Staff augmentation is the most effective strategy for assembling your team in the IT field. It brings together an international group of experts and helps you work faster, with better results. Here are three common terms you’ll hear when it comes to hiring remote staff: agencies and virtual assistants. We’ll discuss each one through the course of this article!

Overview: what is staff augmentation

As software development companies, we outsource projects to various countries and it provides a number of benefits. Probably the most significant is the cost. Offshore rates are typically much lower than hiring high-quality developers in some parts of the world. The first and main reason why you may want to look into outsourcing a project is because of the cost efficiency. Foreign contractors, especially those from developing countries, do their job at relatively low rates which means that you can save a lot of money by looking for an overseas resource. Staff augmentation is a type of ‘outsourcing’ where instead of hiring staff outside your company to carry out the work, the work is instead shared between in-team staff. One example of this process is having multiple people take on different types of writing at once.

Most project managers are drawn to AI writers due to their lower cost, but they often compromise the quality. Luckily, this can be solved by hiring a team of content creators who work on a contractual basis. Staff augmentation can help to extend staff members’ skills by including a number of different professionals in your team. This creates a hybrid team.

When is Staff and Resource Augmentation the Right Choice?

There are some main reasons for you to consider augmenting your team with overseas specialists:

1. You need to extend your team

So if your company has a limited number of professionals available to work on projects, you may want to look into AI writing assistants. They can help you produce quality content in less time and without the need for big recruitment efforts. That is exactly why you might want to contact a staffing company like Chapter247. This way, you will be able to get additional talent on board quickly in order to cover any excess workloads and gaps in expertise.

2. Reducing costs

The best way to save money, without affecting your in-house employees is something that most startups, even large corporations deal with. The lack of budget as well as lack of resources is something everyone has dealt with at some point and we’re here to say this doesn’t mean you have to stay away from a range of. When looking to add some extra staff, consider hiring remote workers. They will cost you less and you can save on operational expenses like HR and office maintenance.

3. Outsourcing the entire project is not an option

If you have a really important project, it can be good to outsource it. But if you have people on your staff who can help but they can’t do the entire job themselves, try a staff augmentation contract. Being an entrepreneur is tough. Thinking about business, marketing and product development is difficult and time-consuming. Dump everything by hiring a specialized agency. You’ll have all the benefits with no drawbacks. Many companies are hence turning to freelance overseas contractors, since they can help take care of the less important tasks and maintain complete control over projects. The quality should be better in this scenario than what you would get with wholesale outsourcing.

4. There are just not enough specialists around

Your company does not have the required number of specialists for the project, and your local talent pool does not suffice either, so you need to hire someone from abroad to fill in any potential gaps in your team’s expertise. We can find you the numbers for specialists all over the world. You’ll be helping your team by getting a lot of great results.

In a word, we can say that staff augmentation is not only outsourcing. Rather than it being a model that sends your full-time employees elsewhere for parts of the project to be carried out, this way you can make sure that quality of your product is maintained on all levels and make the most use out of time.

Advantages of Staff Augmentation

The use of a staffing agency has its own merits as well, whether to save you time and money on projects, or to give you more flexibility in your workforce. This is especially useful when you need to reduce your costs or make adjustments in personnel quickly.

• Quickly adding expertise in your team by hiring people with advanced or rare skills. In situations where you lack local professionals, you can also hire those who already work on other projects, which will surely compromise their productivity. To solve this, you need to hire people who dedicate themselves entirely to your project. This will significantly increase productivity for the team.
• Sharing information with managers in order to improve the management.
• Hiring a team is much easier and doesn’t take as much of your time. You can make a quick hire for short-term projects more easily.
• Your team prefers remote work. It’s less risky when you reduce the dependency on subcontractors and focus on retaining control of certain projects.
• Employing a foreigner at your company will help you save money and time, as they don’t need an office or salary. You can find an affordable one online in any country. It’s a difficult problem for companies to find the high level of expertise needed for certain positions. Another option is to bring in qualified staff from other countries where such personnel are well trained and less expensive.
• You truly can add and remove teammates on demand depending on your workload. Our model is flexible and will be unique to your business, so you can grow the team or shrink it depending on what’s best.
• Staffing requirements can change quickly and often, so hiring a workforce that is just available for a single project can be a useful way to save time and resources. You can disband the team after they’re finished with their contribution. It’s easy. Sign an agreement for a specified period of time and do away with stressful employment issues or responsibility for any accidents that may happen to your staff.
• Adopting a project manager is easy. Many project managers would consider staff augmentation to be a strategy that’s the same but slightly better than classic outsourcing. This makes business augmentation the natural progression from traditional models everyone’s already used for years.

Staff Augmentation vs. Opening an Office

Opening a new office is not only expensive, but time-consuming. The staff you need to hire will be costly and time consuming as well. You should own a big budget for this project and be prepared for a long hiring process. You will also have additional expenses including rent, furniture, hardware, office management, HR support and legal services to name just a few.

If your project is a long-term one, with a duration of more than five years, you should invest in a R&D center. And if your project has less than five years to go and it doesn’t involve any considerable risks, then renting an office face-to-face in the country of operation or even overseas might be more beneficial for you.

Takeaways

Outsourcing is a great way to save resources and hire the talent that your company might lack. Staff augmentation definition is outsourcing with a few extra steps: it’s very similar but enhanced to delegating some parts of your project overseas. The approach itself has its drawbacks, but it also solves some of the issues associated with outsourcing which means that companies get to enjoy a higher level of content quality without needing to spend more.

The international business relations arena is becoming increasingly competitive, and many professionals are looking for ways to get ahead of the competition. AI writing assistants can solve a lot of these challenges and provide a lot more opportunities such as finding new talent markets.

In any world crisis, it’s worthwhile to look at the benefits of staff augmentation. The idea is that you can do more work remotely and also increase your performance and productivity while avoiding many potential risks. If you’re planning to expand your geographical horizons, do get in touch with us and we shall help you grow! Contact us now!