, onshore, and offshore augmentation according to your project requirements. For this, you need to shortlist the outsourcing companies, share your project scope, and choose the best candidates that match your interests the best.
What is the IT staff augmentation process?
The staff augmentation process includes identifying needs, defining roles, reviewing the outsourcing companies, onboarding and integration, ongoing support and maintenance, project completion and evaluation. This process of IT staff augmentation helps organizations access top talent, fill skill gaps, and accelerate project delivery while minimizing risks and overhead costs
What is the ideal duration for hiring staff augmentation?
It depends on your project requirements and scope. However, in general, staff augmentation engagements can range from short-term assignments lasting a few weeks to long-term contracts spanning several months or even years.
