Thinking of Staff Augmentation despite Covid-19 crises? Help is at Hand

Let’s admit it!

Covid – 19 has been front and center of our lives in 2020, wreaking havoc in both the offline and online world. When it comes to the offline world, lockdowns have become the new normal, people are being quarantined left, and right, businesses are shutting down, remote-working is in, a mask is mandatory, and so forth.  In short, “anything that could go wrong in the offline world has gone wrong.” Yes, correct Murphy Law’s.

Thankfully, things are quite the contrary in the online world. Online businesses are blossoming to the point that handling orders have become a headache for the staff.  Things are going out of stock quickly, especially for online stores dealing in healthcare products, grocery items, and their like. The shortages have prompted several online businesses to reinvent their supply chain.  In short, anything that could go right has gone right in the online world.” Of course, that’s Murphy’s Law in reverse.

So, the point is, business is as usual in the online world, despite the Corona crises. In fact, online businesses are showing a significant growth trajectory.  This is where IT staff augmentation need arises, as it’s not easy for businesses to take care of their staffing requirements and manage their business at the same time. Sure, there might be an in-house HR department and all to meet their staffing requirements, but IT staff augmentation services is a different ball game altogether. You can hire developers with expertise in specific technologies to manage particular tasks on a contractual basis and thereby augment the team’s overall capacity.

So, what is Staff Augmentation Services?

Staff Augmentation means to hire a contingent workforce through a staffing agency to scale up and down your business operations. The contingent or gig workers mainly comprise freelancers, contractors, individual professionals, consultants and even remote workers. 

 The workforce could either be hired for long term or short term projects, for temporary or on permanent basis. And the demand could be for a part-time or full-time staff.

Though currently leveraged in IT and engineering fields where there’s a high demand for highly skilled employees for large projects, even other industries could benefit from this service. UKAD has been providing  IT Staff Augmentation Services for the past 15 years, so you can trust this company for all your augmentation requirements.

Why the need for Staff Augmentation Services

Currently, staff Augmentation is central to several organizations across the globe.

Today, a lot of companies opt for staff augmentation services because of many good reasons, which are cited below; one being millennials demanding more flexi working hours.

Labor – Market Shift and Workforce Strategy by Oxford Economics

Sure, businesses may have independent HR systems that are quite capable of managing all their staffing requirements; however, hiring a company that specializes in staffing requirements is always better because it makes hiring for new projects or existing projects hassle-free.

Signs that shows increasing Scope of Staff Augmentation Services in the forthcoming years

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has suggested that half of its workforce could be working from home in the next five to 10 years. 

Fishbowl survey released in May 2020, found out that more than half of the 17,650 professionals surveyed in different industries would prefer to work remotely. 

A Gartner poll revealed that 48% of the employees are likely to work remotely at least part of the time post-Covid-19 versus 30% before the pandemic.

According to an intuit forecast, there will be 7.6 million people in the on-demand economy by 2020. And with Covid around, there could be a staggering rise in these numbers

Companies like IBM, Google, American Express, among many others, are hiring remote workers.

According to an Oxford Economics and SAP survey, of the 2700 executives and over 2700 employees surveyed in 2014, 83% of executives said they plan to increase the use of contingent, intermittent, or consultant employees in the next 3 years forcing change on companies.

Things to consider before approaching an IT Staff Augmentation Service company

1) Know your requirements 

First off, figure out which department(s) is falling short on resources. And what type of resources would best fit their bill in terms of qualifications, expertise, experience and all 

2) Scan Candidates

Yes, it would be best to scan candidates thoroughly through tests and interviews to know what you are betting on is actually worth the time and money you are spending on it. 

3) Integration of your new staff

Once you have the contractual staff in place, don’t assume that things will fall in place automatically. You need to make some efforts to ensure that the new team members are welcomed in the team and that they are comfortable dealing with your in-house team members. They should also be made aware of your company policies, procedures, values, and all. 

