We live in a fast-paced world where demands and trends fluctuate more than our heartbeats per minute. Organizations need to find more efficient methods to hire and maintain an efficient workforce that can work in agile environments to catch the pulse of such surges in demand.
Hiring in-house developers or freelancers comes with the burden, time, and resource allocation of finding new talents and then putting them through the entire interview rounds and expecting to find the right candidates who, in turn, should want to join your company too. That is a tediously and painfully slow process with no guarantee of success.
- Access to specialized skills
- Cost Effectiveness
- Faster Time to Market
- Skipping the hassle of recruitment
- Innovative Approach and Increased Productivity
- Core Team Can Focus on Core Competencies
- Improved Scalability and Flexibility
Why IT Staff Augmentation is Better than Traditional Hiring
Identifying the problems of traditional hiring, IT Staff Augmentation is seeing a new light of acceptance among small-scale, mid-scale, and even enterprise-grade organizations to fulfil their hiring requirements and keep up with the changing market demands. IT Staff Augmentation services allow organizations to achieve specialized experts, reduce hiring costs per talent, and enhance project delivery. However, if the implementation of IT staff augmentation isn’t to the best of standards, it can cause certain pitfalls too.
Hence it is important to follow best practices for implementing IT staff augmentation and get the most out of its offerings to boost your productivity and efficiency.
Best Practices for Implementing IT Staff Augmentation
Now that we understand the importance and benefits of IT Staff Augmentation, we should look at the best practices for implementing this strategy into your hiring process to build your dedicated development team with highly skilled experts and professionals in various domains.
Identifying Project Requirements and Skill Gaps
Before you start planning your IT staff augmentation strategy, you must properly assess your business’s project requirements. Identify where your team needs to match the services to fulfill that gap. Talk to your project managers, team leaders, and all other important stakeholders to get a clearer idea of the challenge they’re facing with the project. Once you get a complete overlook of the challenges your project is facing, you will be clear in your head about what talents you need to hire and what skills you need to look for.
Partner with reputed IT staffing agencies
Now that you are clear about what you are looking for, next comes where to look for such talents. There are many IT staffing agencies that would try to lure you into availing of their services, claiming insane discounts or a wide pool of developer availability. However, you should always check a few things before considering any IT staffing agency as a viable option.
Check for work history, track record, industry reputation, cultural values, legal and compliances, and other important aspects to identify the service provider that aligns with your business ethos and goals. Remember, you would probably be working with these people for longer durations; hence it is important to check if their work ethics align with yours and ensure the in-house and extended teams work together peacefully.
Define Objectives and Expectations Clearly
Setting clear objectives and expectations is necessary for an efficient augmentation strategy. When you hand over the project requirement document to potential IT staffing providers, they get a quick insight into the project scope, type, timeline, and expected outcomes. This helps ensure everyone is on the same page about project ownership, accountability, and deliverables.
This will help avoid misunderstandings and resolve conflicts while working on the project. You should also constantly communicate and track the progress of the workload to ensure project success. It is better to choose an IT staff augmentation company with a dedicated development team that provides sprint updates and complete project transparency, keeping you in the loop.
Seamless Staff Augmentation Integration Strategy
How you integrate the augmented staff into your workforce will play a significant role in the success or failure of your staff augmentation effort. You need to ensure the in-house team understands the need for external developers to work on modules they need help completing. You need to make both teams feel valued, clearly define their roles and responsibilities, facilitate room for collaboration, and build a cohesive working environment for everyone. Make sure also to have policies for inclusivity and a healthy work environment.
Training and Skill Development
Although most developers acquired through staff augmentation are experienced and might have relevant industry experience to yours, too, there’s still some level of training and skill development you need to invest in to ensure they are more valuable assets to your firm. This includes spending on their workshops, courses, or any source of training that helps them expand their skills.
Also, a continuous learning culture promotes healthy competition between peers, in-house or extended teams. Pursuing developers to gain certifications and continuous training can guarantee the building of a strong, talented, and robust team of solution architects.
Ensure Data Security and Privacy
Data security is a very important consideration to keep in mind when working with external developers since you are giving them access to business-sensitive data and records. Hence it is a best practice to have stringent measures to protect sensitive data and intellectual property. Always make sure they sign an NDA before starting any work. Regular audits and compliance checks should be conducted, and coding standards should be maintained per secure coding styles.
Conduct Routine Performance Audits
Performance checks and audits are mandatory always to have an idea of the results your IT staff augmentation efforts are generating. Provide constructive feedback and identify areas of improvement together with the internal and augmented team. Recognize and reward outstanding contributions to boost morale and motivation. You should also conduct individual performance evaluations, team performance evaluations, and other such evaluations to understand better where your team stands and where it can improve.
Establish effective Project Management and Communication Channels.
Project Management should be smooth and seamless when working with extended teams. Make sure to assign a dedicated project manager to act as a bridge between the augmented team and the core team. Conduct regular project meetings, status updates, and other important meetings to ensure everyone on the team is on the same page, and no work remains untouched or double worked.
Final Words
These are some of the best practices to remember when implementing your IT staff augmentation strategy. Remember to prioritize your in-house team and make them feel valued and welcomed by the extended team. Do your research and build your extended team in a way that complements your project and doesn’t create conflicts with your in-house team.
Author bio:
Ronak Patel is a CEO and Founder of Aglowid IT Solutions, an ever-emerging Top Web and Mobile App Development company with a motto of turning clients into successful businesses. He believes that Client’s success is company’s success and so that he always makes sure that Aglowid helps their client’s business to reach to its true potential with the help of his best team with the standard development process he set up for the company.
