Businesses are becoming increasingly comfortable with staff augmentation as a way to grow their teams. It enables access to high-quality IT employees from across the globe and ensures fast, successful development.
In addition, complete project control and cost-effectiveness make IT staff augmentation a fantastic choice for numerous organizations.
Is your company considering this employment method as well? If so, you should be aware that besides all benefits, it also comes with specific challenges. Read on to learn more about staff augmentation challenges and how to deal with them.
Top 6 Staff Augmentation Challenges
Here is a list of the top six staff augmentation challenges and suggested solutions.
Recruitment Difficulties
Adding a specialist to your team is almost always a lengthy process. It takes time to conduct interviews, confirm qualifications, administer exams, and carry out all other necessary tasks. More precisely, on average, companies need three weeks to find a person for a specific position. Staff augmentation might also take as long as employing regular employees.
Solution: The best way to overcome this challenge is to collaborate with an experienced vendor who employs a wide range of skillful professionals. This way, your selection process is quick, and the new team members can get directly into the project. Additionally, ensure the provider you select understands your business requirements, so you get the talent that best fits your team.
Onboarding Challenges
It takes time and effort to fully co-opt a new team member. For newcomers, integrating can be a challenging process that doesn’t always go smoothly. In addition, staff augmentation is typically done under tight time constraints, which leaves little space for significant adjustments in facilitating onboarding.
Solution: When conducting interviews with potential coworkers, try to spark their enthusiasm for the project. Include information on your commitment to a positive work culture and team relationships. The goal is to engage experts with a positive attitude to encourage them to genuinely contribute to your project. Also, your regular employees should know about the new coworkers and be prepared to assist them.
Ineffective Communication
Communication issues are one of the biggest potential challenges with staff augmentation. Such difficulties could emerge from either a lack of English language competence or, more frequently, the parties’ failure to communicate effectively. As a result, there are uncertainties about the project’s details and little to no reporting, especially when the extended team is working remotely.
Solution: Establish productive collaboration by agreeing on workflow and preferred communication channels. Furthermore, performing regular reviews and holding meetings with both the in-house team and the augmented staff, at least twice a week, is crucial. In this scenario, all parties are on the same page and can resolve any difficulties swiftly and effectively.
Unplanned Expenses
Typically, project-based employees work on an hourly basis. However, estimating how long your project will take might be challenging when opting for staff augmentation. Moreover, because the scope of the work may vary, it might seem impossible to plan for savings or additional expenses.
Solution: If you want to know exactly how much staff augmentation will cost, go for fixed-price contracts. This strategy works well for long-term employment since it guarantees service per one, predetermined price. Keep in mind, though, that it’ll be a more rigid engagement, so you might not be able to flexibilize requirements as you go. On the other hand, the hourly-rate approach is best for one-time tasks that finish quickly or for developing simple applications.
Legal Issues
Since staff augmentation is a recent practice, it might be challenging to determine the legal basis for such a partnership. Moreover, an improper legal agreement might seriously hurt your business. It could result in unwanted costs, poor quality control, omissions in information security, and other staff augmentation challenges.
Solution: The best way to avoid legal issues is to have a well-written contract tailored to your business goals and needs. However, ensure that your agreement addresses essential details like payment terms and data protection regulations. Also, include penalties in case of contract term non-compliance so that all parties contribute to the prevention of legal issues.
Unclear Expectations
Companies that invest in staff augmentation might experience conflicting and unclear expectations. The reason is simple: the primary team and the augmented staff have different perspectives on the final outcome. This may result in missed deadlines, increased expenses, more workload, and unwanted conflicts.
Solution: The best way to avoid such situations is for both sides to agree on how the final product should look and function. Therefore, provide well-structured documentation outlining all expectations to the augmented team before the start of the project. Additionally, hold regular meetings to ensure that the project is progressing successfully.
Get the Best Out of Staff Augmentation
Staff augmentation enables businesses to complete projects swiftly, extending their operations and IT capabilities. It’s a tremendous practice for obtaining numerous benefits, such as faster time to market, lower costs, and reduced workloads.
However, it’s crucial to correctly implement this powerful employment technique to experience its benefits fully. So be sure to use these solutions when you embark on the staff augmentation journey!
