Staff augmentation is a business strategy where the skills of your existing staff are evaluated to determine which additional skills are required. Once you determine the skills that your team is lacking, you can augment your staff accordingly.
At Zivtech, our Staff Augmentation Model means that our team is an extension of your talent pool. Integrating one of our experts into your established workflow is more efficient than having to hire new employees to solve immediate business needs.
An important thing to remember is that staff augmentation is not outsourcing. In fact, the two business strategies are very different from one another. The key difference between staff augmentation and outsourcing is the amount of control you have over your team.
When you choose a staff augmentation model you get to maintain direct control over your team, the project, and the outcome. When you choose to outsource you are paying a vendor for a desired outcome and giving up direct managerial control. Outsourcing may also lead to some internal resistance and result in a lower quality product.
Flexibility
Staff augmentation gives businesses more flexibility when it comes to team sizes. Whether you are scaling your team up or down, you don’t have to go through the lengthy process of recruiting, interviewing, hiring, and onboarding new staff. Staff augmentation allows companies to adapt their teams on a per-project basis, enabling them to respond quickly to market or industry changes.
Control
When you choose staff augmentation over complete project outsourcing, you’re choosing to maintain total control over your team. With staff augmentation, companies have direct insight into how the temporary staff is working and cooperating with full-time employees. Additionally, they have the ability to monitor the progress of a project on a daily basis. This eliminates the risk factors associated with fully outsourcing a project.
Cost
The purpose of staff augmentation is to supplement your staff with outside talent. It’s a great way to reduce the general costs of hiring full-time employees. When you bring in short-term talent, you avoid negotiating salaries, benefits, and other expenses. If the project is successful, you can consider bringing the temporary staff on as full-time team members.
The staff augmentation business model allows you to keep projects flexible by eliminating contracts with third-party vendors. It also allows you to reassess the talents and skill-levels of your team whenever necessary.
If hiring new, full-time employees isn’t in your budget, consider the flexibility, control, and cost benefits of staff augmentation.