IT staff augmentation can boost operational efficiency. This is especially true for small businesses and startups who don’t always have the IT skills they need in-house for specialized projects. Plus, hiring full-time staff for temporary or specialized work can be expensive and just not practical.
One solution businesses are turning to is staff augmentation, which allows organizations to quickly scale their IT teams up or down as needed. It doesn’t involve long-term commitments or the overhead costs associated with permanent hires. No wonder it is increasingly popular. According to research, the IT staff augmentation market was worth $299 billion in 2023 and will reach $1,072 billion by 2032.
So, the question is, where does this hiring model fit into your organization’s IT strategy?
The answer is in this detailed guide below. We cover everything you need to know about IT staff augmentation, including its challenges and choosing a provider. That way, you can decide if it is right for you. But first, let’s define staff augmentation.
What is Staff Augmentation?
Staff augmentation is a flexible hiring strategy where companies integrate external professionals into their existing teams to augment their in-house teams for specific projects or to fill skill gaps. This model allows businesses to enhance their workforce with specialized skills for both short-term projects and long-term engagements.
Unlike traditional outsourcing, staff augmentation directly incorporates external talent into the company’s processes and culture, with the client maintaining full control over work, team management, and project direction. The duration can range from brief assignments to extended periods, depending on the company’s needs.
This approach is particularly valuable in the tech industry for accessing global talent pools, managing varying workloads, and filling skill gaps while maintaining consistency in team dynamics and work quality.
For example, one of our clients faced challenges in adapting to rapidly evolving regulatory standards. They needed proficient Cloud engineers to swiftly grasp the intricacies of compliance and motivate their dev team.
Through a few months of staff augmentation, they successfully onboarded skilled professionals, enabling a seamless transition of their assets and ensuring compliance with all regulatory mandates.
How IT Staff Augmentation Works
IT staff augmentation starts with understanding your needs and partnering with a competent staffing provider. This vendor then sources and vet qualified candidates matching your technical specifications, culture, and project goals.
The following steps are how a company can implement IT staff augmentation:
1. Determine Your Needs
Start by identifying the gaps in your current team’s capabilities or extra resources needed to complete new or ongoing projects. These could be specific technical skills, expertise in certain programming languages, or the number of extra hands needed.
2. Team Up with an Augmentation Provider
Next, find an IT staff augmentation agency. These service providers usually have a pool of prevetted talents and can handle interviews, onboarding, and payment processing. At DistantJob, we first try to understand your business’s unique needs. This enables us to match you with candidates who align with your company’s culture and technical requirements.
3. Select Candidates
At this stage, the staffing agency will share a shortlist of candidates that meet your predefined criteria. Then, you’ll review each candidate’s resume, skills, and experience to see how they fit your project.
At DistantJob, we present only the most qualified candidates who have passed our rigorous screening process, saving you time. This ensures you interview only top talent that matches your specific requirements and company culture.
4. Conduct Interviews and Make a Selection
You will also have your own shortlist. Afterward, you will hold interviews and select the most suitable candidate.
5. Onboard the New Hire into Your Team
After a successful interview process, integrate your new IT staff into your existing team. Even though they’re external remote workers, they work for the same business and managers as in-house employees.
6. Provide Ongoing Support
The IT staff augmentation process doesn’t end after onboarding. You need to continue supporting them till they fully settle in. This is also important to ensure timely and efficient completion of the project. Even the most talented IT professionals need guidance, especially in a new environment.
We at DistantJob know our work isn’t done after the hiring phase. Our team continually supports clients and remote workers. We help with communication, cultural integration, and any administrative or technical issues that may arise throughout the engagement period.
By following these steps, you can find the right talent to complement your team while maintaining control over your projects.
Types of IT Staff Augmentation and Their Use Cases
There are three types of staff augmentation: commodity-based, which focuses on general workforce capacity; skill-based, which provides specific technical expertise; and highly skilled, which offers advanced specialized talent for complex projects and strategic initiatives.
Consider your project requirements, timeline, and the level of expertise needed to choose the one for you.
Let’s expand on each below:
Commodity-based Augmentation
Commodity-based augmentation is the best option when you aren’t looking for specialized skills but need extra hands for large-scale or time-sensitive projects. It usually requires less training or onboarding than other types of IT staff augmentation.
Some examples of commodity-based roles include data entry specialists, IT technicians, and help desk agents.
Skill-based Augmentation
This kind of staff augmentation involves hiring individuals with specific skills. It suits projects requiring technical expertise or domain knowledge. Unlike commodity-based augmentation, the skill-based approach is more targeted and strategic.
However, these additional staff don’t need to be experts. As such, you can find help at a lower cost than acquiring specialized experts.
