Your Challenges - Our Solutions

Staff augmentation is a popular cooperation model when a company quickly ramps up its in-house team by temporarily hiring additional staff from an external vendor to help address the growing workload or to fill knowledge gaps. On the flip side, outsourcing suggests delegating the whole work on a project or its particular part to an external company.
The fundamental differentiator between outsourcing and staff augmentation is the responsibility for project management and outcomes. When it comes to outsourcing, an outsourcing company is in charge of project management and the delivered results. As to staff augmentation, an in-house team is one that is held accountable.

Staff augmentation is a great option for companies that have robust in-house IT teams, reliable and dependable management, and a need to have complete control over their projects but from time to time require some additional labor resources.

These days staff augmentation is gaining popularity due to its numerous advantages. Still, we believe that the most prominent of them are cost efficiency, flexibility, and time-saving.

• Cost-efficiency

  By expanding your team through staff augmentation you can save a substantial amount of money just because it does not suggest expenses on training, equipment, insurance, leave allowance, and other perks for staff. Besides, by working with an offshore service provider you can also take advantage of much lower salary rates.

• Flexibility

  Staff augmentation gives you the freedom to engage a specialist with a certain skill set for a particular time or to complete a particular task. It is the best way to easily and quickly change team size or lineup with regard to the current workload or project requirements.

• Time-saving

  No need to say that recruitment may be an extremely cumbersome and time-intensive process. Staff augmentation can assist you to quickly engage labor resources with the required expertise as providers of staff augmentation services have a rich talent pool due to which they can easily provide you with specialists that meet your requirements.

Before hiring a staff augmentation company it is crucial to identify the required skill sets of specialists, presume a project longevity, define the budget, and protect the most highly-sensitive data.
Besides, before hiring a staff augmentation company it is vital to thoroughly study it paying particular attention to the following aspects:

• Reputation

  In order not to get burned it is worth checking a reputation of a potential partner. You can review feedback from former or current clients, check its rating on trustworthy platforms, and visit special job search websites where employees rate their companies with regard to work atmosphere, facilities, perks, turnover, salaries, etc.

• Achievements

  High professionalism never goes unnoticed. Therefore, check which awards and recognitions a company has already received.

• Corporate culture and ethics

  Successful cooperation is based on teamwork, support, efficient communication, transparency, ability to avoid disagreements or resolve them in a timely manner. Your potential partner should be able to satisfy all your requirements and swiftly respond to any questions.

• Flexibility

  It makes sense to ask a staff augmentation company in advance whether it is able to efficiently and quickly respond to challenging and nontypical issues.

• Scalability opportunities

  Make sure that if needed your potential partner is indeed able to provide you with extra labor resources within the shortest possible time.

• Communication

  For augmented staff, it is a usual practice to work in multinational teams. So professional staff augmentation companies ensure that their employees have a good command of written and spoken English.

• Facilities

  Work efficiency is heavily reliant on working conditions. So make sure that a company can provide specialists who will work on your project with a proper workplace and necessary software and hardware.

At Devico/DeviQA, we have an extensive talent pool due to which we can quickly provide you with different IT specialists. Let us know your expectations and requirements for a candidate, and we will not make you wait for a long time.

Well, there's no rose without a thorn. Staff augmentation also has certain risks that you should consider in order to take corresponding measures in advance. We would like to highlight the following challenges:

• Communication And Coordination Concerns

  Communication and coordination concerns are the main challenges associated with staff augmentation that may have an impact on project efficiency. This problem usually arises due to remote working, limited English proficiency, or inability to communicate effectively.

• Poor Knowledge Transfer

  When staff augmentation services are used, there is a risk of facing difficulties in sharing knowledge between the external staff and an internal team, which can eventually affect the long-term benefits of a project.

• Security threats

  Bringing in third-party resources significantly jeopardizes security concerns. To mitigate the risks of possible data breaches, collaborate with augmentation staff on the ground of the terms and conditions of the NDA.

• Time Difference

  If your augmented staff is from all over the globe, it can be rather challenging to harmonize your schedules. Before engaging a specialist, make sure that you have at least a minimum overlap of working hours.

• Cultural Mismatch

  A cultural mismatch between augmented staff and an internal team is also among the key risks that may have a great impact on the overall work environment and productivity.

In general, at Devico, we mostly focus on assisting with long-term staffing needs.

Staff augmentation can yield numerous benefits on the condition that you use the best practices including the following ones:

• Clearly define your expectations right from the outset;

• Identify the most convenient communication channels and etiquette;

• Maintain efficient and transparent communication;

• Leverage efficient project management tools;

• Standardize performance measurement;

• Transfer knowledge and document your project processes;

• Insist on signing a non-disclosure agreement.