Industries all around the world are experiencing widespread work shortages and, unfortunately, the problem is here to stay. However, if you’re in desperate need of staff for large projects or workloads, don’t worry.
New digital technologies and strategies are being used to fill in the gaps caused by the worker shortage. One such strategy is the use of team augmentation services.
So exactly what are team augmentation services? And what are some ways that you improve their effectiveness on your team? This guide will briefly explore the answer to these questions so you can have a more beneficial relationship with team augmentation services.
What Are Team Augmentation Services?
Team augmentation services, also known as staff augmentation services, is a workplace that involves getting new, temporary personnel for your workplace.
Let’s say you’re an accounting firm that deals with a much higher workload during tax season. Or, you’re a manufacturing company that wants to improve its cybersecurity. Hiring, training, and managing full-time employees for these seasons or projects can be wasteful.
Often you only need them for a set period. That’s where software development staff augmentation services come into play. With these services, you can choose from a wide pool of extremely talented individuals with the specialties you need for a role.
You’ll temporarily hire these individuals on contract to help augment your in-house employees (hence the name).
It’s a fantastic way to fill roles with talented workers. But, more importantly, it allows you to have full-time employees without the commitment that often comes with them.
1. Clearly Define Your Project Requirements and Expectations
You can’t expect your contract workers to read your mind. That’s why you need to state your requirements and expectations for the role. That starts with the position description itself.
Make sure you clearly define what skills, abilities, and experience an individual needs to succeed at the job. Once you’ve found a hire for your team, provide them with a lot of details about what you want to accomplish with the work.
If the project is on a deadline, you should also give them a basic timeline that you want followed. The best way to ensure that these expectations are being met is through frequent communication and updates.
2. Have a Screening Process
In a perfect world, you would be able to trust outsourced staffing companies. Sadly, this isn’t always the case. Sometimes an employee can lie and slip through their system.
Other times, they might embellish the skills of a worker so you hire them. Regardless, it’s important to set up a screening process before you hire these individuals. That way you know for certain that there aren’t any gaps in their skills that might affect the quality or timeline of the project.
3. Establish a Clear Line of Communication
Contract workers who come on through IT staff augmentation services often aren’t familiar with how your company communicates. That’s why it’s important to introduce them to the lines of communication your team uses to provide updates.
Maybe it’s through a platform like Slack or Asana. Or it might be with daily or weekly email updates. Regardless, provide them with the lines of communication they’ll need for the project.
Then, lay out your expectations for how often they should be giving you updates on the project. That way, you aren’t blindsided by inevitable delays or mistakes made during the work.
4. Create a Flexible Work Environment
When bringing on a contract worker, it’s easy to expect them to conform immediately to your work/management style. However, creating a rigid work environment like this can cause a serious lack of innovation amongst your team.
What’s more, it also increases the overall inefficiency of the work. So keep an open mind when working with these professionals.
They’re talented for a reason – they have a lot of experience working on projects like yours. As such, if they have suggestions on how you can improve certain areas, make sure to take them into account.
5. Monitor Your Team’s Performance
When you’re first working with a contract worker, you want to monitor their work in the team closely, either at the end of the day or week. This is important because it allows you to catch potential mistakes they might have made.
These mistakes are much more fixable if they’re caught early on in the process. Make sure to assess how successful the project was at the end of the deadline.
If you’re happy with the work, consider hiring the same contract worker again when you require extra staff. That way, you can do less training and onboarding. They’ll also know all about your expectations.
How to Find the Best Team Augmentation Services
When looking for team augmentation services, the first thing you should look for is specialties. Remember to get as specific as you can with the company about your needs.
If you want to update your cybersecurity infrastructure, it’s not enough to just find skilled IT staff augmentation companies. You want staff augmentation services that can provide you with a cybersecurity specialist.
So a diverse talent pool is a clear sign of a good team augmentation company. It’s also important that they listen closely to you when you describe the role you need to be filled.
If there’s a language barrier or you feel like you’re being ignored or brushed off, search elsewhere. That’s because, as we mentioned, communication is so important when outsourcing this type of work. So you want to make sure you’re understood by the staffing agency.
Appreciate Learning About Staff Augmentation? Keep Exploring
We hope this guide helped you learn more about team augmentation services. As you can see, when these services are used correctly they can provide you with skilled workers and an incredibly scalable staffing pool.
However, when used incorrectly they can create a poor work environment that is filled with miscommunications and mistakes. So make sure you follow the advice in this guide to get the most out of your team augmentation service.
Looking for more tips on running a smooth business? Keep exploring our site to learn more from the many similar topics we have.
