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IT Staff Augmentation: How to Extend Your Team

Written by Admin | June 5, 2020

Staffing shortages will materialize at the most inconvenient moments and for a variety of reasons too. Many reputable companies and start-ups are turning to IT Staff Augmentation to cater to their hiring needs more efficiently.  

If you are going to venture into these waters, then you need to fully understand the ins and outs of IT Staff Augmentation and how it works. This brief introduction to the concept of IT Staff Augmentation covers all this—and will show you how to do it right. 

What is IT Staff Augmentation?

Gone are the days when recruiting in-house employees was the only option. Today, companies are setting up remote international teams through a finer outsourcing model—IT Staff Augmentation. Under this model, employers can staff their projects or the whole company overly based on their prevailing objectives and staffing needs. 

The role of IT staffing companies is to find and recruit the required talent. The existence of such service providers minimizes the inconvenience of a long and drawn-out hiring process for IT companies.

What is the difference between staff augmentation and managed services outsourcing

Although staff augmentation is also a unique outsourcing model, it is quite different from outsourcing using managed services. With managed services, the outsourcing company is in charge of the management of the hired staff. 

Staff augmentation, on the other hand, follows a different principle. In staff augmentation, it is your IT company, not a staffing company that manages the appointed remote team members. In short, the project manager tasked with responsibility for these team members is under the IT company with the staff shortage.  

How IT Staff Augmentation works

Companies often favor IT Staff Augmentation because of the control the model allows over outsourced human resources, especially the remote workers. If your company has a Chief Technology Officer, project manager, and other essential tech management staff, opt for staff augmentation. IT Staff Augmentation will be more beneficial to you than going down the managed services route.

Steps you must make to set up your IT Staff Augmentation.

  • Define your staffing needs

    Before the IT staffing company can come to your aid, you must define the exact number of remote developers you will need. You also need to establish other factors such as the skills, qualifications, and experience you require from your augmented staff.

  • Candidate Review and Selection Process

    Having a full grasp of your staffing needs and how you need them fulfilled is only the first step. Once the staffing company provides a suitable cache of candidates, you begin reviewing and selecting your ideal candidates. This includes carrying out interviews or aptitude tests to ensure they fit your criteria for suitable candidates. 

  • Orientation and Team Integration

    Once you have selected the crème de la crème, you now have to ensure there is a smooth integration with your existing staff. Integration is a delicate process. It determines how quickly the new team members can adapt to your organizational culture. Promote team integration, and remote developers will contribute productively to projects and their assigned roles.

  • Support and Nurturing

    There is a need for you to continue to offer support and nurture new talent post the integration phase integration. Establish a strong relationship with your remote team members by leveraging feedback for effective collaboration and cooperation.

Common challenges IT Staff Augmentation solves

IT Staff Augmentation isn’t a bubble that is going to bust any time soon. The arrangement holds multiple benefits for the IT business that needs to focus on its core business. You have the chance to carry out your projects with the least amount of interference arising from a staff shortage. The following are some of the problems staff augmentation solves better as compared to managed services.

Expensive Hiring Process

Your bill for in-house recruitment of new talent is no doubt relatively high. The costs your company accrues from IT Staff Augmentation is in contrast, much lower. This more cost-conscious approach leaves no room for recruiting expenses. Your company has the luxury to hire qualified talent, thus eliminating the need for a long training period. You get to save on both time and money.

Long Hiring Process

The hiring process can be quite long. At different stages, you need to provide varying dedicated resources. In the event of the unexpected loss of talent or large projects that require more hands-on-deck, a lengthy hiring process will be costly.

An IT business needs nibble access to ample human resources. Staff augmentation provides much-needed relief. Vacancies are quickly filled with qualified professionals ready to hit the ground running. Companies can cut down the time spent on locating, hiring, and training new team members. They can afford to do so without risking their product quality and productivity.

pwrteams deploys a structured, proven approach to take in a new client, or add new resources for an existing customer. On average, it takes around 5 to 8 weeks to get a dedicated team recruited and make it fully operational. With the help of pwrteams, the customer defines the manpower and physical resources required to deliver the expected services.

