IT Staff Augmentation: What Is It and How Does It Work?

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IT staff augmentation describes when businesses rely on a form of outsourcing to meet their technical needs, adding to their staff structure in the process.

If you know your vocabulary words, figuring out what IT staff augmentation is might not be so hard. ‘Augment’ means to increase or make something bigger. And IT is that guy who comes and fixes your computers every time a restart and turning your device off and on doesn’t work.

To be honest, that is the gist of it. But if you happen to be the one responsible for your company’s staff augmentation process, that won’t be enough. Cutting corners is not an option.

Full-time IT computer specialists are hard to find, at least according to 68% of HR professionals in a 2016 survey from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). And professionals in the technology industry are routinely lacking.

By this measure, IT staff augmentation may be a necessary component to running your business smoothly. when it comes to IT staffing solutions, one of the main benefits of staff augmentation is its role in addressing talent shortages and bridging skill gaps in a very competitive environment.

IT staff augmentation could be what you need to fill in the gaps in your business if you need swift and strategic staffing solutions. Keep reading to find out what staff augmentation is and how it works!

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What Is Staff Augmentation?

Staff augmentation is a means of responding to business needs by extracting specialized skill sets via outsourcing.

As part of the definition of staff augmentation, we need to emphasize that it is an outsourcing model that focuses on implementing in-house IT teams with specialized external talent to handle specific projects or skills gaps. 

The mainstream idea of outsourcing is when some high-powered corporate entity hires underpaid employees in the Far East because they don’t care about paying their local employees fair wages.

Although this surely holds true in some cases, outsourcing can be far more than meets the eye. For example, it’s quite common actually for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to outsource their IT needs. This is because SMBs often don’t have the resources to hire everybody they need outright.

However, that doesn’t mean that the business neglects its own team. In fact, small businesses and startups tend to be very tight-knit. Responsibility isn’t concentrated at the top of the pyramid, and managers tend to make it clear that staff members are not taken for granted.

Still, SMBs often suffer from a lack of resources. For one, many startups do not have the budget to host physical infrastructures for their servers and databases, making cloud technology a reliable solution.

However, even when the cloud serves its purpose well, just about every business needs professionals to manage their information technology (IT) department because computers happen to be a central part of working operations.

At this point, outsourcing with IT staff augmentation comes into play. By outsourcing, businesses can add new members to their teams for a temporary or prolonged period of time.

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The Pros and Cons of Staff Augmentation

While IT staff augmentation might sound convenient in theory, there are still many factors you should consider before using IT staff augmentation for your business. The following are the good and the bad aspects of IT staff augmentation. Let’s dive into the pros and cons of staff augmentation.

Pros

The pros of IT staff augmentation are what you’re here for in the first place. However, some of the ways in which IT staff augmentation can help you aren’t obvious, so pay attention.

⁍ Guaranteed Talent

An outsourced IT partner is, by definition, able to fulfill your business’s needs. This is one of the biggest benefits of IT staff augmentation.

Staff augmentation agencies rigorously vet IT professionals to ensure their skills and experience align with industry standards. This saves businesses the time and costs associated with traditional recruitment processes.

IT staff augmentation warrants that your new staff members are prepared to seamlessly integrate into whatever setting you need them most, increasing the power of your workforce.

As a result, they will stabilize the processes experiencing bottlenecks due to being short-staffed or under-resourced. And you can come out on the other end feeling satisfied with the effectiveness of IT staff augmentation.

 Hiring Efficiency

IT staff augmentation usually relies on an outsourcing agency with trained and vetted IT professionals on hand at request. Their entire job revolves around meeting the objectives their clients set, no matter who the client is.

Looking for IT support this way is much easier than browsing dozens of job boards and filtering candidates yourself.

This approach also enables businesses to fast-track projects and address immediate skill needs, cutting down lead time and avoiding delays in project completion.

The cost of hiring is also not cheap, adding up to over $4000 per hire with nearly a month and a half of an empty position. With IT staff augmentation, you save not only time but also money.

⁍ Increased Flexibility

The fact that there are so many euphemisms to describe the singular act of firing someone suggests that there is some profound meaning behind it all. That’s likely because losing a job is never fun, and even the person on the other side probably isn’t having the best time either.

However, in economic recessions — whether it be the Great Recession between 2007 and 2009 or the coronavirus recession starting in 2020 — mass lay-offs are no stranger. Even when businesses simply go under, maintaining staff numbers is a big concern.

