What is Staff Augmentation And How Does It Work?

When organizations need outside assistance to finish critical IT projects, two main delivery models are considered: project outsourcing and staff augmentation (SA).

SA refers to an outsourcing model in which temporary workers fill your company's short-term job openings.

This concept bears a similarity but also has distinct differences when compared with the other alternatives of project outsourcing.

The main difference between the two is that with SA; you are investing in engineering resources while still being in control of your team.

With outsourcing, you buy a prearranged, specific outcome and share the risks with the outsourcing vendor.

Let’s get to know more!

What is Staff Augmentation (SA)?

The meaning of staff augmentation is outsourcing workers for projects aligned with the organization's current staffing needs and objectives.

For instance, your company wants to develop a gaming application and needs seven developers. However, your in-house development team only contains four.

Now, how to hire an app developer for your project for a specific time?

Since you are looking for an experienced developer, the gap will not be covered within less than a month or two when hiring four talented developers.

A delay in hiring a developer will delay the project’s launch and deny you the revenue that you have foreseen.

However, the three developers can be appointed in weeks with SA, meaning that the projects can thus be completed faster and products launched quicker.

Moreover, augmenting staff is normally a cooperative model that majorly involves outsourcing.

This means that upon the release of your application to the markets, you don't fire the developers responsible for developing it for you.

This saves you from all the legal hassles and documentation attached to having full-time employment.

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Staff Augmentation: A Market Overview

IT staff augmentation offers ease in hiring, which is why this has become such a popular business today, especially due to the massive size of the software market.

According to a BusinessWire report, the revenue of this market is expected to be almost $1,493 billion in 2025, at an 11% CAGR.

The growth rate would be difficult to imagine without access to a vast pool of software specialists, which can only be offered through resource augmentation that helps spread the latest IT trends across businesses.

On the other hand, SA is fast since your outsourcing vendor handles all hiring steps and formalities.

They choose competent developers with the required expertise and proven work experience. All you or your company's executive needs to do is interview the selected individuals and on-board the suitable ones.

This helps your company remain agile and aligned with the project's timeline and delivery, averting revenue loss and a slow market launch.

How Does the IT Staff Augmentation Work?

Here is a closer look at how it works:

1. Determining Needs

The first part of the process is identifying your goals in terms of outsourcing.

It keeps you in an excellent position to create a team of talented workers with all the energy, creativity, and skills needed to ensure your project is completed timley and within budget.

2. Sourcing Talent

Then, you will take time to source the right talent. Not all development companies or technical staff firms are the same, and you should be sure you are choosing a firm that properly vets its workers.

With proper talent sourcing, you can keep peace of mind, knowing your workers are properly prepared for the task.

3. On-Boarding Talent

Once you get your team on board, you need to clarify all the roles and responsibilities involved. This is to avoid confusion about who plays what roles in the project and thus prevent it from going off track.

Allow the team members to raise questions and give their views at every step to have a cohesive team environment.

4. Providing Ongoing Support

Just recruiting casual workers is not a guarantee for the execution of a project.

Their implementation process will require proper monitoring of their input so that they deliver results on the deadline according to the specified project specifications.

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Types of IT Staff Augmentation Models

There are three main SA models:

1. Commodity-based Augmentation

This kind of augmentation demands that more people be introduced into an organization.

This can be for those people who do not necessarily have a high level of skills but are at an angle to perform the basics required by the organization.

Commodity-based augmentation is made available when an organization needs to recruit employees urgently and requires employees with the least skills for the nature of jobs.

2. Skill-based Augmentation

This is a staff augmentation that happens when firms hire well-skilled workers.

Such employees will have higher education and experience than the average employee in a firm, meaning they can do tasks much faster than their colleagues.

They may also possess skills that other firms may not have, like a backend developer. Thus, such workers are crucial to an organization.

3. Highly Skilled Augmentation

For organizations, highly skilled people would be brought in from an external organization to work specifically on projects within those organizations.

They can also be used to do jobs requiring such an area of expertise, including new product development or solving complex problems in already existing products.

It can also be divided into two categories: short-term and long-term. Short-term SA means bringing in temporary employees to assist you in completing a particular task.

For example, you are working on a Google ad campaign; therefore, bring in an intern to help you with the design elements. That is short-term since it is only for one project.

Conversely, SA for the long haul is when you hire somebody for a long-term period, usually above one year.

This might be because staff skills have developed tremendously, making them indispensable in your business, and you'd be forced to use their skills for a considerable long period.

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Types of Staff Augmentation Services

Here are the types of staff augmentation services and the factors to consider to choose the right one for your needs:

1. On-site

On-site SA refers to hiring temporary professionals to work on your premises. This form of service will allow you to collaborate directly and for them to be easily assimilated into your already existing teams.

This augmentation method is the best if a project demands close coordination, team alignment, and face-to-face interaction.

It makes communication effective and brings your existing staff and augmented members closer together during the system development life cycle.

2. Remote

As the name suggests, remote SA is hiring professionals who work remotely.

Such a service offers emerging businesses in India access to a global talent and is most suitable for organizations seeking specialized skills or cost-effective solutions.

Remote SA provides flexibility, scalability, and the possibility of working across different time zones.

However, effective communication and project management systems are very important for successful collaboration in a remote work environment.

3. Project-based

Project-based staff augmentation involves hiring experts for a specific project or assignment. This service allows businesses to tap into specialized skills and knowledge without long-term commitments.

Project-based augmentation is an excellent choice for short-term initiatives or when you require a specific set of skills not available internally, determined during the Proof of Concept (PoC) approach.

It allows scaling up or down your team according to the project's needs, thus optimizing resource use and saving costs.