4) Continual fostering of relationships 

Once the integration part is over, you need to continually build a good rapport with the new members by repeatedly asking for their opinions and feedback. 

Benefits of IT Staff Augmentation Services in the wake of Covid Crises  

1) Reduces Hiring cost and Ambiguity

Covid-19, businesses are already facing the heat, and so training new employees could further strain their budget, more so if they decide to quit immediately after the training. Staff augmentation by an outsourcing solutions partner like Ukad will reduce your hiring cost and ambiguity. You can scale up your team with talented people temporarily without bearing any hiring or onboarding cost. 

2)   Hiring staff on contractual basis

While hiring permanent employees, you may have to pay not just their salaries but also take care of their payroll taxes, employee benefits, social security, and even bear cost in case of downsizing. Okay, this could have sounded fine in case of an ordinary situation; however, tough times call for drastic measures. And this is the best time for your businesses to opt for part-time or contractual resources as unemployment rates are climbing in the U.S.

3)   Source talent with specific skills for the required duration

Sometimes organizations need people with specialized skillsets for a short term project. For this, they may not want to hire a resource permanently or even train an existing resource because of the cost involved. This is where they can take the help of UKAD who could offer you a skilled resource on a contractual basis. The resources will get the project done and dusted in the required timeline.

4)   Hiring Contractual Developers from Cheaper Destinations

The biggest advantage of building a remote team is the cost advantage. And staffing companies like UKAD will help you source staff from nations that offer development services at cost-effective rates. Most of these nations fall in Eastern Europe and Asian Countries. And the developers residing here demand lower development costs because the cost of living is lower compared to the U.S. This results in massive savings.

Additional Benefits of Leveraging IT Staff Augmentation

#1. Faster Recruitment Cycle

Hiring is a back-breaking job; ask recruitment experts. And this process becomes all the more daunting when you are looking for tech talents with superior skills. In fact, it may take days, months, and even years. Despite the difficulties associated with it, IT Staff Augmentation makes hiring look easier as they have a refreshed database of the extensive talent pool to choose from.  

This ensures that the chosen candidate is appropriate for the position compared to what you may find for yourself.  This saves time, a lot of time.

#2. Takes care of unexpected attrition

If anything, attrition rates could make current employees suffer because of the extra workload and tight deadlines. A staffing solutions company can keep the pressure off by filling in the gap and at the same time ensuring that the crucial project gets completed with the given time frame.

#3. Extensive Scalability and Flexibility     

With staffing solutions at your beck and call, every department can scale their portfolio without thinking much about the resources. In fact, they could put their finger in multiple pies and see what’s working and what’s not, without worrying about the resource part at all.   

#4. Less Legal Issues  

Hiring people involves a lot of paperwork and legal responsibilities, including payroll, taxes, among many other things. With staff augmentation, the staffing company takes care of all the legal responsibilities and paperwork.   

#5. Complete control over the project

When you outsource a project, the entire project work gets transferred to the agency. That’s not the case with IT staff augmentation; though the professionals are hired from out, the control remains within the company.  This helps the company give shape to the project in their desired way.

Project outsourcing will completely ruin the role of a business in terms of execution and management of the project. However, IT staff augmentation prevents this catastrophe by ensuring that the parent company is in complete charge of the business.

Wrapping Up

IT Staff Augmentation was always in demand. And with the ratio of on-demand employees and developers growing because of the pandemic, development companies should opt for such services without any second thoughts. Such companies not just ensure a faster recruitment cycle and lower development costs; they also take care of legal hassles and scalability requirements.

UKAD group offers both on-shore and outsourcing services with the help of teams based in Ukraine and Poland. The team offers project management, design programming, testing and support services to develop full-fledged solutions.

Author bio: Jennifer Warren is a blogger and content manager at GoodFirms- a prominent review and rating platform that provides a level-playing field to businesses of all sizes. She can be found on Twitter @contactjwarren and LinkedIn.