In times of uncertainty, it can be challenging to determine the best path forward for expanding your workforce. Onboarding internal staff can be expensive and time-consuming, while outsourcing can loosen your organization’s control over its workforce.
As more companies go digital and adapt to changing times, the demand for a scalable workforce increases. As labor costs increase, so does the strain on internal IT and HR departments. Fortunately, augmenting your staff with a contingent workforce offers a reliable alternative. But how can you tell if you stand to benefit from staff augmentation?
How to Tell Whether You Need Staff Augmentation
Your company needs help meeting deadlines.
Staff augmentation can come to the rescue when time is of the essence. It is common for many tech companies to face increasing demand and tight deadlines. With the pitfalls of project scope creep and limited timelines, delivering on time can be challenging. Additionally, managing resources and logistics can become more complex with strict deadlines.
Augmenting your IT staff can be an effective solution when you need to get out of a bind. With staff augmentation, you can ramp up additional resources before your deadline arrives. Additionally, it is far more streamlined since onboarding is not required to recruit and train your IT staff.
Your company’s budget is limited.
Staff augmentation can be effective when your organization works with a limited budget. In today’s uncertain economy, the expense of internal staff can always be reduced. Due to the nature of global contingent staffing, it is often significantly more cost-effective to augment your IT staff instead of recruiting for your in-house IT department.
With all of the costs surrounding the recruitment and orientation process, the expense of bringing new in-house talent on board can easily exceed their potential salary. By lowering or eliminating equipment costs, benefit costs, and tax burdens, staff augmentation can help you reduce expenses. Global contingent staffing can save your company’s budget and offer a more manageable price than a full-time employee.
You need tighter control of your workforce.
With most outsourcing methods, such as hiring freelancers or agencies, you lose an element of control. Supervising your workforce and maintaining communication with these methods can be challenging.
Staff augmentation can help you maintain more control over your workforce. With the advances in technological infrastructure across the globe, it is becoming easier to maintain communication and stay in control of your workforce. The contingent staffing model provides a more governable method of augmenting your internal team.
Additionally, having a dedicated resource may be helpful for long-term projects alongside your existing workforce. When closer integration with your organization’s processes is required, a global contingent workforce can stick around for the long haul. Furthermore, a properly executed contingent staffing model provides an effective way of sourcing and vetting technicians.
You need increased flexibility to scale your workforce.
Staff augmentation can be ideal when you want to avoid overstaffing but still need to add capacity to your workforce. Relying solely on internal staff can slow your organization’s growth during boom times due to the lengthy recruitment and orientation process. Conversely, overstaffing can also be a detriment to your company’s health during leaner times.
An effective global contingent workforce can offer a more flexible solution than onboarding additional internal resources. As a result, you can benefit from faster onboarding when business spikes to enable more rapid growth. When business stagnates or declines, you can scale down your augmented workforce instead of being forced to lay off internal resources.
You need to focus on high-priority tasks without missing new opportunities.
Internal IT departments often face a shortage of expertise and skill gaps in critical areas. When working under tight deadlines and increasing workloads, in-house employees are regularly overburdened to spread their focus across multiple responsibilities. Staff augmentation can help your organization fill skill gaps while preventing staff burnout.
Additionally, your internal workforce is often best served by focusing on your highest-priority projects. In times of increasing growth, spreading your team’s focus across too many activities can impair your organization’s ability to take advantage of new opportunities. A contingent workforce is ideal for scaling your workforce without shifting your internal team’s focus.
Staff augmentation lets your organization scale with more flexibility. As experienced talent becomes increasingly difficult to recruit, budgets are constrained, and labor costs rise. Leveraging staff augmentation provides supplementary resources and expertise without the enormous costs and time investments associated with full-time employees.
If you need talent in a remote corner of the world or help meeting a surge in demand, Kinettix’s global network of remote project coordinators and on-site technicians can help. Contact us to get started.
