Pros and Cons of Staff Augmentation
Everything You Wanted to Know About Pros and Cons of Staff Augmentation
Staff augmentation is an outsourcing model where workers are hired for short-term periods to fill in vacant positions temporarily.
On the other hand, staff outsourcing is a practice where another company or entity is contracted to hire and manage employees for a business. These employees are hired to fill in the gaps and perform tasks done by employees of the original company.
Outsourcing is a long-term process, and the relationship between the two firms can go on for years. For example, for several decades, tech companies have outsourced various business processes like device production to companies like China.
Staff augmentation differs from outsourcing in many different ways (https://sonatafy.com/staff-augmentation-vs-outsourcing/), and they both have their advantages and disadvantages of their own. The distinction between the two is that in staff augmentation, the business hires human resources from outside for a short-term basis while at the same time keeping direct control over the team and the permanent staff.
While doing this, the company also avoids the risks of any significant project requiring investment. On the other hand, outsourcing the company hires another company to recruit, train, and manage the team that will perform a specific task on the mother company’s behalf. The adverse risks of the project are shared between the original business and the hired company that manages the project, and the staff that is working on a particular project.
With outsourcing, the mother entity does not have direct control over the hired staff.
For example, you can hire an IT company to recruit and train qualified professionals to manage development projects that you have assigned them. The team from outside will work independently from your company and will not get involved in any internal development work. Therefore, their work will be fine with your company’s internal in-house programming activities. You outsource business functions to an external entity when you do not need to have control over their work. On the other hand, staff augmentation is under your control, and you have the right to assign them any other task besides what they were hired to do.
In short, you are hiring engineering resources to work for you while you keep your original team for staff augmentation. The augmentation mainly applies when you have a small or medium staff that cannot handle the workload during the high season of the business, and at the same time, you are not willing to hire extra members permanently.
With this model, you can choose whether you want to get a team that will easily integrate with your employees quickly and whether you want the outside team to be available during the entire project, certain stages, or during the final review of your project. As an IT company giving all control over your project can be risky, this is where staff augmentation can help you since you can manage your project independently and simultaneously pay for what you need.
Frequently Asked Questions About Pros and Cons of Staff Augmentation
pros and cos , advantages and Benefits of Staff Augmentation
While outsourcing and staff augmentation have cons and pros, the latter is more suitable for companies with businesses in continuous flux. With augmentation, you and your company can get outside workforce on a needed basis while still keeping absolute control over your current staff and enabling them to entirely focus on specific areas of the project or ongoing tasks. You can hence have more control over the project’s outcome and can quickly make changes whenever necessary.
Adding Manpower and Filling Gaps with staff augmentation
There are many advantages to the staff augmentation model. The first one is that you can hire extra employees when needed.
In addition, you can select qualified and experienced individuals according to your expectations, company standards, and culture. It is also helpful when you need to fill existing gaps and expand your team during specific projects, periods, or seasons.
With staff augmentation, you can add talents from around the globe and add experienced technical resources to your existing team on a short-term or long-term contract based on your need. By doing this and getting talents from different backgrounds, your permanent employees learn from other personnel and improve their abilities and experience (1).
“Staff augmentation companies can provide businesses with access to a pool of qualified candidates, making it easier to fill open positions. This can help to reduce the time and cost associated with recruitment. “
– Tech Journal
Finally, if you need to fill a permanent position, you can easily find them from those who work temporarily since you have established a good rapport with them. You have also vetted the workers and can know if they are a good fit for your firm.
Cutting Operational Costs with staff augmentation
Since no third party is involved, the cost of managing extra employees will be lowered since you have the power to decide with whom you can work. The contract employees will be paid almost like the permanent employees with only a slight difference.
Furthermore, you have the choice to pay for what you need. You can recruit talents based on what you don’t have or are missing. In addition, these employees will be let go when the project is completed, or their contract expires.
You are not forced to keep them permanently since it is costly. Staff augmentation will allow your business to spare some money over time since you will not need to keep an employee in areas that are not active daily.
Saving Time with staff augmentation
Staff augmentation can help you save time for both you and company leaders like managers and the human resource department. Getting a permanent employee, you will need much time to create job listings and recruit and interview candidates to get someone qualified for the required position.