Through IT staff augmentation, businesses can retain a dynamic workforce, adjusting staff levels according to demand without the financial burden of maintaining permanent roles.

This flexibility in staffing helps mitigate the impact of business cycles and reduces the need for layoffs, supporting a stable work environment for core employees.

Because of such flexibility, businesses can increase and decrease their workforce as applicable when necessary. Overall, the business will be more stable, and you can take some accountability when it comes to supporting your staff.

Cons

Now that you know the pros of IT staff augmentation, it’s up to you to decide if these cons are deal-breakers or just minor inconveniences. Let’s look at the different challenges of IT outsourcing you might come across.

⁍ Quality Risk

Though outsourced teams are usually highly qualified professionals, there are still some risks that present themselves with IT staff augmentation.

Selecting an experienced agency with a track record of reliable staff can help reduce onboarding time and minimize quality issues, ensuring that augmented staff meets your project’s standards from the start.

For instance, if your IT project requires a high degree of context, getting your augmented staff well-acquainted with the project can be a difficult task.

Sometimes, hiring a dedicated staff member can be more beneficial in this regard. Familiarity would be a prerequisite.

⁍ Time Delays

For that same reason, meeting deadlines can be a challenge. Familiarizing new staff with your project can take quite a bit of time, but doing so is not optional if a quality outcome is the goal.

Experienced agencies often streamline onboarding by providing IT professionals who are well-prepared, reducing potential delays caused by unfamiliarity with specific tasks.

The time it takes for onboarding and training can push back your project, and the extra work may seem especially cumbersome if your new staff members won’t even be there for long.

Some business managers find that the management overhead for IT staff augmentation is just not worth the cost.

⁍ Long-Term Dependencies

On-going dependency on third-party providers is not sustainable. In some ways, you can undercut your own business by continuously relying on external resources to meet an end goal.

Although you are in control of your company and IT project, ultimately, the outsourcing agency is in control of your staff. If something unexpected happens to your augmented staff or their outsourcing agency, you’ll be left vulnerable.

While IT staff augmentation is ideal for meeting immediate staffing needs, it’s crucial to have a long-term plan to gradually transition toward internal talent as your business grows. This approach ensures you can build an in-house team over time and reduce dependency on external resources.

In the short term, it makes a lot of sense for SMBs and start-ups to use IT staff augmentation to get their feet on the ground. But eventually, your business should be well off enough to manage its own resources.

It’s best to have some plan in place to scale internally. In the long term, you’ll be better off.

The 3 Types of Staff Augmentation

Your staff augmentation model can vary depending on your exact needs. There are three principal types of staff augmentation: commodity, skill-based, and highly skilled. Let’s look at how to augment IT staff with these different models.

Commodity

Staff augmentation by way of commodity does not call for specific specializations. The circumstances for this staff augmentation model lean more towards urgency than honing certain skills.

Therefore, this type of staff augmentation may involve manual labor, factory work, or retail, among other things. It is used in fields needing quick, task-based labor without specialized skills.

Skill-Based

Skill-based staff augmentation requires — unsurprisingly — a bit more skill. Still, the level of skill for this type of staff augmentation is not demanding.

Typing or data entry for clerical work are a few examples of what skill-based staff augmentation might look like. These can also include things like helpdesk support and QA testing.

Highly-Skilled

Last but not least, there is highly skilled IT staff augmentation. And it just so happens that this is probably exactly the type of staff augmentation that you need.

Highly-skilled outsourced partners work in professions like IT or software development. Training and experience in these professions are essentials, and IT staff augmentation makes no excuses for lapses in those areas. 

Common specialized roles include things like cybersecurity and DevOps.

How To Augment Your Team Successfully

There are several steps you should take to augment your team successfully. Like the scientific process, the IT staff augmentation process should be careful and precise. Let’s walk through a full staff augmentation guide.

Identify the Problem

First and foremost, you should identify the problem. Conducting a skills assessment can help pinpoint the specific needs and gaps in your team, providing a clearer picture of the types of expertise you need to bring in.

Ask yourself questions like, “What does my business need?” or “What is my business lacking?”

You can also ask your permanent staff for their input. Of all people, they have a pretty good understanding of where and how your business thrives and fails.

Specify Your Needs

Once you identify your problem, you can specify your needs in several different ways, all of which are important. Break down your skill requirements into short-term vs. long-term needs and determine if you need highly skilled specialists or general support for broader tasks.

Here are a few of the different needs you should specify:

  1. Do you want your staff augmentation to be short-term or long-term?
  2. Is your staff augmentation commodity skill-based or highly skilled?
  3. How many new people do you need for your IT staff augmentation?