Skilled-based augmentation roles include cloud architects, web developers, and software testers.
Highly Skilled Augmentation
If your project requires a high level of expertise and experience, highly skilled augmentation is the perfect option. In this approach, highly skilled professionals come in to handle critical aspects of projects or solve complex problems beyond your in-house team capabilities. You can hire these specialists short- or long-term, depending on the project and your staffing approach. Machine learning engineers, DevOps engineers, and cybersecurity specialists are examples of highly skilled augmentation roles.
Comparison of Staff Augmentation Types
| Name | Description | Example uses |
| Commodity | Used when the hire doesn’t need to have any specific skill set. | Retail, basic work in factories and warehouses (such as good relocation) |
| Skill-based | Used when the hire needs to have a certain skill, but the skill level isn’t critical to the job’s performance. | Transcription, Data processing, Copywriting |
| Highly-skilled | Used when the hire needs advanced skills that can only be attained through training and experience. | Software Development, Contract Law, Brand Design |
Benefits of Staff Augmentation in IT
With staff augmentation, you can supplement your existing workforce with specialized, experienced professionals who can help you solve complex business problems.
Below are the advantages of this hiring model:
1. Pay For What You Need
Staff augmentation will allow your organization to only pay for what you need. If you don’t need to hire someone on a full-time basis, you can choose to sign a contract with your staff augmentation vendor to give you the exact staff you need for that given period.
2. It Saves Time
Your only job is to provide the requirements and pay the hired staff. The rest of the work is done by your staff augmentation vendor. This will not only save you time, but it also saves costs.
3. Allows You To Have Control Over Your Crucial Projects
With staff augmentation, you won’t have to outsource the entire project to an outside company. You only fill a few gaps within your already existing staff to attend to a specific project you need to accomplish within a given period. So, your in-house staff can work with the outsourced staff to handle the project.
Having your in-house team allows you to fully control how the project is executed and ensure the outcome meets the quality standards of your organization. For the best results, we recommend assigning the quality assurance role to one of your in-house staff.
4. Boost Productivity in Your IT Team
Instead of giving all the tasks to your available staff, staff augmentation allows you to outsource the complex and unique tasks that your in-house team can’t handle. This boosts productivity since each team member is assigned a job they know to do best.
5. Access To A Vast Pool Of Talent
IT staff augmentation vendors usually have a wide range of IT experts, including front and back-end developers, cybersecurity experts, product designers, network engineers, etc. Partnering with any reliable IT staff augmentation vendor gives you access to all this talent at any time. You don’t have to go headhunting in other companies or running job adverts to save your business from failing to get the right talent.
6. Low Operational Costs
Staff augmentation can also offer cost savings. By bringing an experienced professional on board from a staffing agency, you can avoid a significant portion of the costs associated with recruiting, and legal taxes.
When you hire remote talent, you get to hire people who live in countries where the cost of living is lower. This allows you to lower your operational costs without prejudicing your projects. You get unmatchable talent for a lower price.
4 Challenges of IT Staff Augmentation (and How to Solve Them)
Like other hiring approaches, IT staff augmentation has some drawbacks you must consider before deciding to use it. These challenges include communication barriers, cultural fit, quality assurance, and overdependence on external support. We discuss them in-depth below:
1. Communication Barriers
Language, cultural nuances, and time zones are among the factors that can impede effective communication between augmented and in-house teams.
When communication is ineffective, it can result in misunderstandings, project misalignment, and inefficiencies. Poor communication also leads to cliques, hurt feelings, and other workplace toxicity.
To avoid this, establish clear communication channels and protocols before bringing in augmented staff. You should also encourage existing team members to be welcoming and inclusive towards incoming members.
2. Cultural Fit
A cultural mismatch can lead to friction, reduced productivity, and potential conflicts within the team.
It is one thing to find external support that meets your skill and experience requirements. However, finding one that equally aligns with your company culture is tricky but achievable. Vet candidates for cultural fit during the interview process, not just technical skills. In addition, implement a thorough onboarding process that includes cultural orientation to help new hires integrate smoothly.
3. Quality Assurance
External staff may not have the same vested interest in the company’s long-term success as full-time employees. They may not do their best work, leading to delays or poor outcomes.
The best way to avoid this is to set well-defined expectations and quality benchmarks. Also, perform regular performance reviews to maintain high standards.
4. Overreliance on External Support
Overdependence on augmented staff for critical functions can become a weakness. If there are no proper knowledge transfer processes or a lack of internal team skill development, it can make you less competitive.
Prevent this issue by documenting processes and maintaining an internal skills repository to reduce reliance on external resources.
