Staff Augmentation Explained
10 MINUTES
June 19, 2023
The Evolution of Staff Augmentation
Global tech talent shortage is intensifying. Following the Global and U.S. Talent Shortage Report, about 68% of medium-sized businesses face the challenge of finding highly-qualified professionals.
By 2030, the existing gap in the workforce could lead to 85 million job vacancies and almost $8.5 trillion in lost income — according to the research by Korn Ferry named Global Talent Crunch.
Consequently, employers are being compelled to explore new staffing solutions and models, aiming not merely to fill the gaps and keep businesses afloat but also to facilitate growth and development of their business.
Staff augmentation can be such a viable solution for these challenges. Let’s dive deeper and study this staffing model.
Exploring the Basics: What is Staff Augmentation?
Let’s start from the basics and discover what staff augmentation is and how it works.
Staff augmentation is a staffing model of boosting your team with skilled people from outside your company when you need extra help.
Companies liked staff augmentation in the past because it helped them fill skill gaps, manage workloads, and cut costs. But now, with more people working remotely, it’s become even more helpful.
Thanks to technology, remote work is breaking down borders like never before. Companies can now easily find and work with skilled people from all around the world. It makes doing staff augmentation more reachable, appealing, and agile. Companies can add the people they need to their teams, no matter where they live.
Beyond Tech: The Role of Staff Augmentation in Diverse Fields
Staff augmentation has broad applicability across diverse fields, from technology to healthcare, manufacturing to financial services.
This staffing model helps businesses stay current with emerging trends, whether it is blockchain, AI, or cybersecurity, by providing immediate access to experts in these niches. Let’s see some specific industry examples:
Healthcare industry
It might involve bringing in specialized medical coders or data analysts for short-term and temporary projects. Such professionals provide health informatics, cybersecurity, database administration, and more expertise.
Manufacturing
Staff augmentation might mean adding experienced supply chain analysts to handle the complexities of global logistics. In every case, businesses leverage the knowledge and skills outside their walls to enhance what’s within.
But beyond just bridging skill gaps, staff augmentation fosters a culture of continuous learning and innovation. When you bring in external talent, they carry with them not only their skills but also their experiences, methodologies, and fresh perspectives.
These elements can infuse new life into projects and spark innovative solutions, creating a dynamic, forward-thinking business environment.
New Perspectives, New Ideas: How Staff Augmentation Fuels Innovation
At StartupSoft, we firmly believe in the power of fresh perspectives in driving innovation.
When a business brings in augmented staff, they’re not merely adding numbers to their team but also infusing their projects with new ideas, varied experiences, and unique problem-solving approaches.
Innovation usually doesn’t come from just working harder. Instead, it often comes from looking at problems in a new way. And this is the moment when extra staff can help.
They bring their own experiences and practices of doing things, which can give the team new ideas. It could even lead to the next big breakthrough.
The tech industry proves that staff augmentation fuels innovation
Once, Apple’s co-founder, Steve Jobs, said: “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.”
And it’s that unique, outside perspective that often leads to authentic leadership and innovation.
Similarly, Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella:
“Our industry does not respect tradition. It only respects innovation.”
With staff augmentation, businesses can stay at the forefront of innovation, not anchored by traditional thinking but propelled by diverse viewpoints.
Here are some ways in which fresh perspectives from augmented staff can drive innovation
Diverse skillsets
1Augmented staff often bring unique skills and experiences that can provide new ways to solve problems or enhance processes.
Cross-Industry insights
2Augmented staff from different industry backgrounds can introduce best practices from those industries, potentially sparking innovation.
Fresh eyes on old problems
3New team members can offer fresh perspectives on long-standing challenges, possibly identifying innovative solutions that the current team might have overlooked.
Stimulating creativity
4The presence of new team members can stimulate creativity and encourage original thinking within the existing team.
Benefits of Using Staff Augmentation: Cases of Industry Leaders
Google uses staff augmentation to add extra expertise to its existing staff.
The company practices hiring contract workers, freelancers, and temporary staff to perform tasks from various fields — from food service to software engineering.
Staff augmentation enables Google to easily and quickly scale up or down if needed. This agile model allows them to collaborate with specialized talent without making long-term employment commitments.
