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Recruiting and retaining exceptional talent is challenging and time-consuming, especially when tech companies demand experienced developers and engineers.
Additionally, filling gaps due to a lack of resources or specialists can be both difficult and time-consuming, especially for high-tech roles such as iOS developers or machine learning engineers, for which demands are often high. have stopped increasing since the great resignation.
This is where the staff augmentation model comes in! In this article, we will discuss the concept of staff augmentation, its growing demand, and why companies need to focus on expanding the internal team for quick hiring.
Related: 10 Strategies for Hiring and Retaining New Employees
Staff increase
Staff augmentation is a type of cooperation model where companies, from startups to large corporations, source talent through recruitment agencies to work with them temporarily to fill talent gaps quickly.
Today, staff augmentation has become commonplace, with nearly $500 billion spent annually on global IT staffing services alone.
Companies now prefer to partner with staff augmentation service providers to boost the skills of their internal teams and accelerate the development process rather than spending weeks prospecting for ideal candidates, conducting interviews and shortlisting candidates to fill an immediate talent gap.
Related: 6 Ways to Effectively Navigate Market Turbulence in the IT World
Why is staff augmentation gaining popularity?
The staff augmentation model has been successful in recent years for the following three reasons:
1. It is suitable for a hybrid working environment
People willing to transition to low-paying remote jobs rather than continuing to work on-site in their previous environments indicate that the future of work is distant. Remote work is the new normal, especially in the technology and digital transformation sectors.
Staff augmentation services are tailored to meet the needs of a distance-focused global economy that has yet to prepare to give up all the benefits of on-site work. With this setting, companies can extend support to their internal teams by partnering with staff augmentation service providers to fill talent gaps and meet deadlines faster.
2. It is low risk compared to other outsourcing models
The staff augmentation model triumphs over all outsourcing models in terms of flexibility, accessibility and quality. Compared to other outsourcing models, the risks of staff augmentation services are nil or zero due to constant collaboration with internal teams.
The augmented team or resource operates either as simple extensions of internal teams or under the supervision of internal managers. Uninterrupted collaboration and seamless integrations of both teams eliminate any possibility of errors.
Thus, the risk involved in this model is considerably lower than other project outsourcing models like offshoring or managed services.
3. Staff augmentation is flexible at scale without compromising sustainability
As the global recession began to knock on the doors, the results of aggressive hiring and fierce spending began to become more evident. Consequently, most companies have stopped or at least reduced their scaling expenditures by considerable margins.
This phenomenon has prevented thousands of global entrepreneurs from putting all the stakes and aggressively investing in growing their businesses. However, things started to take quite an exciting turn as IT staffing and resource augmentation services became mainstream.
With the increase in IT staff, companies are no longer inclined to compromise on sustainability, as they can terminate contracts with external teams if things start to go wrong.
This model allows entrepreneurs to fuel their desires to achieve exponential growth and scale without worrying about laying off permanent employees or (worst-case scenario) filing for bankruptcy.
Related: 6 Ways to Effectively Navigate Market Turbulence in the IT World
Why You Need to Start Implementing the Staff Augmentation Model
The following facts and figures clearly prove that the staff augmentation model is here to stay:
1. The Great Resignation and Revival
The culture of silent abandon has disrupted the workflow of organizations since the outbreak. Even in the midst of the global recession, where companies like Meta and Amazon are being forced to lay off a sizable portion of their workforce, the culture of silent abandonment hasn’t stopped.
People silently quit their high-paying jobs due to lack of serenity, toxic work environments, pay disparity, or other reasons. As an entrepreneur, you must be prepared to handle such cases within your organization.
While you should prioritize fostering a culture of collaboration and encouragement, you should also be prepared to fill talent gaps in the event that a team member resigns on short notice rather than leaving. compromising the quality of resources to fill the gaps.
2. Go beyond expectations to close talent gaps
Onshore, offshore, and nearshore markets could offer a greater diversity of IT skills and expertise that your business needs, depending on your location. With staff augmentation services, you can access a broader universal talent pool, including regions known to have the best IT talent, such as Europe and Asia.
Building external teams to fill talent gaps using staff augmentation services can also help you save the time and cost of setting up dedicated workspaces and recruiting staff. highly qualified teams.
3. Increase in cyberattacks
As companies shift to fully remote and hybrid work models, they become prone to cyberattacks and data breaches. According to Statista, data breaches in the third quarter of 2022 were at an all-time high, with companies reporting around 15 million data breaches.
Although companies are now setting up dedicated networking teams to protect confidential information from hackers and intruders, not all of them can afford it. So, they end up recruiting network engineers through an augmented staffing model to stay protected from potential cyber threats and data breaches.
Related: 4 Best Practices When Choosing a Recruitment Agency
Final Thoughts
Using staff augmentation to fill talent gaps instead of outsourcing models or managed services allows business owners to keep the project on track. As a business owner, you can choose the talent you feel is appropriate for the role and retain authority over the project to get things done your way.
With Recruitment Services, you not only eliminate recruiting time and costs, but also gain access to a global talent pool of highly skilled developers and engineers to work alongside your internal teams to optimize overall skills and to increase productivity.
