What Is Staff Augmentation?

Have you ever been in need of more hands for a project your in-house team cannot handle? Or need some more speed to finish a feature on time? That’s where staff augmentation comes in handy! Let’s take a closer look at this service.

‍Staff augmentation consists of outsourcing workers to help complete projects in an organization. These workers are not employees of the company but helping hands that can be unplugged once the task or work needed is completed. 

For many companies, staff augmentation is the perfect solution when they need to rapidly fill in open positions without having to engage in a long and tedious hiring process. In this article, we will cover everything you need to know about staff augmentation. You ready?

Staff Augmentation Meaning

In many cases, companies don’t have the bandwidth to take on more projects, develop new functionalities, or tackle some tasks. Hiring more people and growing the workforce is an option, but it could affect the company’s burn rate.

‍Staff augmentation means outsourcing team members for a team on a flexible arrangement instead of hiring as part of the staff. With staff augmentation, companies can add extra hands without having to permanently hire in-house workers.

Although you still have to make the hire and interview the candidate, the administrative process is way simpler. The outsourcing company you decide to partner with will help you in the process, and they will be responsible for the temporary worker and their payment.

Click here to read a comprehensive article about the benefits of outsourcing software development.

When to use Staff Augmentation

You need staff augmentation if you are going through one of these scenarios:

• Your in-house team is saturated with work
• You need more hands but don’t want to permanently hire
• You are on a tight deadline
• Your team lacks the expertise

Let’s take a closer look at each of them.

Your in-house team is saturated with work

When you are developing a digital product, you might have a set of functionalities and requirements you would like to have completed. In some cases, your in-house team might not be able to tackle everything since their focus is somewhere else.

In these cases, having an extra set of hands can help your team stay focused on their tasks and have someone else take care of the rest. Not only is this beneficial for your timeline and expectations but also for your in-house team.

Since the team will feel relieved the other tasks are being handled, they will be more productive in the ones they are tackling at the moment. Plus, a good hire will help you improve the efficiency of your project overall.

You need more hands but don’t want to permanently hire

If you are going through a time in your company when you need to have more workers but you don’t want to grow your workforce at the time, you can use staff augmentation. Many companies need more hands on deck but they cannot afford to hire long-term employees.

Staff augmentation’s flexibility allows companies to hire without administrative burdens, taxes, benefits, and more. This on-demand service works depending on your momentarily needs and helps you scale your business without having to make stronger commitments.

You are on a tight deadline

Many companies and especially emerging startups have tight deadlines to complete their projects, products, or functionalities. When this happens, the internal team might not beagle to deliver on time.

In order to meet the deadline, you can use the staff augmentation service and add extra hands to make sure you succeed. In these cases, staff augmentation is the perfect fit because you don’t need to keep employees in your team, you just need to complete a task before a certain deadline and then you can stop working with those resources.

Your team lacks the expertise

Sometimes, functionalities or specific tasks require expertise your team doesn’t have. Instead of forcing things or having to hire someone, you can use staff augmentation. With this service, you can immediately add the expertise you need to complete the requirements.

Your in-house team can continue working on what they are best at while your external set of hands can focus on developing the software you need.

Why Is Staff Augmentation Important

Nowadays, staff augmentation opens the door for companies to hire talent from all over the world. Remote teams can join organizations and use their expertise to develop solid software solutions.

Check out this guide we created on working with remote teams!

This service is a great way for companies to improve their productivity, become more efficient, and have better results without having to go through the process of hiring and keeping employees.

Its flexibility is one of the main benefits, especially for emerging startups in the complicated economic landscape we are going through. Staff augmentation helps keep operational costs low for new companies.

Wrapping Up

As you have seen in this article, staff augmentation is a great way to increase the productivity of your company and reach your internal goals. Choose the right outsourcing partner and you will add talented experts to your in-house team!

Why Bixlabs?

Bixlabs is a software development company with over 8 years of experience providing individual devs as well as ready-to-work teams for startups and large companies. If you have a project and want to start right away, we are the solution you’ve been looking for.

Want to know more about how we can help you reach success? Schedule a call now!