What is staff augmentation?
Staff augmentation -translated into Spanish as “increase in staff”- is the process of hiring niche specialists and staff for a company, based on your specific needs and requirements.
The staff augmentation strategy is used by companies to successfully staff their project and meet submission deadlines. This technique includes the evaluation of the collaborators and the determination of the additional competences for the position to be covered.
In simple terms, staff augmentation is the use of external personnel temporarily to enhance the capacity of a company. It should be noted that these external personnel join the base team of your company and are exclusively dedicated to the project tasks that you have assigned them.
Contrary to the conventional contracting system, this widening is not permanent, but a temporary filling of an eloquent gap on the contractual basis. The company that implements said work strategy does not have any administrative responsibility with this temporary team, like those it has with permanent members.
Outsourcing provides the opportunity to use external labor as a business strategy to hire specialized services from abroad to perform tasks that are not generally carried out in the company. This punctual expansion of the team helps to comply with the project schedule or to make increases in products in the short, medium and long term.
The difference between staff augmentation and outsourcing
The main difference between staff augmentation and outsourcing is that in the latter, the control of the project rests with the provider, who will also be responsible for project management and the display of the final tested product. On the other hand, staff augmentation provides in-house software engineers , therefore, who work together with the company team to obtain results.
Likewise, in the model of increase in personnel, many times, the payments of salaries and social security remain the responsibility of the provider of resources with a significant decrease in operational cost.
Staff augmentation: the advantages of the modality
In summary, the following are some of the benefits of the modality:
- Preserve revenue : Hiring full-time to work on a specific project takes more time, money, and sacrifice than necessary.
- Instead, companies can augment specific teams with specialized experts to work only on the short term. This avoids expenses associated with salaries and other costs of employing someone full time.
- Savings in infrastructure : If the company is small, it is not necessary to open new offices for those incorporated, since, with this modality, they can work remotely, connecting by video call to solve problems.
- Greater scalability: Reducing time and hiring targeted talent helps the company quickly scale its business than if it had to hire new full-time employees.
- Staff augmentation allows you to scale the workforce more profitably. Generally in industries, the workload of a company constantly varies in size and temporary staff is the solution to manage current and future demands.
- Efficiency : Outsourcing enables companies to maintain control over the skills and experience required of temporary staff.
The main benefit of this is that companies have the ability to monitor the sequence of their temporary hires, since they are likely working alongside their full-time staff.
The expansion of personnel allows companies to maintain the confidentiality of their projects and make recommendations for them in real time.
- No geographical limits: You can hire staff from anywhere in the world, without geographical or physical interruptions, and have the help of highly trained professionals, even if they are not in the country where they were hired or continent.
- Adaptation and expansion : Flexible hiring allows companies to expand their operations, on a trial basis and without investing in full-time labor.
Staff augmentation favors companies by allowing them to hire for projects to test their acceptability in new markets. The increase in collaborators opens doors for companies to seek to expand.
Staff augmentation: 5 tips to apply it
Although the increase in personnel is a practical alternative to expand a company temporarily, attention should be paid to 5 tips to ensure that the articulation of the base team with the temporary team is successful and the expected results are obtained:
- Evaluate the base team: Prior to hiring temporary personnel to meet the company’s needs, the strengths and weaknesses of the base team must be analyzed to conclude which talents are needed for current and future projects.
When identifying the missing talents, the company must ask itself what are the skills required in the short or short term. If it is long-term, a direct and classic modality is convenient. If it is for a short season, hiring staff augmentation will be appropriate. - Selection of members: Loyalty, sacrifice and previous experience are key human values to note when hiring staff.
- Distribution of roles: The tasks of the workers must be clear from the outset to avoid possible shortcomings.
- Establish contractual clauses: In order to avoid misunderstandings in the relationship, it is essential to establish the aspects that could cause eventual controversy.
- High Commitment : New entrants must have maximum full-time commitment to the project, even if their relationship is temporary.
Staff augmentation is relevant in the technology sector
One of the keys to successful operation in the company comes from a link between the work team and technology.
The pre-established working hours and the rigid workstations have become obsolete. Today, flexibility and cooperation, complemented by technology, are the norm.
In many cases, technology takes care of eliminating a series of conversations that are sterile when it comes to solving problems.
The challenge is that the jobs are connected to each other, so that the worker is more productive. In this mobile vision of workplaces, technology is the glue that holds workers together.
Technological tools such as web or mobile applications offer a framework of dynamism and flexibility by allowing workers to cooperate with each other on a common project.
At Xtendo we specialize in the solid end-to-end delivery of highly-customized technological solutions . We work for companies of all sizes, from startups to some of the largest corporations in the world.
We provide your organization with Staff Augmentation services by providing software engineers. They will work as part of your internal team, attend daily meetings, and report directly to your managers, proving to be a true competitive advantage for your business.
They have extensive industry knowledge to support the development cycle of your internal team, and are distributed throughout Latin America and aligned to your time zone for more efficient daily interaction and higher productivity.
On the other hand, all our engineers are fluent in English and can communicate effectively with your local team, reaching talent without borders.
Our IT Staffing service provides the dynamism, flexibility, and professional acumen your team needs to scale quickly and complete projects on time.