Research Staff Augmentation Agencies

Look closely at the IT staff augmentation market before deciding what outsourcing agency to use. Consider reviewing testimonials, case studies, and the agency’s approach to training and onboarding to ensure you select a reliable partner.

Figure out what you want and make that the pivot point for all your searches.

And don’t just go for the lowest price tag. The costs should be reasonable, but always keep in mind that you get what you pay for.

Nearshore and offshore outsourcing provide different benefits and disadvantages. Weigh the pros and cons and make a sensible decision. 

In the end, it will be a give-and-take based on what your business demands at the time.

Narrow Down Your Choices

Review and, if possible, test your candidates’ skill sets. Beyond technical expertise, it’s essential to evaluate communication skills and cultural fit, ensuring that your augmented staff can work collaboratively and harmoniously with your team.

Take a call with your potential providers and make sure there is a good rapport. You don’t want to hire someone that doesn’t play well with others.

Negotiate With Your Chosen Partner

A negotiation of sorts should take place in order for you to learn all the details of your contract with your chosen IT staff augmentation agency.

Discuss key performance indicators (KPIs) and clarify mutual expectations to ensure both parties understand the goals and success metrics for the partnership.

You should not feel manipulated by the people you work with. Don’t be afraid to be honest about what you want, but also be rational about your requests.

Sign a Contract

Finally, you can cross your ‘t’s and dot your ‘i’s. Secure a flexible contract that allows for scaling up or down based on changing business needs, helping you adapt to market demands without being locked into rigid terms.

Sign your John Hancock on a mutually agreeable contract between you and your new IT staff augmentation partner.

At Trio, we offer seamless integration of highly skilled IT professionals, reducing onboarding time and helping businesses maintain project momentum. Our specialized talent pool can provide your team with the expertise you need, supporting your projects with agility and efficiency.

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When Is Staff Augmentation Recommended?

IT staff recommendation is recommended for people who want the best of both worlds: access to specialized skills without committing to long-term hires.

The traditional model of outsourcing people are generally familiar with involves outsourcing your whole company to what, at the time, may feel like a strange and foreign agency.

Yet with staff augmentation and temporary IT staffing, you and other business managers can get a feel with the people you are working with, as agencies for IT staff augmentation — and likely other forms of highly-skilled staff augmentation — will lend you a few choice professionals at a time who will be sure to integrate smoothly into your team and projects.

Because of this flexibility, the idea of hiring specialists seems a lot less resource-consuming if you’re utilizing IT staff augmentation. It can also be a short-term solution to resolve otherwise ongoing issues.

There are a few different scenarios you should consider when wondering when to use staff augmentation.

The first is staff augmentation for project needs.

When businesses need additional developers for a short-term project, such as launching a new feature or completing a time-sensitive assignment. Staff augmentation allows companies to bring in experts only for the project duration, which is cost-effective and efficient.

Then you need to consider your fluctuation seasonal workloads. For example, e-commerce companies often need additional support during the holiday season to manage increased sales and customer service inquiries.

Finally, what about specialized skills? When businesses require niche expertise that may not be readily available locally, like cybersecurity, AI development, or data science, staff augmentation helps fill these roles without a long-term commitment.

Trio could just be an ideal partner for companies facing these needs, offering specialized software development skills and the ability to quickly scale teams without the overhead costs associated with hiring full-time staff.

With Trio, you can efficiently access top-tier talent for both short-term and highly specialized projects, reducing time spent on recruitment and ensuring smooth project execution.

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Conclusion

IT staff augmentation is an intricate, well-oiled process that could be a bonafide answer to all the questions you’ve been asking about getting your startup up and running or your small business steady on the ground.

We’ve gone over the different IT staff augmentation benefits as well as the basics of how to hire augmented IT staff.

It is a versatile, efficient, and strategic way to enhance IT capabilities without long-term commitments.

If you want highly skilled IT staff augmentation, then Trio is the right place to look. 

Trio developers take a special niche within the IT industry. They are thoroughly vetted and can provide fast, flexible, and high-quality support for tech-driven businesses.

They don’t work directly on the computer machinery. However, they can make the application you need to take your business to the next level.

Contact Trio today if you’re interested in hiring qualified software developers to work on your next project.

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With over 10 years of experience in software outsourcing, Alex has assisted in building high-performance teams before co-founding Trio with his partner Daniel. Today he enjoys helping people hire the best software developers from Latin America and writing great content on how to do that!
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