In addition, recruiting permanent employees needs proper paperwork and scrutiny to hire them full-time.
Staff augmentation will help reduce time spent on the recruitment and hiring processes since little paperwork is needed, and no severe scrutiny is necessary. In the long run, the time and energy that would have been spent looking for an ideal candidate can be spent on other business areas and spearheading the company’s growth.
Maintaining Control over Existing Staff augmentation model
Another important and extra advantage of staff augmentation is maintaining control over your current employees. When you outsource your project to another company, you give power over your project to strangers and people with whom you don’t have complete trust. You cannot be sure whether the project will be executed and completed as you wish since you don’t have visibility of what is happening. On the other hand, staff augmentation allows you to temporarily choose a team you will work with on your project. You will have control to select leaders for the project and know whom to give first priority when the project is still running (2).
“Having your in-house team allows you to fully control how the project is executed and ensure the outcome meets the quality standards of your organization. “
– Distant Job
By selecting staff augmentation over outsourcing, you can eliminate some geographical aspects, such as weather and different time zones. With outsourcing, sometimes it can be frustrating since people working on your project can be from other parts of the world and have different time zones. This will make communication between themselves and between you and them difficult since they cannot be found during convenient hours for you. With staff augmentation, you will not need to worry about this since the staff is on-site, or you can recruit people in the same time zone.
Drawbacks of Staff Augmentation employees
Staff augmentation sounds like a good deal, but this is only true for some scenarios. Staff augmentation will always need adjustments and adding processes and tools to the internal operations compared to the standard ones for permanent employees. Issues can also arise when using staff augmentation, especially when it becomes a go-to model. This can be expensive since some projects might take longer than expected, and to maintain the staff, you will need to adjust the budget, which will turn out to be costly sometimes.
Oversight and Management
The expansion of staff and resources requires oversight and processes. For the new team to fit in and work with you on a project, some functions must be adjusted to accommodate them every time. The leaders of your company have to adapt themselves to find who will manage whom during the development of the project. This will always be a continuous process every time a new project arises. Compared to permanent staff, the process is always standard, and the leader of the departments are always on standby and known. In addition, it always takes time for the new staff to fit in and adjust to the spirit and culture of your company (3).
“A lack of communication can seriously affect the working relationship you have with your external development team. This goes hand in hand with a poor project management system, as both parties end up withholding information from one another and putting a strain on their relationship.”
– Blue Coding
Lack of Company Knowledge
Some projects require an immense history and someone resourceful; such projects can only be taken care of by someone who has been with the company for a long time. With new employees, you will always need to train and ramp them off. After the project is completed, the trained employee will be laid off, and a new employee will have to be introduced again in the subsequent project. Sometimes, this can be time-consuming since teaching someone new is only occasionally accessible. The time that would have been used in developing the project will be spent on something other than training.
Long-term project Employment Costs
Each time you have a new project, you must pay recruitment agencies for the needed staff. Some placement agencies prove costly since you will have to pay the agency for the placement and, at the same time, pay for the talent. So, overtime staff augmentation contractors will prove to be expensive compared to people you hire permanently, and in reality, they can perform the same tasks done by those engaged in the short term. On a permanent basis, the company will only need to hire a new employee when one leaves, which happens occasionally.
Before selecting staff augmentation, it is better to review other available models. Not all staffing models suit all businesses or companies – click to find out why; some may be catastrophic. It also depends on the project; sometimes, it might be long-term, and selecting staff augmentation might be challenging. Finally, with staff augmentation, the company might lose valuable employees that would have proved to be helpful for your business and the entire organization.
References:
- Staff augmentation companies can provide businesses with access to a pool of qualified candidates, making it easier to fill open positions. This can help to reduce the time and cost associated with recruitment. – Tech Journal Quote
https://techjournal.org/signs-you-need-staff-augmentation-services/ - Having your in-house team allows you to fully control how the project is executed and ensure the outcome meets the quality standards of your organization. – Distant Job Quote
https://distantjob.com/blog/it-staff-augmentation-business/ - A lack of communication can seriously affect the working relationship you have with your external development team. This goes hand in hand with a poor project management system, as both parties end up withholding information from one another and putting a strain on their relationship. – Blue Coding Quote
https://www.bluecoding.com/post/the-5-most-common-it-staff-augmentation-problems