IT Staff augmentation

What is staff augmentation?

Staff augmentation is the practice of expanding an organization’s capabilities by tapping into the skills and expertise of external talent. A staff augmentation model is an effective solution when businesses need additional support or specialized expertise beyond the capabilities and bandwidth of internal workers.

An augmented staff helps companies meet their current business needs without the added fixed costs and resources associated with hiring additional full-time employees. Examples of staff augmentation include engaging a training and development specialist to implement a new talent development plan or adding additional customer service representatives during a peak business season.

How staff augmentation works

Initially, staff augmentation was practiced by the IT industry and tech startups to address a lack of tech talent in an ever-expanding industry that included general IT, software development, and cybersecurity.

Over the years, staff augmentation expanded beyond IT and tech and has seen significant growth along with the broader global staffing industry, which is projected to generate $665 billion in 2024.

The staff augmentation process typically begins when an organization identifies a need for additional staff and is looking for alternative solutions, rather than adding full-time headcount. Staff augmentation is managed by an external provider or online talent platform, which sources, evaluates, and hires qualified candidates who align with a company’s skills needs, business requirements, and budget.

Staff augmentation engagements are often paid on an hourly or fixed-price project basis, while some providers may also have a retainer price structure in which organizations pay a set monthly fee for a certain number of hours each month.

Types of staff augmentation

Different types of staff augmentation are available to choose from depending on your business goals and needs. Learn more about common staff augmentation types below.

Short-term augmentation

This approach is used to bring in temporary external workers for brief periods of time, often less than six months. Needs for short-term augmentation may include covering in-house employee absences (such as parental leave or sabbatical), providing support for short-term projects, or managing temporary spikes in workload.

Short-term augmentation is highly flexible, as organizations can quickly engage talent for immediate, short-term needs. However, this model may not be the best for roles requiring lengthy onboarding or in-depth knowledge about the business.

Long-term augmentation

While short-term augmentation is intended for smaller projects, long-term augmentation involves integrating external professionals into an organization, typically for six or more months. This model is beneficial for companies that require ongoing additional support, but either don’t have the resources for full-time headcount or require long-term, specialized skills—as opposed to in-house generalist roles. For example, a marketing team may engage a team of external writers or an engineering team may bring in long-term, external web developers.  Long-term augmentation enables deeper integration for external engaged workers, which can be helpful in instances when the worker needs to have detailed knowledge about company processes, culture, and business goals.

On-demand augmentation

On-demand augmentation is a flexible type of staff augmentation in which companies can access talent quickly to scale up or down based on immediate business needs. This model is especially advantageous for businesses or industries with seasonal demands—such as an accounting firm bringing in external accounting professionals during tax season or an e-commerce company engaging on-demand workers during the holiday season.

While the two may seem similar, short-term augmentation and on-demand augmentation have distinct differences. Short-term augmentation engagements are often planned in advance, have a predetermined duration, and have a defined scope. On the other hand, on-demand augmentation isn’t necessarily planned proactively, is used to support sudden needs, and can have greatly varying scope and duration.

Skill-specific augmentation

This type of staff augmentation aims to bring in professionals with specific skills or expertise currently unavailable on the existing team. As an example, if an organization is looking to add a chatbot to the business website, the team may have a talented team of web developers, but the developers lack specific skills or experience in chatbot development. If this is the case, the company may engage an external chatbot developer.

Skill-specific augmentation can be helpful when an organization needs to access highly specialized skills for a short period of time or if the company wants to make a case for adding long-term support in a specific area of expertise.

Project-based augmentation

Through project-based augmentation, external professionals are added to the team for the entirety of a specific project. Augmented workers collaborate closely with internal team members until the project is completed.

As an example, if an organization is completing a brand redesign, the company may engage a designer or a team of designers to support internal workers for the duration of the project. This approach is beneficial to access specialized skills that aren’t necessarily needed long-term at an organization.