High Turnover Rates

The IT and software development industry is not immune to high employee turnover rates. Keeping in-house developers is increasingly becoming a challenge. Fortunately, companies can have a chance to get ahead of high turnover rates through IT Staff Augmentation. The approach offers companies access to top tier skilled IT professionals consistently. The company can get equally qualified and experienced experts to fill up vacant positions whenever the need arises. pwrteams has been “designed for retention” by its founders. We achieve an excellent average annual employee turnover below 10%.

Benefits of Embracing IT Staff Augmentation

IT companies determined to come out on top won’t only get to solve common industry problems. It is also a chance to optimize their teams across several functions.

Lower Operational and Development Costs

IT Staff Augmentation is a one way street to significant cost savings. Utilizing remote teams is not only more likely to result in a lower wage bill. Costs such as office space and equipment tend to go out the door as well. Talent sourced globally usually has lower salary requirements, especially for developers resident in areas with a lower cost of living. Additionally, a majority of taxes and employee benefits are void under this staffing arrangement. pwrteams actively seeks to build trust. This is why we set a transparent pricing model from the very beginning.

Reduced red tape and legal responsibility

Hiring new people usually involves a lot of paperwork. If the talent you need is coming from outside your borders, the red tape involved with getting them to begin working can be discouraging and demanding. Through IT Staff Augmentation, this responsibility falls onto the staffing company you have engaged. The staffing company is regarded as the employer of the augmented staff, leaving your company with less paperwork to fill out.

Access to More Quality Talent

IT companies in staff augmentation arrangements have access to a broader pool of qualified and highly sought after talent. Having access to globally sourced candidates widens the selection pool. It also brings more flexibility to factors such as salaries. Today, you can locate a suitably qualified developer in another part of the world willing to work for lower rates as compared to a similarly qualified developer in your city. 

pwrteams offices operate in Luxembourg, the US, the UK, the Netherlands, Poland, and Ukraine, providing a wide range of services. Ukraine and Poland provide several strong benefits for international companies that consider working with IT resources. Many experts agree that advantages such as cultural, mental, and geographical proximity to Western Europe, the availability of an extensive IT talent pool, strong scientific legacy, technical excellence, and cost benefits make Ukraine and Poland a natural choice for outsourcing.

Simpler Recruitment Process

With staff augmentation, the bulk of the leg work when locating talent is done by the staffing company. A more straightforward recruitment process is a considerable benefit for IT companies pressed for more developers. Your company only gets involved from the point of screening and interviewing. At that point, the candidates left to choose from will already be vetted and matching the company’s needs.

Ability to Increase Your Team and Output

Lower development and operational costs give companies room to hire more of the people they need. It is quite advantageous. Your company can increase the size of your team while maintaining the same costs. You can even make costs go lower when you embrace IT Staff Augmentation.

Flexibility

One of the most significant selling points for remote workers is flexibility. Your company can hire anyone from anywhere. For businesses in a fast-paced industry like IT, this is a competitive advantage in itself. You can retain team members in a different time zone that can attend to urgent matters when the other team members are sleeping. At pwrteams, there is no lock-in, and clients can easily scale up and down. No volume requirements. No exit fees.

Over to you

IT Staff Augmentation is fast becoming the new norm. Any company can use the IT Staff Augmentation model, be it an established enterprise or a new business. On the one hand, all you need is to approach communication effectively and make use of the right tools for integrating and engaging remote team workers. Engaging talented developers from all corners of the world requires a dedicated hiring process—and that’s where pwrteams comes into the picture.

With our flexible IT Staff Augmentation models, the workload no longer rests solely on in-house developers. You can establish dedicated development teams beyond your borders listlessly or build your very own affiliate company. Contact pwrteams Team now!