Let’s avoid the monotonous way of defining things and understand IT Staff Augmentation with real-life examples instead!

Suppose your senior engineer goes on leave and suddenly a crucial project lands on your desk. Will you hire a new engineer just for the short term?

In another instance, let’s say you want to migrate to the cloud and fall short of cloud-native developers to handle the migration. Will you fire your technical team and bring in new hires?

And what if you wish to reengineer your CRM system without having an in-house specialist? Will you go through the entire cycle of screening, shortlisting, and interviewing?

A smart hack that organizations use in such situations is what we call IT Staff Augmentation. This blog covers various aspects of IT Staff Augmentation and why companies leverage it.

Keep reading!

What is IT Staff Augmentation?

To put simply, IT staff augmentation is a cooperation mode where a company expands its in-house IT team by temporarily hiring IT specialists. These specialists serve as part of the in-house team and cooperate with the company’s employees for a specified time.

IT staff augmentation is done via outsourcing software development vendors who select competent engineers with similar project experience and share their CVs with you. You can interview the chosen specialists and get them on board.

It is a proven solution for the issue of acute IT personnel shortage, a reliable strategy to fill in the talent gaps.

What are the types of IT Staff Augmentation?

There are three types of IT staff augmentation. These include:

• Skill-based – When businesses require a reliable team to complete tasks that require particular skills (like cloud-native app development) • Commodity – When organizations require trustworthy specialists with diverse skill sets to complete projects • Highly skilled – When teams require experts with more advanced skills, extensive experience, and training

Why do companies leverage IT Staff Augmentation?

The benefits of IT staff augmentation are countless. It allows organizations to save a lot of time, money, and effort while bringing the best experts on board.

• Flexibility Staff augmentation enables businesses to hire as many specialists as needed and scale that team up and down. You may get two iOS developers, three QA engineers, and two UI/UX designers on board and work with just a cloud-native developer later.

• Growth and adaptability Hiring flexibility in the IT staff augmentation model permits businesses to expand and contract their operations on a trial basis. As there is no full-time workforce, there is no investment loss or risk of failure.

• High productivity With project-based hiring, managers just need experts efficient and productive in the required project itself (like cloud-native application development). Considerations like overall productivity and their stick-around time – as in the general hiring process – are eliminated.

• Direct communication When it comes to staff augmentation, you hold the authority to plan sprints, assign tasks, and control processes. The new hires are constantly in touch with you and report to you – no third-party stranger is involved.

• Affordability The in-house development services cost with an augmented team is low. The hardware expenses, software training, office rent, remuneration – everything is charged hourly. You only pay for what you need and as long as you need it.

When do organizations require IT Staff Augmentation?

Whenever organizations experience a lack of talent to reach their goals, IT staff augmentation can come in useful. These include a wide range of scenarios:

• Increased capacity An increase in the workforce to fulfill temporary spikes in everyday work (project work, cloud-native app development, etc.)

• A hiring bridge A bridge to provide capacity while hiring a permanent team for longer-term needs (a new line of business, new location, etc.)

• Specialized skills Requirement of out-of-house specialized skills required for short periods (technology setup, cloud-native application development, etc.)

• Competitive advantage Build a team using flexible labor to gain competitive advantage (increased deployment of services, agility in terms of skills, etc.)

Things to consider before IT Staff Augmentation

Recruiting new talent for your organization is a long and complex process. Having proper resources and talent at your disposal is crucial for a business to be truly successful.

• Determine needs The first step in the staff augmentation process is to outline outsourcing goals. This helps create a team with the desired creativity and skills.

• Properly source talent The next step is to choose the right talent source. Not all technical staffing firms are equal, it is imperative to choose one that vets its workers.

• Specify the roles Once the new hires are on board, the next big thing is to clearly define all roles and responsibilities. It helps avoid confusion and create a cohesive team.

• Provide continuous support It is not enough to hire augmented staff and leave them on their devices. Even the most skilled workers need a leader to guide them.

Solve your IT Staff Augmentation needs with CloudThat

CloudThat owns a pool of 500+ trained and certified IT experts with first-hand experience in cloud technologies. As an AWS Advanced Tier Partner, AWS Partner DevOps Services Competency, and AWS Public sector Partner it possesses the right mix of experience and resources to help businesses to utilize Cloud Staff Augmentation Services and move up in the business horizon. CloudThat has empowered a wide spectrum of clients that encompass educational, retail, hospitality, healthcare, e-commerce, manufacturing, automobile, banking, and many more sectors. Visit CloudThat.com to know more!