IT Staff Augmentation: Top 6 Challenges & Solutions

IT staff augmentation gives great leverage to enterprises. It empowers organizations to get access to a ready pool of credible technical talent to run projects smoothly. That too in a very cost-effective, timely, productive, and profitable manner. But to experience its enormous benefits, enterprises need to understand its world better to ensure an effective roll-out.

Here in this blog, we present to you common challenges related to IT staff augmentation that need special attention. Also, we offer you proven solutions to counter each challenge with ease to get the best from IT staff augmentation services.

Challenge: 

In IT staff augmentation, IT staffing agencies usually have a large pool of ready talent available from across the globe. Their skilled professionals might be very good in their subject but many times face a language barrier. It has been observed that candidates are not well versed with the English language, as their mother language or the official language of their origin country differs completely. It leads to disappointment in terms of requirement understanding and impacts the delivery of work.

Solution:

Before signing the contract with the IT staff augmentation service provider, test and evaluate the English proficiency of potential candidates. Only upon getting satisfactory results, pick external candidates. You can also formulate a communication protocol or procedure so that both internal and external team members remain on the same page without any hassles. You along with your IT staff augmentation service provider can set rules for answering phone calls, emails, messages, in a timely fashion.

Challenge:

The biggest aim to embrace IT staff augmentation services is to get access to the best talent available in the world. In such a search, organizations often get a list of reputed staff augmentation companies that operate in different time zones (due to their distant and distinct geographical location). It may result in the unavailability of talents during official working hours and affect smooth coordination.

Solution:

IT staff augmentation is not a new phenomenon. Its popularity has increased substantially in the last decade and resulted in the boundless growth of countless reputed staff augmentation companies across the globe. It would thus be a feasible option if you select any reputed staff augmentation IT company that operates in the same time zone as yours. In case you are adamant to work with someone outside your time zone then make sure that they are ready to work as per your working schedule. A written clause in the service agreement for such a thing would help substantially in later stages to maintain compliance.

Challenge:

Companies often invest huge time, energy, and resources to get the best from their staff augmentation firm but sometimes do not get desired results. Many a time project delivery pace gets affected, quality gets impacted, and the end result is mismatched as per original requirements.

Solution:

You need to understand that not all that glitters is gold. There may be countless staff augmentation solution providers in the market that promise quality talent but often do not possess the necessary experience, expertise, and strength to fulfill project requirements with ease. Therefore do thorough research before finalizing an external agency. Check their past track record, service history, client list, service reviews, client feedback, company size, the profile of management, revenue size, countries where they operate, accreditations, certifications, hiring techniques, etc. You can also check the work history, qualifications, and skill level of potential hires before signing the contract. It gives you a fair assessment of the strength of your potential staff augmentation partner and helps you land at the right decision for better business gains.

Challenge: 

Even though you as an enterprise do not need to carry the burden of the tiresome and laborious hiring process. But your IT team augmentation partner does. Getting skilled resources in the quickest time possible is the key to success but often enterprises find it difficult many times to onboard candidates in a stipulated time duration. Especially in cases where talents with rare skills are required.

Solution:

The IT staff augmentation solution partner executes a lot of effort to get good candidates. A candidate goes through initial screening, skill test round, interview, onboarding, background check, and training before getting deployed on real projects. All such things take time. Therefore you need to be extra careful. Following things can help.

• Prepare the resource requirement details in advance and contact the agency partner as early as possible.
• Explain to them the exact skill sets required with specific KRAs.
• Go with an agency that has worked in the required domain in the past, has a credible track record of hiring resources on time, or carries a ready pool of necessary talent.
• In case the agency does not currently have the required talent then check their hiring patterns, experience, and tie-ups with other agencies. A reputed record on these accounts can help you get desired talent as quickly as possible.

Challenge:

What if you no longer want to continue utilizing the services of an IT staff augmentation partner but do not want to impact the progress made so far using external team members? You will require a smooth, accurate, and timely knowledge transfer mechanism. Many enterprises feel it challenging to get this job done.

Solution:

• In the agreement, define in advance who all will be responsible and liable for knowledge transfer.
• Make a provision of maintaining written records of all progress made using a tech document so that anybody in the future can get the necessary information at the time of transition. The tech documentation should include all technical and project management things in detail (like existing code, infrastructure setup details, tools & technologies used SOPs, etc.).
• Conduct meetings, QA sessions, etc., to execute the KT process smoothly.
• Ensure penalty clause in case of agreed KT process violation.

Challenge: 

How will we keep a close watch on remote resources? This question concerns most organizations. Many feel that they are in no position to control remote resources. Ineffective coordination protocols and the inexperience of external team members can make things worse.

Solution:

There are several project management, communication, and coordination tools available in the marketplace. Mostly freely. You can use such tools to check what your extended resources are doing. You can conduct periodic team meetings, assign tasks, evaluate their progress, check their time present over the workstation, and even ask to share a screen for a quick inspection. You can also ask for a project coordinator whose sole responsibility is to manage resources at the remote end and provide you with every minute detail on a daily basis. You can monitor work progress as per agreed commitment. Any deviation from deadlines or quality mismatch can be raised promptly to that senior executive for timely course correction. Tools like Zoom, Slack, Google Meet, Skype, Dropbox, Jira, etc., can be used to monitor remote resources.

Being a reputed name in the field of IT staff augmentation service, we understand its world better and assure you a promising ROI on staff augmentation solutions. With Vraimatic having your staff augmentation partner, you do not need to worry about anything related to remote workforce management. We are known in the industry to fulfill clients’ expectations with ease while maintaining superb quality. Schedule a call with our IT staff augmentation expert to understand how you can grow faster using our IT staff augmentation services.

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Website: vraimatic.ai

Phone: 1-855-203-8196

Email: info@vraimatic.ai