The importance of IT Staff Augmentation for an IT organization

Updated On : May 2020

In the 21st century, IT Staff Augmentation is considered one of the most important tools for an IT organization to stay agile in a rapidly changing environment. Today, with technological advances and globalization, it is possible to have international remote teams easily working on projects together. Staff augmentation is the new buzzword on the IT job market with more and more global IT businesses switching from in-house development to remote hiring or IT staff augmentation.

This flexible outsourcing strategy enables an organization to hire IT talent globally and manage the augmented team directly. IT Staff augmentation offers IT organizations an opportunity to get qualified, customized employees whenever needed without the hassle of engaging directly with staff and eliminating long duration of training and interviews, thus saving on a lot of money

and time. Besides selecting the ideal candidate, IT organizations can also increase or cut down the augmented team as and when needed. It works to the advantage of an organization to be able to add dedicated skilled technical resources to its in-house development team on a short or long-term basis.

Hiring skilled and trained IT talent has always been a challenge for IT companies, along with the struggle to retain the employees after training them. While there could be an efficient team handling different client projects, multiple projects coming in at the same time make it necessary for additional workforce to handle them. IT staff augmentation helps organizations to be ready for projects even if their in-house team does not have the time or the required application and management skills.

IT Staff Augmentation is mostly opted for if

• The IT organization already has a team working on the project but wants to extend the team with professionals to work on another part of the project.
• The IT organization is developing a tech product or working on a project and needs to add new engineers to the team, with skillsets that are rare in the country and hence looks at hiring from other locations
• The IT organization wants to regularly communicate with the team directly and also want to be well-acquainted with the remote team of programmers

How IT Staff Augmentation Works

• The organization requiring IT staff augmentation services needs to identify exact number of people needed, the required skills, qualifications, expertise, etc.
• Once the requirements are stated, the next step is to interview the candidates short listed by the service provider to make sure they are qualified enough for the job. The next step is to successfully integrate the new team members into the team and make them comfortable in the new environment.
• There needs to be continuous support and nurturing of the new team members, to develop a comfortable professional relationship.
• The agreement with the service provider includes an NDA for protection of intellectual property as the new recruits become full-time employees with access to confidential information

Benefits of IT Staff Augmentation

• No Recruitment hassles Opting for IT staff augmentation services saves an organization the hassle of searching and recruiting which is taken over by the staff augmentation services provider who explore and find the right qualified professional for the job. The organization just conducts a final interview before taking on the candidate.
• Lower Operational Costs Opting for IT staff augmentation services saves a company the cost of office space, equipment, taxes, etc which are all a huge part of operation expenses.
• Fewer Legal Hassles When using staff augmentation services, the service provider remains the official employers of the hired IT professionals and takes care of all legal responsibilities and documentation. Taxes, payroll, and employee benefits are all taken care of by the service provider,
• Access to the experts and specialists An important benefit of staff augmentation is that the organization gets immediate access to experts from anywhere in the world, most of the times at a cost much lower than what would cost in their city, if they manage to find the right experts.
• Flexibility There is the advantage of more geographical and time flexibility with IT staff augmentation. Remote teams can take care of problems in different time zones at different places.
• Gain a competitive advantage Having access to the best skills and talent required for a particular project is a huge advantage for a company who will not have to worry about overheads and other employee issues.
• Meet aggressive deadlines With experienced professionals dedicatedly working on a project, chasing a deadline for a project is easier.
• Maintain control of the project Staff augmentation enables the organization to keep control of the project by selecting a temporary team, deciding on team leaders, and others, and delegating the work according to deliverables.