Role of Staff Augmentation in Tech Startups

Staff augmentation is a very clever strategy for startups to scale up and win more projects, while saving on cost for full time employees. 

Why it works well?

Saving Cost: Usually startups will have fewer number of employees, juggling through multiple roles while trying to keep the company afloat. While this takes extra-ordinary skills and talent, it might cause product or project work to suffer, due to lack of focused attention. When the work is increasing, it might be a good idea to hire temporary specialists for a project to get the job done, while the permanent staff can oversee its smooth operation. This will save the company associated costs with hiring new employees. Utilizing the funds available to its best potential is very critical for an early stage start up. 

Wider talent pool: You can get access to wider pool of specialists globally, if they are not available locally. This can enable startups to take on more complex projects, without having to break the bank for a specialized talent.

Some drawbacks of this model?

While there are lot of positives of this model for a startup, it also has its drawbacks.

Quality risk: Since a startup will be getting talent from a third party there will always be potential quality risks like bad fit for the company culture or not being able to integrate properly with the working style of the startup.

Finding the right agency to work with: It is not a given that the right staff augmentation agency will be found immediately. This process might take a while to fit with your organizational needs.This might cost the startup, time and money, before your organizational needs are met. 

When is it a good option to augment your team?

When a project requires specialized knowledge, but you do not have in-house talent, which is a quite common with Startups, to not have staff on board, encompassing different domains.

Product Testing: When the product is in final stage of testing, it might be a good idea to have fresh set of minds to test out the idea before rolling out the product, as they might have less emotional connection with the product and more likely to be objective about it. 

When you want to save on recruiting time and expenses: Staff augmentation allows a company to adapt to changing market needs.

Is it the a perfect ingredient for the gig economy, we are moving towards?What are your thoughts? Share below.