IBM
2IBM uses staff augmentation extensively, especially in the IT sector. It allows the company to hire professionals with specific profiles for specific projects to fill in gaps.
Within the staff augmentation model, IBM doesn’t have to hire full-time staff. So it remains flexible, adjusting its workforce based on project requirements and deadlines.
Microsoft
3Microsoft has used staff augmentation and contracted outside experts to help with everything from coding and software development to project management and strategy.
This staffing model allows Microsoft access to the global talent pool without increasing its permanent personnel.
Nurturing Diversity: The Role of Staff Augmentation in Building Inclusive Workforces
How staff augmentation can enhance workforce diversity and inclusivity
Global talent access
1Staff augmentation offers access to a worldwide pool of talents, allowing companies to bring in professionals from different cultural backgrounds, thus fostering a multicultural work environment.
Balance skill distribution
2By carefully selecting augmented staff, businesses can ensure a balanced distribution of skills and experiences, promoting a diverse and inclusive workforce.
Enable flexible hiring
3Staff augmentation enables flexible hiring based on project needs, accommodating professionals who prefer non-traditional work arrangements. It includes individuals who might be overlooked in traditional hiring practices, such as those with caregiver responsibilities or disabilities.
Knowledge exchange
4Augmented staff can facilitate the exchange of unique ideas and methodologies, promoting diversity of thought and inclusive practices within the team.
Let’s review some practical advice from Members of the Forbes Technology Council on enhancing diversity and inclusion in your teams.
Chaitra Vedullapalli, co-founder and President of Women in Cloud suggests conducting an in-depth survey to create an inclusive ‘scorecard.’
She considers it the first stage of developing diversity, equity, and inclusion. Create a list of all your team members in every area to see where you have a variety of people and where you might need to make significant changes.
Chaitra recommends starting with your top bosses and board members and then looking at your workers, suppliers, methods, and local community. Then create the “scorecard” itself and gradually move towards inclusivity.
Jeff Wong, Global Chief Innovation Officer of EY, advises to ‘create cultural permission to change.’
Creating permission means encouraging their team members for changes and developing new ideas, no matter where they’re from. It can lead to new ways of thinking.
Promoting an open and accepting environment allows everyone to share their views, which can increase diversity and inclusion.
The Future Landscape: Predictions and Trends in Staff Augmentation
Trends and upcoming changes in staff augmentation
Emerging technologies, especially AI-powered
1As technologies advance rapidly, companies must keep up or risk falling behind. And here, the staff augmentation comes in handy.
It allows companies to bring experts with specific knowledge of emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, on a project-by-project basis. I
t can be more cost-effective and efficient than training existing staff or hiring full-time employees, especially when dealing with niche or highly specialized technologies.
Demand for cybersecurity services
2With increasing cyber threats and the rise of remote work, cybersecurity has never been more critical.
Staff augmentation can help businesses strengthen their cybersecurity efforts by providing access to skilled security professionals who can augment existing teams.
These experts can assist with everything from threat assessment to incident response, helping to protect the company’s digital assets and customer data.
Rising demand for tech solutions in physical and mental healthcare
3The healthcare sector increasingly uses technology to improve patient outcomes and increase efficiency. The range is from telemedicine to AI-powered diagnostic tools.
Staff augmentation can be crucial in this digital transformation by supplying the necessary tech talent.
For example, a healthcare provider might use staff augmentation to bring in software developers to build a telemedicine app or data scientists to develop machine learning models for predicting patient outcomes.
Thus, healthcare providers can innovate and adapt without expanding their tech teams permanently.
Making It Work: Harnessing the Power of Staff Augmentation for Your Business
How does StartupSoft make it work?
- We do pre-vetting of like-minded candidates who commit and care as severely as your in-house teams.
- We quickly recruit and direct a capable and scalable team. This team is fully integrated with the core client’s team and other third-party service providers and promptly starts supporting all crucial processes.
- As proof of the points above, we built teams with 95% retention and 100% delivery rates for 100+ startups.
Contact us for more details and schedule a call with one of our co-founders!
Shall we try?
If you’re looking for a reliable partner that would hand-pick top tech talent for you, we’d recommend checking out StartupSoft. We know we might be biased, but we’re quite confident we’ll be able to make that perfect tech match for you.