Augmentation Or Full-Time Employees: What Is Better?

In the rapidly changing business world and the need to create new tools, many companies are faced with a dilemma: to attract temporary specialists for the implementation of specific projects or to invest in a permanent staff. The choice of the appropriate work model directly affects the efficiency and flexibility of the business, as well as its ability to adapt to new challenges. Many companies choose staff augmentation services, and this approach has many advantages. In this article, we offer to evaluate all the pros and cons of augmentation and full-time employees.

Features of Augmentation

Having a team of qualified specialists is the foundation of any company’s successful operation. However, today employers increasingly ask themselves: “What is better: to expand the team of permanent employees or to use augmentation services?” Well, the question in today’s economic realities is quite appropriate and logical, and therefore it makes sense to consider it thoroughly.

First, let’s figure out what augmentation means. It is worth noting right away that augmentation is not just an additional set of employees, but the involvement of third-party specialists in work for some (often short) time.

Depending on the situation, augmentation can be either a method of personnel optimization, which the employer uses at his own discretion in order to reduce personnel costs, or an urgent need when in the current realities this is the only possible solution. The latter means the lack of a technical, financial, or other possibility in the company to minimize labor processes and adapt them to the existing staff. In these realities, team augmentation services is the very “magic wand” that allows a company to stay afloat for a long time and even show a noticeable growth in key business indicators. Mainly, its profitability.

Search For Specialists Through an Outsourcing Agency

Of course, the employer can do augmentation on his own (for example, assign this task to the HR department, if, of course, the company has one). However, practice shows that the decision to delegate this task to an outsourcing agency (such companies are engaged in augmentation professionally and purposefully) becomes more correct and reasonable. On the one hand, it saves time and effort, since agencies have an extensive database of candidates for temporary vacancies, and the recruiting process itself is brought to almost automaticity.

On the other hand, the desire of the employer to additionally save the corporate budget by refusing the agency’s intermediary services in fact often turns out to be a completely futile and unjustified undertaking. Any delay in resolving this issue is fraught with loss of profit. The decision to additionally burden already busy full-time employees with this means an even greater reduction in the company’s productivity.

Outsourcing agencies often prove to be extremely useful allies when it is necessary to quickly expand the staff for both a short and long period.

If we talk about a long-term increase in the staff, such a decision usually pursues global and strategically important goals. This could be, for example, the preparation and implementation of a large project, which is typical, in particular, for companies working in the field of software development. In such cases, the practice is to hire highly specialized employees or specialists in rare technologies, that is, those who are both expensive and pointless to keep on staff permanently.

Augmentation And Full-Time Employees: Pros And Cons

In fact, both of these options have their pros and cons. Let’s consider each of them separately.

Full-Time Employees

When the focus of the company’s management is on constant stable work and business expansion, having a full-time staff is not a luxury, but a must. And there are many objective advantages here:

1. Controllability. Full-time specialists have a much stronger connection with the employer company. At the same time, compliance with established corporate rules is their direct responsibility.
2. Responsibility. In the process of performing assigned tasks, full-time employees often feel a greater level of responsibility for the result.
3. Saving time. Since full-time employees, as a rule, know all the details of the work process, they can start working immediately, without the need for preliminary training.
4. Systematic professional development. Full-time employees can gradually and methodically improve their level of qualification, in particular, through courses and training regularly organized by the employer.

As for the disadvantages of maintaining a permanent staff, the following should be mentioned:

1. Additional expenses. Permanent employees are more expensive than temporary ones, since the former need to be paid a monthly salary, as well as other related issues (vacation, sick leave, taxes, etc.).
2. Unpredictability. When hiring independently, there is always a risk of hiring an employee whose level of qualification is lower than stated in the resume. For comparison: the same outsourcing agency’s database often contains verified personnel. However, even here there is not always a 100% guarantee of a good choice.
3. Inflexibility. If the company’s management decides to change the scope of business activities, the employees from the staff may find themselves out of work.

Augmentation

The advantages of staff augmentation, implemented through an outsourcing agency, are as follows:

1. Time savings. There is no need to spend a lot of time and effort to find an employee, hire, train, or fire.
2. Flexibility. An outsourcing agency has the ability to quickly change the list of services if the relevant market conditions and criteria change.
3. Budget savings. Temporary workers can often perform their duties remotely. This, in turn, saves the employer from additional costs for renting office space and other goods/services.

The disadvantages of augmentation include:

1. Limited access to information. Outsourcing companies do not always have access to so-called sensitive data.
2. Possibility of quality reduction. Outsourcing partners often demonstrate lower labor productivity compared to full-time employees.
3. Remote control. If outsourcing partners perform their work remotely, the employer loses a significant share of control.

Final Thoughts

Choosing between temporary and permanent employees is a balance between flexibility and stability. Team expansion services is becoming an important tool for achieving flexibility, allowing businesses to adapt to short-term challenges and market fluctuations. On the other hand, permanent staff provides stability and commitment to corporate goals. If you are looking for a reliable provider of staff augmentation, we recommend paying attention to N-iX.