The modern business world faces one universal challenge: finding a qualified technology talent pool. As global businesses grow rapidly in a post-pandemic world, the demand for IT specialists is skyrocketing. While this comes as a positive development, it has, in turn, created a lack of skilled software developers.
Companies are now finding ways to deal with this new reality of finding alternate means to hire skilled technology workers. To meet their resourcing challenges effectively, many organizations are leveraging staff augmentation services. Staff augmentation solutions from reliable IT staffing service providers can help businesses successfully launch their products in the market and overcome challenges like difficulty in finding skilled resources. IT staff augmentation services also reduce the hassles of headhunting, payroll management, and other HR activities that their staff augmentation service provider handles.
IT outsourcing models like Staff Augmentation services are ruling the roost in the corporate world due to numerous additional reasons like optimizing project costs, tapping into the knowledge base of a skilled IT partner, increasing productivity, and allowing enterprises to focus on their core business.
In 2021, almost 7 out of 10 companies – a whopping 69% – reported talent shortages and faced difficulties in hiring the right resources. This number had touched a 15-year peak.
The pandemic effect on Staff Augmentation
The pandemic contributed significantly to the growth of the IT staff augmentation services industry. As more and more businesses went online, the demand for qualified IT specialists boomed. This demand made it difficult for enterprises to hire experts with the required skills and experience. It paved the way for staff augmentation solutions to emerging as a powerful resourcing option for businesses.
However, IT staff augmentation became prominent on the resourcing map even before the pandemic struck. It helped enterprises find talent, stay on top of their projects, reduce operational costs, and bring the best specialists onboard. With so much to its advantage, staff augmentation was bound to catch on. With the pandemic on the way out, the attention around staff augmentation is only getting bigger.
We know that staff augmentation brings convenience and a wide range of talent available to the table. However, does it mean that organizations should jump onto the staff augmentation bandwagon to cater to every resource requirement? While staff augmentation can be of critical help, whatever your condition may be, there are certain challenges that businesses need to address. In this blog will look at the primary roadblocks that enterprises can face while implementing staff augmentation and how they can work around them.
Read our another blog on IT Staff Augmentation Vs Managed Services: Which one is for you?
What makes staff augmentation a success?
Digitization has become the new normal, and the demand for technology products and services is growing at an unprecedented rate. This growth is compelling the IT industry to explore new and untapped staffing strategies. While there were many options, staff augmentation emerged as the most popular, as it helped organizations expand their team quickly and flexibly and fill the plugs in their talent requirements.
The two primary reasons that propelled staff augmentation into the corporate limelight were: IT companies were finding it difficult to hire qualified talent locally. Second, software development as a work area was always well-suited for a remote working setup.
Staff Augmentation services also began gaining traction because as businesses expand, they find that in-house hiring has inherent disadvantages. These fallouts include a long and expensive hiring process, evolving talent needs as the technology changes rapidly, difficulty finding talent, and a growing global attrition rate.
Given the many roadblocks that in-house hiring can pose for organizations, staff augmentation services are emerging as a faster and easier alternative for many new-age businesses.
Challenges of Staff Augmentation – and how to solve them
While staff augmentation services have emerged as the most effective way to cut costs, get on the road to innovation, and improve time-to-market, there are some challenges that companies need to navigate. Working around these roadblocks ensures that staff augmentation solutions work at their optimum level for you.
Let’s look at some of these challenges and understand how companies can resolve them.
Challenge 1: Zeroing in on the right talent to hire
The business world knows well that a talent shortage is a looming reality. This shortage makes it more and more difficult to find and hire IT specialists. According to research conducted by Microsoft in 2020, about 69% of UK business leaders felt their organization was facing a deep-seated digital skills gap. The talent shortage has been a big reason that’s given a boost to staff augmentation services. The challenge that companies face when they turn to staff augmentation is finding the right service provider to provide them with the niche talent they are looking for.
Solution: Find a well-fitting outsourcing partner to meet your talent needs. While zeroing in on a partner ensures that there are no roadblocks like cultural incompatibility, drastic time zone differences, lack of tech expertise, and problems in communication due to language barriers. Also, ensure that your staff augmentation partner complies with all security standards, such as ISO or other industry-specific certifications like HIPAA or PCI DSS. The partner should also be well-versed in information security and business continuity policies.
Challenge 2: Go for a partner who provides complete hiring flexibility
A big reason why businesses opt for staff augmentation is that it provides them with the flexibility to hire additional resources as and when they need them. This flexibility is critical for companies that work in a project-to-project environment. As they are frequent changes in resource scope, there are occasions where immediate and en masse hiring is also required. This scenario can pose a challenge for organizations if their staff augmentation solution partner does not guarantee flexibility in hiring.
Solution: Partner with a staff augmentation service provider who offers the agility to scale up your talent at short notice. They should be able to help you onboard the best talent whenever you need them. Alternatively, they should also allow you to remove employees when your project is completed, and you do not need a team with a specific skill set. This onboarding means your staff augmentation partner should also understand the industry you work in and your project requirements. This process will help them understand your resourcing needs well and provide the best-fitting talent in the shortest time.
Challenge 3: Staying on top of all legal issues
If you do not sign a fool-proof contract with your staff augmentation partner, you risk not having complete transparency and security in your relationship with your vendor. This formality makes a poorly executed contract a bane for your business. It may increase your outsourcing bills to unwarranted limits and affect the quality of workers who come on board your organization. The security standards of your company may also get compromised.
Solution: There are three main types of hiring contracts that organizations sign with their staff augmentation partners as per their business goals: a long-term dedicated development team, short-term projects, and fixed-price projects. Irrespective of the nature of the contract, organizations must ensure that some key points are included in it:
– Penalties for non-compliance.
– Best quality of talent is ensured.
– Security protocols are met.
– Clear terms for issuing and payments of invoices.
– Respect timelines for providing talent or project delivery.
Learn How To Find Reliable Agencies And Benefits Of Outsourcing In 2022 with our another blog
Challenge 4: Ensuring seamless transfer of knowledge
Seamless knowledge transfer is critical for every project that your organization takes on. And this knowledge transfer must happen at every stage of the project – be it during the launch, implementation, or at the end. If this knowledge transfer does not go smoothly with your outsourced team, you risk delays and roadblocks in your project.
Solution: For seamless knowledge transfer, work with a staff augmentation partner clued to best practices. A hastily conducted and unplanned knowledge transfer never works, resulting in incomplete information passed to the team. This incomplete transfer can hamper the pace of your project. Effective knowledge transfer must be meticulously planned and conducted as per a defined roadmap. It must also convey every minute detail of the project to the team with complete clarity.
To make knowledge transfer smooth, organizations must ensure that they are clear about the information that needs to conveying, identify the right people for training, and ensure that all their documentation is in place. Enterprises must also conduct an adequate number of meetings, and Q&A sessions, where all the stakeholders are present and de-briefed. Lastly, be assured that the outcomes of this knowledge transfer need to be measured so that you know it has happened successfully.
Use staff augmentation to grow your business to the next level
As organizations increasingly look at reducing staff and optimizing costs, staff augmentation services are a great way to grow a team as per your business needs. Given the vast range of benefits that staff augmentation services provide to enterprises, they are becoming the most sought-after hiring model in the business world. If your company follows the best practices and meets the challenges head-on, you can bring together a set of specialists who are experts in the technologies they work on and grow your organization to the next level.
If you want to know more about the staff augmentation services than call on +91-7778842856 (INDIA) / +1-303-997-3139 (USA) or write to sales@ecosmob.com