4. Team-based

Team-based SA is the method where the entire team is hired to work on a specific project or area.

This approach allows an already existing team with the relevant skills and expertise to deliver complex projects, such as multi-vendor e-commerce app development.

It is helpful in cases where you require an entire team with complementary skill sets or want to ramp up quickly for some time-sensitive initiative.

It fosters efficient collaboration and streamlined project execution.

Consider These Factors While Choosing the Services

When selecting a staffing augmentation service provider, consider the following factors:

Some more factors to consider:

👉 Flexibility and Scalability

👉 Cultural Fit

👉 Communication and Project Management

👉 Talent Pool

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Comparing Staff Augmentation with Other Outsourcing Models

As discussed above, IT staff augmentation is outsourcing the required talent. However, it is one of the many outsourcing models available.

Many other outsourcing models exist, such as independent contractors (freelancers), time and material (T&M), dedicated teams, and offshore development centers.

Here is the comparison:

1. SA vs Independent Contractors

If you hire a freelancer, you (or a client) would have to take responsibility for most of the project key points.

You would have to deal with communication, management, payroll, etc.

A vendor would cover all these if you opted for IT staff augmentation. On the other hand, hiring independent contractors means you won't have to pay a commission to a vendor.

Instead, you would hire the contractor directly. However, an important thing to consider here is that specific limitations apply to the position occupied by an independent contractor in an organization.

For example, you wouldn't need to provide employee perks or compensate for overhead expenses when working with an independent contractor.

Also, your role may carry restricted access to your company's data or information that would otherwise be shared with your augment staff.

2. SA vs Managed Services

The most apparent difference between IT SA and managed services is the level of control a client grants to the vendor.

In the former, only the provisioning of staff required is assigned to the vendor, and the rest remains under a client's control, whereas the latter is a one-in-all service.

Manager services vendors take external control of a client's non-core systems. They take control of everything related to the client's proper functioning while providing talent.

Managed services thus involve more delegation. It is an excellent solution for organizations that aim to optimize the allocation of their resources and focus only on their internal teams on strategic priorities.

The services are as needed as that of a solution architect in a software project.

3. SA vs Dedicated Teams

Although these two outsourcing models are quite similar, a difference exists: the vendor takes on more responsibility for the outsourced vendor if a client wants dedicated teams.

You can manage your outsourced team members by utilizing resources and staffing augmentation. In a dedicated team, however, the operations are done by vendors.

Even though the former is used to full-time engagement, in the latter, one must engage with more than one client in a day.

The vendor checks on the salary of a dedicated team; in the case of SA, though, it depends on the client.

4. SA vs Offshore Development Centres

More or less, the difference would be the same: building one's own house and renting one.

An ODC is a representative office your vendor will set up for you. They will recruit the staff, find an office space, and find other service providers for furniture, internet connections, supplies, etc.

All these will be included in the vendor's fee, and once everything is good to go, you can manage the team and the office on your own, as it will operate as a part of your organization.

5. Staff Augmentation vs Time and Material (T&M)

The time and material outsourcing model is where a client pays for the time dedicated by a development team or single developer while working under them.

Staff augmentation is quite different from this as it involves temporary staff employment by augmentation companies, who handle all employment's taxation, documentation, and administration expenses.

Here, the client can take over the payroll responsibility if they want it. Normally, the salary reviews and perks are on the client., but sometimes the vendors may handle those as well.

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How Do You Choose the Right Staff Augmentation Model?

Here are a few areas to consider when you’re selecting the augmentation model:

Project Duration

Consider the rough timeline of your project. Staff augmentation would be the best choice if it is less than six months. If not, then you may choose from the other models.

Cost Calculation

Evaluate the cost of training in-house development staff to develop and work with augmented staff. Compare it with outsourcing the entire project or hiring a dedicated team.

If communication and management processes are ineffective, staff augmentation will fail in their promise of saving on cost.

Data Sensitivity

Consider the sensitivity of whatever data you disclose. For this, signing an augmentation contract with NDA terms and conditions with the concerned vendor and web developers is always a good practice.

Pros & Cons of Staff Augmentation

Here are the benefits and challenges of staff augmentation:

Conclusion

Hiring new talent is cumbersome, and the outcome of recruiting employees can easily be unpredictable.

Staff augmentation can be an invaluable solution to such challenges, where you can on-board efficient talent without any long-term commitment.

Hiring flexible remote talent without bothering with paperwork or other tedious processes can help you stay ahead of your competition while giving you better project control.

Furthermore, if you wish to connect with a web development company providing a variety of services, from web development to on-demand app development, contact Arramton Infotech.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. When is staff augmentation necessary?

Ans: You need staff augmentation when you want talent but don't want full-time employees. This is generally true when you want to provide for some projects but don't have the people you need. You can augment your staff by outsourcing developers to work only on projects you want and letting them go once the project is done.

Q. What is the meaning of staff augmentation?

Ans: In simple terms, staff augmentation is one term to describe talent outsourcing, that is, hiring somebody for some fixed period. Thus, instead of hiring somebody full-time who can help you with some development work, you hire somebody on a contractual basis and pay them. After that, the term of the contract expires, after which you renew that contract or may terminate.

Q. Why do companies use staff augmentation?

Ans: One of the most practical ways to meet today's need for IT scaling is Staff augmentation. Whether one has the desire to bring more developers aboard or give out some, scaling their staff, in either case, isn't easy as it will consist of paperwork, legality issues, and several more forms.

Q. What are the types of staff augmentation models?

Ans: There are three main types of staff augmentation models:

👉 Commodity

👉 skill-based

👉 highly skilled