Small- and medium-sized companies can greatly benefit from staff augmentation, which is also commonly referred to as contract engineering and contingent workforce. It is a form of outsourcing strategy that enables these companies to fulfill their project and business objectives without sacrificing time and money.
If you choose to apply this strategy into your business, you have to assess your current employees and learn about the skill set that they possess. Are your employees the right fit for the project that you are about to do? Do they have what it takes to get the job done on time? If yes, then you do not have any problem. You may proceed with the project normally. If no, you may want to hire skilled persons instead of training the employees you currently have or hiring new ones.
Outsourcing services and hiring contract workers is a practical and cost-effective move. It deals with your staffing requirements without costing you more money than necessary. This allows you to stick to your allotted budget. When you hire new full-time employees who have the skills you need for your current project, you need to give them the necessary benefits. Also, you cannot just fire them once the project is over. Hiring new people is just too complicated.
On the other hand, if you train your current staff, you will have problems with work balance. Since you are focusing on the new project, there would not be enough people who are left to do other tasks. The employees that you are training for the new project may also have a hard time keeping up with training, especially if it is not their specialty.
Staff augmentation is a successful industry. In 2015, it reached about $45 billion. This happened because of the increasing demand of companies and organizations for specialized skills. They have learned that hiring other workers instead of teaching and training their current ones is much more convenient, cost-effective, and efficient. Insisting to rely solely on your current employees for your projects is impractical and risky, especially since the information technology (IT) needs of your company are mostly changing on a constant basis.
Most of the companies and organizations that turn to staff augmentation are in need of information technology (IT) professionals. They typically hire programmers and software developers for their projects. They hire them based on their qualifications, recommendations, and rates.
Companies and organizations in the field of engineering also benefit from staff augmentation. Since most of their employees are experts in information technology (IT), they can easily improve their business without having to hire new employees. Take note that the success and failure of a business are often determined on the companyâs ability to complete projects on schedule, within their budget, and according to specifications.
Pros and Cons of Staff Augmentation
When you resort to staff augmentation, you can have full control over your staff. You can also integrate resources with your current processes more effectively. After all, individuals can better adapt to the organizations processes than two individual organizations aligning with each other. Furthermore, you can take advantage of the internal and external resources of your company for your projects.
When the gaps in your teams are comprised of specialized skills, you can effectively fill in these gaps through staff augmentation. You can also find it much easier to subtract and add resources to match the demands of the staffing needs that rapidly increase. You can also avoid the costs of investing in the development of internal skills.
On the contrary, the training can be intensive. Even though you can avoid the costs associated with training new employees, you may still have to shoulder expenses involved with bringing resources up to speed with tools, general domain knowledge, and processes. Also, as the needs of your company increase, your cost structure may not improve, especially since resources are gradually added. The rates are also usually negotiated per resources.