The professional world keeps evolving with all the new technologies that change the landscape. Our world has become more fast-paced, affecting how companies create products or develop projects. In many cases, businesses work on different ideas, and they require specialists to make them a reality.
However, that’s where the problem of hiring new employees arises. Why would someone want to hire a blockchain developer if the company has only one project that requires developing a blockchain? In this case, staff augmentation can help because it’s the process of hiring a team temporarily. Learn what staff augmentation means and whether you need it.
What Is Staff Augmentation?
Staff augmentation is a powerful business strategy that involves integrating professionals from a third-party vendor to optimize your team. It’s different from conventional hiring, where your company would first contact the IT outsourcing agency that would seek experts that could match your expectations.
This approach of opting for staff augmentation services makes sense when you have budget limits and want to make the most of your resources, especially in countries with high operating costs like the UK, USA, or Norway. Staff augmentation offers organizations the flexibility to expand as needed without the commitment of permanent staff.
Traditional hiring involves bringing in permanent employees, typically for long-term staffing needs or when specific skill sets are integral to the organization. Permanent staffing provides stability and alignment with the company culture and long-term objectives.
The choice between these two approaches depends on the organization’s unique requirements, as each option has its own set of advantages and disadvantages. Let’s discuss this in detail in the next section of the article.
How To Make The Right Choice: Staff Augmentation Or Traditional Hiring?
So, you have a project, but you lack employees that would be perfect for the job. You don’t know which option to choose: hire an employee who would fit into your current team or consider staff augmentation. If you’re at a loss, consider these factors that should help you make the right choice:
- Project duration. If your organization frequently handles short-term or project-specific tasks with clear timelines, staff augmentation is probably the better choice. Staff augmentation allows you to scale your workforce as needed quickly, so if the workload suddenly increases, you can add a few more experts to the team. However, if you’re working on long-term projects and you don’t require an entire team of experts, consider full-time hiring.
- Skill requirements. Assess your company’s skills. Determine if you require specialized expertise for shorter projects or long-term employees for sustained growth. Simply put, if you used to develop one type of product and now you’ve switched to blockchain-based projects, it might be a good idea to hire someone permanently for growth.
- Costs. Decide if traditional hiring costs, including salaries, premiums, and training, align with your financial goals or if cost-effective staff augmentation is more suitable.
- Consider the importance of cultural fit. Traditional hiring lets you choose people who align with the company’s values, which is often great for the growth of your team.
These factors should help you make a choice.
Final Thoughts
So, traditional hiring or staff augmentation? The simple answer is that if you have a project that you want to accept but potentially won’t have similar ones in the future, the choice is obvious – go for the staff augmentation. You can also use this option if you often have different types of projects and an experienced team, but the peculiarities of the project require an additional skill set – it would not be beneficial to hire one person for each project. In other cases, traditional hiring may be the right choice.