To hire or not to hire? 5 pros and cons of staff augmentation

So, you are running an IT company. You are the head of a developers team that runs long-term projects and try to scale up your business. If this is you, deadlines, budgets and constraints are probably your daily bread. For people like you, staff augmentation service has been created. 

What is actually staff augmentation? It’s temporary hiring experts to work on your new (or separate part of) project. Their job is to fill in the required lacking skills. This way you don’t have to hire new permanent employees. What benefits does staff augmentation have? According to Forbes, staff augmentation is, above all, an opportunity to boost the efficiency of the company and raise the quality of products. Are there any disadvantages to such services? Let’s check in the contents below. 

Pros of staff augmentation

For most companies, staff augmentation services are just time and cost-effective. The company gets access to experienced staff on short time requirements. You can focus on the overall growth and development of your business. 

Among the most important advantages of staff augmentation services are:

1. Business continuity

You need to make sure that your company is able to perform its core tasks even in the face of unexpected interuptions. It takes some advance planning but do not worry: when you find yourself in a situation where the functionality of your business or results of projects are negatively affected, staff augmentation is the perfect solution. By quickly addressing the problem, you can focus on goals instead of temporary turbulence. 

2. Seamless team integration and flexibility

The extended team is still a part of your existing team. They assume the same company culture and level of access to the company’s data. You can coordinate efforts between you and your employees seamlessly and efficiently. It is much easier to adopt a staff augmentation model than a project outsourcing model. On top of that, you become more flexible – you gain access to a wide talent pool of specialists so it’s much easier to replace a developer. Specialists from BinarApps can do it remotely by simply joining your preferred communication channels. 

3. Reduced cost with new skills added and cost-efficiency 

Every time you hire new team members, the skills of your team grow. If there are any requirements missing, staff augmentation service will quickly bring the desired skills to the table. Moreover, staff augmentation affects the cost structure. You don’t have to worry about administrative costs, workstations, office space, and other facilities. If you choose to work with our specialists, you just pay a fixed fee.

4. Specialist expertise in-house 

No need to look for external employees – you can quickly fill the gaps with staff augmentation services. Specialized skills are very often unique but you can solve the issue in an easy way – you can hire experts for consultations. When your project team gaps mainly include specialized skills, staff augmentation staff services can efficiently fill these gaps. BinarApps experts include developers specialized in web and mobile development. We can also provide you with experts in QA and Innovation Consulting. Check our tech stack here. 

5. No more employer management problems

Employing a large staff is usually expensive – new hires mean additional administrative and HR costs. Not to mention the competitive nature of the IT labor market; once you decide to choose staff augmentation as a solution, you can be sure no one will steal your talented, experienced employee from under your wing. 

6. High productivity level and integration with internal processes

While hiring an external staff, you do not need to worry about their focus. The developers are 100% focused on a single project, unlike e.g., outsourcing team which manages several projects simultaneously. On top of that, it is usually more effective to integrate staff augmentation resources with existing business projects than to align processes with external project teams. Aggressive project timelines can be met – in case your project needs more resources to be completed on time, staff augmentation service might be actually the only option. 

Cons of staff augmentation

Even if staff augmentation seems highly beneficial for most companies, there are some cons you should consider. The most important disadvantages are the following:

1. You won’t go further without training

Training is required. A new team will be integrated into your company’s processes. You will need to spend some time explaining business rules, familiarizing new members with the existing ways of working, as well as explain the companion’s vernacular. 

2. Internal processes are still key 

Internal processes are the core values of most companies. They have the greatest impact on efficiency. The existing problems might grow in volume when there are more people on the board. If there are flaws in the process, staff augmentation resources are affected negatively. 

3. Management overhead

A newly established team requires extra time and effort. You spend some time on-boarding new members and some time is necessary to make new people feel accepted as part of the existing team. Adding resources through staff augmentation increases management overhead because of the need to supervise the growing team increases. 

4. Planning and implementation

Accuracy of the company, planning, and implementation are crucial when it comes to the success or failure of the project. The process of staff augmentation is a bit tricky – you need to build the strategy from scratch. The Huffington Post recognizes adjusting the system as one of the lead employee management challenges. Some frictions can’t be avoided..

5. Labor costs

Some research shows that hiring staff may actually mean higher labor costs. When you hire individuals full or part-time, it adds a margin to your labor costs. It includes administrative costs, inherent risks, etc.

Summary

As you can see, when it comes to choosing the collaboration model, you will not find a „one size fits all” approach. Staff augmentation may be valuable for some IT companies, but some of them will probably put the cons higher than pros. This is why you should do your research before you decide anything. The crucial thing is to find a great partner to collaborate with in the field of staff augmentation. To us, staff augmentation is necessary if you want to take your company to the next level of efficiency.