How To Choose The Right Staff Augmentation Service?

choosing right staff augmentation team

Be it a startup or a Fortune 500 company, businesses worldwide search for reducing operational and management costs. That is why they often outsource their project to lower the managerial burden. Some of them even have their in-house teams but are looking to add the required expertise with minimal time and cost on recruitment and training. When in-house teams fail to meet all market needs and spend a lot of time, money, and recruitment efforts rather than prioritizing on-time project deliverables, staff augmentation services comes into play. 

Businesses are now starting to take advantage of flexible staffing models like staff augmentation. Augmenting a staff model helps fill the skill gap by combining the benefits of both in-house hiring and outsourcing. Whether you’re a startup working on getting a new project or a well-established firm looking for staffing solutions in a foreign market, staff augmentation can be a perfect solution. Here is our in-depth guide to help you choose the right staff augmentation provider.

How to determine staff augmentation is the right model for you?

Staff augmentation is more synonymous with the IT industries, but it can help any business that requires skilled human resources to deal with short or long-term services. 

Staff augmentation could be a perfect option in a wide range of scenarios. Here are some points to determine while choosing the augmentation model:

  • Sometimes a company may need to add new team members and save up recruiting, training, and staff management. Augmenting staff is a perfect solution. 
  • When a product is at a final stage of its development, the product team recommends that a company hire new temporary employees to test the product before its rollout. Staff augmentation comes into play. 
  • Let’s say you already have software engineers working on one of the big projects, but you want to scale your team to have several programmers to develop another module of the products. Now you need to hire a team of 5-15 tech professionals, but it’s impossible due to the shortage of your local talent in the organization. You realize that local recruitment will take way longer and not viable at the moment. 
  • You are working on large projects with a team. But a project requires specialized knowledge, which in-house employees do not have, perhaps hiring some people that did not work out. Now you intend to hire from other countries/locations. Augmenting a staff is a perfect solution for the given scenario!
  • Unlike you collaborate with a project outsourcing or a project based consulting company to develop products, the model doesn’t fit you. The reason is; first, you want to communicate with your team regularly, and second, you wish to be well-connected with your remote team to make sure they feel like part of your organization. With the staff augmentation model, it is easier to integrate teams either locally or throughout the country. 

Things To Know While Choosing the Right Staff Augmentation Service 

Evaluate Contract Processes

Having a staff augmentation agency that can understand contract processes and tackle the common challenges is crucial to a company’s betterment.

A thorough contract process streamlines your business goals and helps save time and money whenever you work with a contract agreement. The key is to have a detailed contract agreement that can help to simplify the process.

For instance, if your staffing partner can only offer you some boilerplate contract that lacks the originality that could be a sign, they lack the resources or experience to handle the project or resource-specific staffing solutions. 

A better way is to engage a staff augmentation agency that will tailor work agreements to fit your business requirements and organizational goals. 

Likewise, assessing your firm’s development environment, ensuring that you have access to outstanding technical talent whenever you need it the most. 

Assess your staffing needs

What kind of expertise does your team need help with? It’s essential to answer at first sight when you begin seeking creative expertise to fill specific skill gaps.

But the point here is not all companies will have the exact augmented staffing needs or requirements. Whether you’re looking for a product designer or software engineer or can even be a web copywriter or virtual assistant for certain phases, you’ll need to gauge your firm’s staffing requirements. 

Consult with your HR manager, executives, and employees to get an overview of where you need to add specific skill sets, as well as on a project-by-project basis.

Staffing partner’s expertise and experience

A client testimonial or a work history is the first and most crucial thing determining an augmentation firm’s status. You can have a basic grasp of the website and through third-party review sites. Here are the few points you should be aware of while choosing an augmentation firm based on expertise and experience: 

  • Mindfully review a staffing agency’s credentials and portfolio.
  • Consult with previous clients and measure their levels of satisfaction with the services provided.
  • Ask around colleagues, trusted business partners, professionals in your related industry to know how past clients perceive your potential staffing provider.

Technical skills

Any augmentation firm should have a clear understanding of the nature of the project and its requirements. Many companies agree to a project to close the deal without having the necessary skillsets. Having an agreement without understanding the need can cause an issue with project deliverables and work quality. 

The great idea is to conduct additional interviews between tech teams and senior staff members, and project managers to understand their technical capabilities better. Another suggestion is to ask the staffing firm how they operate and how the distributed team will integrate into your work culture. 

Assess Local and International Market Reach

Let’s say your tech department is in dire need of a Web Analytics Developer to help diagnose and resolve issues, such as web page tagging or the use of data feeds. But your company lacks such a rare form of skill set, and you need to hire as fast as possible to complete the project. 

In such a case, you’ll have to partner with a staff augmentation firm with the collaboration, experience, and resources already in place to recruit, hire and manage remote staff — irrespective of location — as per the project requirement. 

Communication protocol

Your staffing provider’s communication is vital for on-time project deliverables. Does your staffing provider address a question with team members, such as?

  • Do team members communicate effectively with providers to make sure everything is going as per expectation? 
  • How often do they provide project updates? 
  • Do you get reports after the completion of the task?

A transparent communication philosophy will also strengthen an uninterrupted workflow and keep both parties up to date until completing the projects. Thus, on-time communication philosophy will allow you to manage the business process, the team’s performance and give you the ability to tackle challenges whenever they arise.

Finally, look for a company with well-defined communication protocols that keep clients and project managers up to date—regardless of time zone/locations.

Language and Cultural Differences

Any firm working with a remote team should ensure cultural and language compatibility between in-house team members with outsourced creative talent from different cultural backgrounds. Ensure yourself first while partnering with a staffing agency to evaluate your internal company background and provide you with staffing solutions.

For instance, if your firm already has a significant number of employees who speak Mandarin Chinese in addition to English. It makes sense to work with a distributed team based in Mandarin-speaking countries (assuming they have the right skill sets you’re searching for).

Augmenting such a team could provide you with a cost-effective staffing solution and establish effective client/remote worker communication channels. Offshore workers could still benefit from working with technical talent and quickly adapt within a short time frame. 

Productivity and quality monitoring

Many organizations have their productivity and quality monitoring systems for ongoing projects. Any firm should make sure while partnering with a staffing agency that provides clear and transparent plans, mechanisms, and a workflow for an ongoing task. 

Project deliverables & reporting 

Ensure to collaborate with an organization that is ready and willing to provide transparency and oversight of the workflow. For instance, a dedicated project manager can outline a plan that includes the expected project hours for the project deliverables.

Further Reading: Staff Augmentation VS Project Outsourcing: Which to choose?

Wrapping Up

The point is that you need to collaborate with a staffing partner that fits the company’s staffing requirements. To find a staffing agency that perfectly fits your company’s outsourcing needs here is summed up points you need to determine first:

  • Evaluating contract processes
  • Assess your company’s staffing needs
  • Researching potential Staffing Services & Expertise
  • Investigating an outsourcing agency’s global reach
  • Communication Procedures
  • Commitment to security, and 
  • Contract and Cultural Management Style

If you’re looking for a staff augmentation provider for your business, look no further! Our distributed team is just as committed as your internal staff to getting the job done. 

Apart from staff augmentation services, we also offer software development services, web apps, and mobile app to make every business better by understanding its requirement and providing a custom system or technical solution. 

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