Types of Staff Augmentation Services and What They’re Best for
Augmentation services can take various forms depending on your needs and project requirements. The most common types of staff augmentation services are onshore, offshore, project-based, and team-based.
Onshore Staff Augmentation: Best for Workday Collaboration
Onshore augmentation involves hiring temporary staff from within your home market. It is usually less complicated because you don’t need to learn labor or wage laws. Plus, you can easily integrate these workers because they are more likely to share a similar culture and working language.
Onshore augmentation is ideal for projects that require frequent collaboration during shared working hours, including physical interaction.
Nearshore vs Offshore Staff Augmentation: Best for Cost Optimization and Accessing Global Talent Pools
These services involve hiring staff from foreign countries but with a little difference. With nearshoring, you limit talent sourcing to certain regions, typically close to home. For instance, a US company might hire developers from Mexico or Canada. The idea is to ensure little to no cultural or time difference, fostering easier collaboration and communication.
Offshoring is the direct opposite. It involves hiring talent from any location globally, often prioritizing cost-effectiveness and access to a broader talent pool. For instance, a US company might hire talent from India or Ukraine to take advantage of lower labor costs.
Project-based Staff Augmentation: Best for Specific Projects Where Additional Expertise is Needed
Project-based staff augmentation, as the name suggests, involves bringing in experts for specific projects. It allows businesses to access the expertise they need now without needing a long-term commitment. That way, they can save costs on hiring full-time employees for short-term needs.
For example, a one-time project like migrating a company’s data to a new cloud platform might require specialized cloud engineers. But hiring them full-time would be costly. So, using a project-based staff augmentation service allows the company to bring them in for the migration project only.
Team-based Staff Augmentation: Best for a Fast-moving Initiative
This staff augmentation service involves bringing in an entire team to work on a particular project or area. As such, you have a ready-made team with relevant skills and expertise to take on complex assignments.
Team-based staff augmentation is an ideal option when you need to ram up quickly for a time-sensitive initiative. It allows for efficient collaboration and streamlined project execution.
Choosing the Right Staff Augmentation Provider
The right staff augmentation provider will have ample experience, a proven track record of successful placements, strong technical expertise, and a deep understanding of your industry.
Here’s how to choose one:
Expertise and Experience
Ensure that the vendor you work with has the necessary experience in your industry. Visit their website, review their case studies, and find out what previous clients have been saying about them. Verify their certifications, industry memberships, or awards.
You should also ensure you both are on the same page regarding staffing needs, budget, timeline, and any other considerations. Don’t hold back on any questions or concerns you may have. Remember that the success of your project hinges on their ability to provide the right talent for your specific needs.
Flexibility and Scalability
The idea behind staff augmentation is to quickly scale your workforce according to your changing needs. Hence, the provider you choose must be able to meet those demands.
Inform the staffing company about your current staffing needs and how they may evolve over time. That way, you can compare your needs against the vendor’s offerings and decide if they fit.
Cultural Fit
IT team augmentation is just about bringing in external staff with the right skills. They must also fit your organization culturally. You want team members who can communicate well, align with your company values, and build rapport with your existing team.
So, ask your potential provider to describe how they assess cultural fit when matching candidates with clients. We do this at DistantJob by conducting in-depth interviews that assess communication style, work preference, and personal values.
Communication and Support
Effective two-way communication is a prerequisite for successful collaborations, especially with remote teams. Choose a provider that prioritizes clear and timely communication throughout the engagement. A reliable provider should have well-established protocols for keeping you informed and addressing any concerns promptly.
What is the difference between Staff Augmentation and Outsourcing?
Some people confuse staff augmentation with outsourcing. However, these two hiring strategies are fundamentally different. With outsourcing, you must hand over the entire project to an external entity to handle it. That means this entity will control how the project is done and bear all the risks involved, presenting disadvantages for businesses.
Staff augmentation is traditionally used when companies seek specific people to temporarily bolster their ranks to develop a project instead of a full team.
With staff augmentation, you maintain control over your projects, including how they are done and when they are delivered. This allows you to keep the quality standards of your organization for every project that is done.
Conclusion
IT staff augmentation is a strategic solution that enables businesses to adapt their workforce quickly. Through this hiring approach, organizations can access specialized talent, manage costs effectively, and maintain project control.
If you choose to use staff augmentation as your hiring strategy, you can always contact us to get the best IT staff to fill the gaps in your organization.
We will help you find top, experienced, and carefully vetted staff that is fit to do the tasks at hand. While choosing whom to assign you, we go beyond just the skills and experience.
We ensure the staff we assign you are a perfect fit for your company culture and take care of all the legal processes involved. This will enable you to focus on your company’s core activities as we handle all the recruitment processes on your behalf.
Scale your IT team with DistantJob today!
