Do you need to expand and aren’t exactly sure how to go about staff augmentation services?
Hiring permanent staff to fill temporary positions is not only time-consuming but also counterproductive. In addition to that, using long-term hires for short-term projects can mean poor ROI for any business. However, with the workload getting bigger as your company takes on new projects, it’s inevitable that you’ll need more hands-on-deck to help see your expanded workflow through.
With outsourced staff coming into the business, there’s also the dilemma regarding how to integrate both new and old employees, and what it takes to make it all work seamlessly. In this article, we’ll discuss some important pointers to help you grow your business via staff augmentation services. Let’s get started.
1. Figure out KPIs to guide your project
Before starting on any work, you’ll want to set up KPIs To keep your project rolling smoothly. You should:
- Break down your project into milestones
- Create deadlines for these milestones
- Put in place course-correction strategies
Good performance indicators can help your business to achieve more, even with a constricted budget or timetable.
2. Move up your best workers to demanding roles
While it is the case for any good business that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, it’s also the reality that some employees perform better than their counterparts. So you’ll need to:
- Single out these hard workers
- Move them up into demanding positions
- Fill the void with augmented staff
These employees can spearhead large projects efficiently, and you can easily fill entry-level roles via staff augmentation until the project passes.
3. Get a proven staff augmentation service provider
The staff outsourcing company you choose is also vital. Typically, you rely on this third party and hope that it gets you competent employees who can hit the ground running.
In order for that to happen, it’s important to know how to determine the right staff augmentation partner. Typically, a good partner should:
- Have a proven track record
- Be clear about their services
- Truly care about your growth
Client testimonials are also a great indicator of what to expect.
4. Determine iterative services to outsource
According to an Asana report, businesses lose about 19 working days per employee annually to recurring tasks, namely:
- Email sorting
- payroll services
- Tax accounting and more
Once you figure out what iterative tasks are holding up valuable employee time, you can free up these workers for project-based work via staff augmentation services. This way, you can channel focus to more revenue-driving activities.
5. Keep timezone differences in mind
With remote hires in particular there are a couple of questions to think about as a business. Some of those include:
- What time zones are your new staff in?
- Will that be a hindrance to your project?
- How will you ensure seamless communication?
At the end of the day, you’ll want new employees who can fit in with your project schedule. While being in drastically diverse time zones isn’t always a bad thing, you may need to come up with a suitable shift program to accommodate everyone.
6. Design a great onboarding process
According to a Gallup report, 88% of American organizations don’t onboard well. To avoid falling victim to the fate of the majority, it becomes essential to learn how to create an effective onboarding program. An important part of doing that entails keeping in mind the 4 C’s of onboarding namely:
- Compliance
- Clarification
- Culture
- Connection
It is important that new staff understand organization policies, what their responsibilities in upcoming projects will be, and that they feel part of the team right off the bat.
7. Use project management tools for coordination
Communication can become hard to coordinate as your in-house team combines with the new staff. Workers end up pulling in different directions, which is one of the reasons why 70% of projects fail, going by a TeamStage report.
To ensure everyone is on the same page and to enhance efficiency and performance, you’ll need to use reliable project management platforms like:
- Trello
- Jira
- Asana
Of course, there are many other great options beyond these.
8. Keep records of code used along the way
If you’re looking to outsource software development work, documenting versions of code across milestones is important. This benefits your IT infrastructure by:
- Simplifying troubleshooting
- Enhancing scaling and maintenance
- Making it easier to upgrade
Moreover, you won’t have to start every project from scratch thanks to these codebases.
So after choosing the right IT staffing service, it’s important to keep records of what each developer is working on, which will also better help with accountability and team management.
9. Expand your product list by outsourcing marketing
One sure-fire way to accelerate growth is by increasing your service and product offerings. However, even trailing only one product may mean months of leg work as you’ll need to.
- Research new market trends
- Carry out case studies of similar products
- Conceptualize new product ideas
- Design new marketing strategies
Recruiting expert digital marketing and sales services to help with the groundwork and reduce your time-to-market. Once the hard part is out of the way, you can return to your normal employee size to reduce costs while still reaping the benefits.
10. Delegate new technology integration to specialists
For any business looking to keep up with the modern market, digital transformation is now a matter of necessity rather than a good-to-have factor. In fact, an IDC report found that digital-first technologies can boost revenue for a new business by up to 34%.
By turning to an IT staff augmentation service provider and recruiting specialized IT experts, you can:
- Break down geographical limitations
- Increase your availability
- Improve customer service.
Finally, you can also diversify your range of services.
Bottom line
Staff augmentation services unlock many possibilities for your business. They allow you to still stay in charge of overseeing your project while you fill the skills gap that’s necessary to complete the project.
Moreover, you can save on capital as you don’t have to outsource an entire department, while you also get in-house training as an added bonus as employees exchange knowledge.
However, it’s important to get the best IT staffing service like DADJ Inc so that you only settle for quality outsourcing solutions. Your service provider decision is just as crucial, perhaps even the most important one of them all, as the other tips we’ve discussed. A good decision here sets up growth for your business and makes it easy to implement these tips.
