In this article we will look at important tips to get the most out of augmenting your employees with external staff for business owners who are currently trying to increase the capacity of their inhouse talents.
For those who are unfamiliar with the term, read our IT staff augmentation case study to learn and see an example of a situation when IT staff Augmentation was used.
Look for the right agency
Perhaps the first most important thing to look out for when you have decided to hire additional external capacity to augment the effort of your in-house team is choosing the staffing agency with features that makes using contingent staff less risky.
Your preferred agency of choice must offer a guarantee of a decent level of project secrecy especially if your project requires confidentiality. The more sensitive the nature of your project is or the more exposed you determine these external agencies’ staff are going to be to critical intellectual property, the more important it is that you choose the one that guarantees the most uptight confidentiality in your dealings.
Do a cost/benefit analysis
In some cases that we’ve seen in our agency, clients somewhat erroneously believed that staff augmenting would reduce their operational overhead since they don’t have to sponsor additional costs like employee insurance and matching retirement plan.
Whenever you decide to capitalize on external staff for your project as a business owner, make sure to do a comprehensive cost and benefit analysis to be sure that you are indeed saving your business cost or at least not spending more than you would be spending on engaging full time employees.
In most cases engaging full time employees would cost more than simply using external contingent staff when we factor in things like health insurance, retirement plan, and ongoing training.
Invest in contingent staff’s orientation
One thing to keep in mind as a business owner is that to get the most out of the external staff that you have decided to add to the capacity of your team, you must invest in training them in your company’s culture and familiarize them with the details of the projects they would work on.
To demonstrate how important this is, a recent Deloitte survey amongst companies that use an external workforce shows that many believe that the deeper the training given to these workers, the better and more satisfactory their output on projects becomes.
Prefer nearshore talents
In our founder’s guide to outsourcing software development we listed nearshore outsourcing as the most prefered type of outsourcing since it reduces the adverse impact of culture and communication barriers that can be crucial in how satisfactory projects turn out.
The advantage of nearshore outsourcing is why considering IT staff augmentation vendors from neighboring countries to undertake your projects should be a priority over contracting it to offshore vendors
Treat external staff as close to inhouse employees as possible
Using contingent staff can help you meet the demand of your organization in a very short period but a big determinant of their outcome to your project would be based on how much orientation you give them and how much of their advice and influence you allow.
When you treat external staff working on your project with very little difference from the way you treat your actual employees, there’s a higher likelihood to get a much more satisfactory result from engaging them.
Ultimately, whenever you are considering staff augmentation for your business as a business owner, the most important thing is to determine the goal you are trying to accomplish and what most important feature a staff augmentation agency should have to help you meet that goal.
Final thougths
Read our founder’s guide to outsourcing software development to learn how to properly vet and evaluate your agency of choice to determine if they are a good fit for things like timezone alignment and pricing model and other tips on choosing the right staff augmentation or outsourcing agency.
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