Staff augmentation can add huge value to your organization
Staff augmentation allows you to add skilled, expert staff to your workforce for a defined period and a specified reason. Using an augmentation approach means you don’t have to spend time recruiting and training staff in-house to deal with work that may be time-bound or sporadic or which requires expertise that you wouldn’t otherwise need within the organization.
Instead, you can integrate staff with particular skills for as long as you need them, and then easily release them once your goals have been met.
In order to reap maximum benefits from this approach, it’s essential to identify the potential challenges of implementing staff augmentation, and the recommended ways to deal with those challenges.
Achieving a skills match
One of the critical benefits of staff augmentation is the ability to introduce staff with specialized skills into your organization to deliver a specific objective. It’s therefore essential that you ensure that those staff have the right skills to match your requirements, and they understand the context in which you operate.
The way to deal with this challenge is to work with a recognized expert vendor who understands the demands of the work involved and can provide staff with the exact competencies you require. The major benefit here is that staff are screened, interviewed, and tested before they walk through your door- all of the hard work sifting resumes and talking to potential candidates is replaced with the provision of a project-ready workforce.
Specialized staff with the right skills can help you deliver against objectives
Ensuring scalability
Projects can be fluid in nature, and the initial requirements that you had at the start of a staff procurement process may end up looking very different six or twelve months down the line. One challenge of staff augmentation is ensuring that your provider can scale up or down according to your needs, meaning that you never have to worry about staff availability.
It’s important to work with a provider who can supply staff with the right skill set on a short or long-term basis, including the ability to provide more people if needed. This requirement highlights the value of working with a provider with experience and knowledge of your industry, as they are likely to have access to a wide talent pool which in turn will become available to you as and when you need it.
Realizing maximum cost benefits
One of the significant advantages of bringing staff into your organization using augmentation is the cost savings realized from not having to deal with recruitment and training. With the right provider relationship in place there are financial benefits that can be realized, avoiding any outlays from your business for these ‘HR’-type activities.
The key to achieving great cost benefits is great communication with your augmentation provider. A clearly laid-out pricing structure and agreements for changes in project scale and scope will make those cost benefits explicit, and will help you to quantify the savings you’re achieving. This can have the added bonus of helping to build the business case for further augmentation activity if needed, as the savings are clearly laid out.
Great communication from the start ensures everyone is on the same page
Making sure you can access the support you need
One of the key benefits of using staff augmentation is that the employees who join your team can help you deliver project results on time and to specification. There are times when project scope may change, or new requirements become apparent, however, and these adjustments may require additional conversations with your provider partner. It’s crucial to retain lines of communication even after individual staff have been placed.
It’s vital to work with a provider partner who will keep extending support to their expert staff throughout the deployment, as well as remaining available to you for discussions about things like delivery and project scope. These conversations can make the difference between an adequate staff augmentation experience and a truly excellent one.
Solving the challenges of staff augmentation brings real results
The critical success factor in solving the challenges of staff augmentation is choosing the right supplier partner.
DRMcNatty has decades of experience providing staff to organizations of all sizes and in a range of different industries, from engineering and construction to government and utilities. We work alongside you for the life of your project, ensuring that you and your staff always have the support you need. Get in touch today to find out more about how our staff augmentation services can optimize your staffing and resources and help you achieve success.
