Leveraging Staff Augmentation

to Overcome IT Skills Gaps

and Talent Scarcity

Background

Staff augmentation is the process of supplementing an organization's existing workforce with external resources, such as contractors or consultants, to help fill skill gaps or meet demand increases. This practice can be particularly useful for overcoming IT skills gaps and talent scarcity, which are becoming increasingly common.

The Issue

According to Gartner’s 2021-2023 Emerging Technology Roadmap Survey, IT executives see talent shortage as the main barrier to companies’ adoption of new technologies in six categories: 

1. Infrastructure and platforms, 
2. Networks, 
3. Security, 
4. Digital workplace, 
5. Automation, and 
6. Storage. 

Learn more about the roles best suited to Staff Augmentation in our article, “Maximizing Success with Outsourcing and Staff Augmentation: Identifying the Right Roles.”

Research vice president at Gartner, Yinuo Geng, explains that the increase in remote work and rapid 2021 hiring “exacerbated IT talent scarcity, especially for sourcing skills that enable cloud and edge, automation, and continuous delivery.”   

Chief Information Officers (CIOs), Chief Technology Officers (CTOs), and technology leaders must devise new, adaptable hiring strategies to meet these technology, talent, and workplace realities. 

The Solution

One key solution is to build teams through staff augmentation. 

Staff augmentation can be used to hire talent efficiently and build teams to help you reach your business goals. This approach involves evaluating current staff, determining the required skills, and then working with a staff augmentation agency to fill your company’s talent gaps. 

This staffing model allows your business to meet current and future challenges without hiring new employees in-house. This means your business thrives no matter how the talent market fluctuates. 

Given the talent shortage in technology, augmenting your team with additional development team members can be the right strategy to meet deadlines and fill specific skills gaps while saving on costs. 

The Research

According to a recent study by Deloitte, staff augmentation is becoming an increasingly popular solution for companies looking to fill IT skills gaps. The study found that 55% of companies are currently using staff augmentation, and an additional 20% plan to use it in the near future. The study also found that the most common reasons for using staff augmentation include the need for specialized skills (62%), the ability to scale teams up or down (55%), and the need for specific experience (48%).

Another study by Gartner, a leading research and advisory firm, found that staff augmentation particularly benefits companies that need to access niche or emerging technologies. The study found that companies that use staff augmentation are more likely to have access to the latest technologies and be able to innovate faster than companies that rely solely on in-house IT teams.

Advantages of a Staff Augmentation Strategy

If you are considering this strategy, first become familiar with some of the model’s advantages. 

Advantages of Staff Augmentation 

1. You only pay for the talent, not recruiting or staffing: When you engage a staff augmentation agency (or “partner”), you only pay for the specific personnel resources you need–either on a monthly- or hourly fee basis. Unlike working with a recruiting agency, staff augmentation partners do not charge your business for the recruiting or staffing costs. 
2. Reduces hiring risk: Staff augmentation is flexible; you can try out potential workers to see if they fit your organization or project without incurring significant risks for your business. This removes the risk of having to replace an employee, which can be time-consuming and costly.
3. Scalability: Having a partner that provides staff augmentation services allows your department to scale faster and more efficiently. Staff augmentation agencies have access to on-bench talent and keep a database of specialized talent to contact quickly when new needs arise.
4. Can reduce training time: Hiring pre-vetted professionals who have already passed a technical and cultural assessment means it takes less time for them to learn how your company works. As soon as the employee is onboarded into your organization, they can start work immediately. 
5. Access to expertise: When you work with a staff augmentation agency, you access not just the technical skills of the developer(s) you work with but also the years of experience that your partner agency brings from helping other organizations meet their technology needs.
6. Cut costs: Hiring nearshore–in a neighboring country, as opposed to your own or more distant one–with a staff augmentation partner can reduce recruiting, employee benefits, tax, and training costs while keeping the same or similar advantages of hiring an in-house developer.

Conclusion

If your department is experiencing a talent shortage or it is taking more than a month to fill positions, hiring a staff augmentation agency taps you into a world-class talent pool. 

With lower costs and minimal effort compared to hiring in-house, pursuing a staff augmentation strategy can give your organization a competitive advantage to face market changes and overcome new challenges.

Get in touch with us today to find out more about how Stateside can help your business overcome the global issue of IT skill gaps and talent scarcity.

Photo by Carl Heyerdahl.