Many of these challenges can be overcome with staff augmentation, technical and non-technical, an option that offers both quick solutions and cost savings. Companies can find the specific talent they need with minimal onboarding and training and then be ready to get down to business instantly.

What is staff augmentation?

With staff augmentation, companies bring in temporary workers long-term or short-term to fill staffing gaps, handle sudden projects, and back up their own teams. Staffing augmentation is a cost-effective way to meet current staffing requirements without committing to full-time hires and the training and cost that full-timers entail.

At the same time, staff augmentation allows companies to quickly scale up their workforce and then scale it down again, with less effort and cost than standard hiring. It’s a form of outsourcing that can be blended with your in-house teams and processes, leaving you in control.

Who uses staff augmentation?

Companies of all sorts turn to either technical or non-technical staff augmentation for a variety of reasons.

Software startups often rely on staff augmentation just to get off the ground. They start with an innovative technology, product, or service, but need to build prototypes and samples just to seek funding. Once funded, they are under pressure to get the product to market as quickly as possible. In both cases, staffing is what makes or breaks their effort.

Staff augmentation allows them to utilize an augmented team of coders—without cumbersome recruiting and onboarding costs and without having to persuade applicants they offer job security—one benefit that tech startups are short on.

Hospitals, meanwhile, use different forms of staff augmentation to augment nursing teams, bringing in “travelers” and temps to ensure staffing levels always meet their patient-care needs—tightrope hospitals are forced to constantly walk: when understaffed, patient care suffers, when overstaffed, budgets suffer.

Meanwhile, unskilled staff augmentation is common in factory and warehouse operations, in retail, and in hospitality where events create sudden but short-term needs. Technical, skill-based staff augmentation is used for clerical work, advertising, and data processing. These tasks require office productivity and language skills. Augmentation services are also available for highly skilled tasks such as software engineering and design.

Types of staff augmentation

Temporary. Here, temporary employees are brought in for a specified period of time to fill a gap in staffing needs. This is the most common form of staffing augmentation.

Contract. Contractors might be brought in for a period of time or based on a specific project. Companies turn to contract workers for specialized expertise. This sort of arrangement is common in everything from technology to construction.

Temp-to-perm. Many workers thrive on freelance and temporary work assignments that are high-paying and require no long-term commitment. But these workers often have an eye out or yearn for long-term stability and security, thus making the temporary-to-permanent option attractive. Both sides, the company and the employee, benefit from the opportunity to give each other a try.

Part-time. The use of part-time workers provides several benefits to companies. They are able to staff certain operations on a changing basis, without less staff-hour waste. They also benefit from cost savings in terms of healthcare and other benefits. Of course, those “cost savings” often translate to “stingy” in the eyes of workers, who may become less committed—and lead to a social and PR cost.

Offshore. Offshore staff augmentation offers quick scaling of operations and specific expertise at a lower cost. And some countries offer large talent pools with skilled workers who have proficient to fluent English language abilities.

The right staff augmentation partner

Staff augmentation services go well beyond just sending over workers. The right staffing partner helps companies do much more.

This includes assessing your company’s staffing needs and exploring all available options for your budget. Some augmentation agencies operate around the clock to handle emergencies.

Here are some considerations to think about in choosing a staffing partner for your company.

1.  Outline your staffing needs.

Begin with a rough outline of your goals and needs. What tasks do your teams need help with? Engineering or creative expertise? Once you have an estimate of your needs and hopes, the right partner will be able to offer solutions along with a staffing blueprint and project schedules and deadlines.

2. Research a potential staffing partner’s expertise

As with any business partner, you’ll want to look into firms’ experience and expertise. What are their specialties? Engineering? Digital marketing? What types of companies do they provide staffing services for? Do they specialize in startups or do they work with large companies, as well? Ask to see credentials and if possible speak with current or past clients of the firm.

3. Assess the staffing companies’ geographic reach 

Whether you’re outsourcing or seeking in-house workers, the first question is what options a staff provider can offer. Where are they located? Where do they have offices? Often the best option is a hybrid approach. For instance, for key tasks or creative tasks, you might want in-house staff working directly with your own teams, while more mundane projects could be handled offshore at substantial cost savings.

4. Beware of language and cultural barriers

If you are offshoring projects or departments, think carefully about language and cultural hurdles that might arise. Use Murphy’s Law: If something bad can happen, it will.

A prime example is offshore call centers for customer service. Many companies have faced consumer backlash after moving their call centers overseas. Several things are needed for these to be successful. One, the staff involved must have near-fluency in English. Two, the equipment used must be high quality; poor connections or connections with background noise erase whatever language skills you have.

And three, the call centers must have the authority to solve customer problems. In many cases, the overseas operators are required to “escalate” customer issues back to someone in the home country, a process guaranteed to exasperate already unhappy customers.

The right partner will be upfront about potential problems like these.

Takeaway

Staff augmentation solves numerous problems for many different types of companies. Even if you don’t have immediate needs, it’s good to talk to a few providers, get some ideas of what options are available, and be ready to move when needs do arise.