Key benefits

Staff augmentation services offer a flexible, alternative staffing solution to access specialized skills and increase resources within an existing dedicated team, either short-term or long-term.

Benefits of staff augmentation include:

• Staffing flexibility and scalability : Staff augmentation can simplify the process of scaling your business and existing team up and down quickly and efficiently. Once a staff augmentation provider or an online talent platform understands your business needs, you can access a large pool of qualified talent, enabling your team to adjust your workforce based on project, skill, or seasonal demands. As a result, your company can better respond to disruption and business shifts.
• Cost-effectiveness:  Embracing staff augmentation can help your business decrease fixed costs typically associated with full-time hiring, such as office space, training, and benefits. This process can also significantly reduce hiring time and costs, as your team can engage and begin working with augmented staff within a matter of days, rather than enduring the lengthy hiring processes required for full-time, in-house positions.
• Access to specialized skills : Staff augmentation can be an ideal solution when a project requires specific skill sets your organization currently lacks. As in-demand skills rapidly evolve—such as the recent increased demand for artificial intelligence (AI) skills—your organization can quickly access and engage professionals with the skills you need. This approach is also effective if you don’t require certain skills on a long-term basis or are looking to evaluate whether permanently adding specific skills into your team may be worthwhile.
• Opportunities to engage talent on a trial basis:  Staff augmentation can enable companies to engage potential team members for a trial period and consider whether to hire them full time. With this process, the company can take the time to determine if the specific skills are needed on the team permanently and whether the individual is a good fit for the current team and company culture. 
• Reduced hiring risks : The staff augmentation provider often oversees payroll and other HR-related tasks for augmented team members, which can reduce internal administrative costs and resources. The right provider will also have integrated compliance capabilities and worker classification services to minimize risks when you engage external talent.

When to consider staff augmentation

Staff augmentation can be an effective strategy for organizations to expand their capabilities and has a range of use cases depending on your specific business needs.

Instances when you may consider staff augmentation include:

• Addressing project-based needs when the work is time sensitive and extends beyond your team’s bandwidth
• Filling skills gaps with specialized talent, especially for emerging or in-demand skills  
• Covering team shortages when individuals exit an organization or take a leave of absence
• Meeting increased demand during peak seasons, such as the holiday season in retail and logistics
• Supporting business expansion, including exploring new markets, launching new products or services, or targeting a new target audience
• Managing costs by engaging augmented staff for a short period of time, which reduces total hiring costs and fixed costs compared to bringing in full-time team members 

Best practices for staff augmentation

Following proven best practices can help your organization successfully implement staff augmentation and drive improved business outcomes as a result.

Consider the best practices below as you develop a staff augmentation plan:

• Ensure clear communication. Offer access to collaboration and communication tools and encourage open communication between augmented staff and in-house team members. Also set clear expectations for communication frequency and channels to encourage seamless collaboration between all workers.  
• Establish defined processes. A lack of defined processes can lead to inconsistent experiences, confusion, and delayed projects and business outcomes. Develop and document processes, such as onboarding steps, tool and software access management procedures, project management standards, and feedback methods to stay organized and keep both augmented staff and internal team members engaged.  
• Consider team culture fit. Engaging augmented workers who can collaborate well with your team is just as important as finding talent with the right skills. As you evaluate potential external professionals for your staff augmentation efforts, ask each individual questions related to how they handle feedback, work with others, resolve issues or challenges, and share progress updates on projects.
• Provide training and development. In addition to initial onboarding, offer long-term augmented staff opportunities for training and talent development so they can continue to build their skills and align with your evolving business needs. A few ways you can support this include extending access to online learning platforms and scheduling team or company-wide training sessions. 
• Focus on continual improvement. Leverage data analytics to track business outcomes tied to your staff augmentation efforts and identify improvements over time. Also consider gathering feedback from both internal team members and augmented staff about the process of working with one another and implement feedback to drive continual improvement.

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