Staff Augmentation is a type of outsourcing strategy used by businesses, especially in IT. Staff augmentation requires the current in-house team to be evaluated. Then, depending on the weaknesses that exist within the team, experts are brought in who have the skills the current team lacks.
There are many types of staff augmentation. To fully optimize your in-house team and come up with effective business strategies, businesses must have a complete understanding of the different types of staff augmentation. That’s why we have prepared a comprehensive guide to understanding the types of staff augmentation.
5 Types of Staff Augmentation
Although staff augmentation may sound a lot like outsourcing, there are certain key differences. To learn more about augmentation vs outsourcing. In this section, we’ll take a look at the types of staff augmentation.
Traditional Staff Augmentation
Traditional staff augmentation follows hiring talented experts depending on what problems your in-house teams are having, temporarily. This usually requires the professionals to be onsite for the duration of the project. The professionals are added to the in-house team until the project is terminated, after which, their contract, also, is terminated.
For instance, if your company is thinking of developing a specific game but lacks skillful developers, you can traditionally augment your staff by bringing in external talent. The augmented team will foresee the entire project until its completion.
There are several pros to this. Traditional staff augmentation is more cost-effective than traditional hiring practices. You don’t need any extra onboarding training programs either, since the people are already experts. Additionally, it’s easier to scale since it’s a temporary, contractual job. There are some cons to this as well. Access to a global talent pool is limited, unlike offshore staff augmentation.
Offshore Staff Augmentation
In offshore IT staff augmentation, the professionals are from a different country with a significant time difference, unlike in traditional staff augmentation. Your professionals will work internally, remotely, from their country.
This is beneficial and is often hailed as the most cost-effective form of staff augmentation since there are no traditional hiring practices associated with it. Additionally, it’s flexible and scalable, especially because the global talent pool is limitless.
However, there are some challenges in adapting to the time zones and culture of the professional. Additionally, having onsite professionals may make communication with the in-house team easier, which isn’t an option in offshore staff augmentation.
Onshore Staff Augmentation
Onshore staff augmentation refers to hiring professionals in the same country. In this process, you hire professionals from another company through a vendor, based in your country, unlike offshore staff augmentation.
This has enormous benefits, you don’t need to adjust to time zones. It’s also easier to communicate within the team with the person onsite. It’s time-efficient, and there’s greater communication established within the team.
However, there are some challenges as well, since the hiring pool is limited to geographical proximity. Hence your access to the global talent pool is cut off.
Remote Staff Augmentation
Remote staff augmentation refers to hiring IT professionals remotely. These professionals can be both national and international, but they don’t have the mandate to work onsite. According to work trends, remote work is becoming increasingly popular among businesses, and studies have shown employees work more productively when working remotely.
The augmented team members work remotely with your in-house team on the project. This option is extremely cost-efficient as you don’t have to go through the traditional hiring route. It’s also very flexible and gives you a greater talent pool to access.
However, there may be some trouble communicating with the in-house team while working remotely.
Agile Staff Augmentation
Agile staff augmentation consists of an agile team with multiple experts from different fields, hired to ensure the success of a project. The agile team oversees end-to-end software development, from the inception to the completion of the project. Each member of the team has specific expertise.
Agile staff augmentation offers many benefits. They help by providing customized company solutions, better and more efficient results with project completion, and inducing cross-cultural collaboration.
However, there are also some drawbacks. Agile staff augmentation can be less predictable due to the diversity of the team. It also requires a bigger time commitment for the project, and may not work for short-term projects.
If you are considering staff augmentation for your business and are looking for IT staff augmentation services, you should consider Vivasoft. We can provide customized, comprehensive augmentation services for your company.
Benefits of Different Types of Staff Augmentation
Efficiency and Flexibility
All types of staff augmentation are more flexible than traditional practices. Traditional, agile, and onshore staff augmentation are the most efficient since the augmented team members are always working onsite. Offshore, and remote augmentation can be challenging in terms of efficiency sometimes, due to miscommunications or different time zones.
When it comes to flexibility, agile methodology proves to be the most flexible, since the team of experts can come up with customized solutions for any problems quickly.
Cost-Effectiveness
Traditional and onshore staff augmentation often prove to be more expensive than others; remote, offshore, and agile staff augmentation methodologies are inexpensive and more cost-effective. This is because there is still onboarding training that needs to be done for team members working onsite.
However, all staff augmentation methodologies are less expensive than traditional hiring practices.
Access to Global Talent Pool
Offshore staff augmentation provides the most access to the global talent pool since it allows companies to bring in international members. Remote staff augmentation also has no geographical restrictions.
Conclusion
Staff augmentation is more cost-effective, efficient, scalable, and flexible compared to traditional hiring practices.
If you need customized solutions, an optimized work environment, and experts who can easily solve your problems and come up with business strategies, staff augmentation is the way to go! You should explore the different types of augmentation models to decide which is optimal for your specific business needs.
