How to know when you need a raise in your IT team

When assembling your IT team, you do so based on knowledge about the company's current and likely future needs. However, these parameters can change at any time. For example, let's say your company lands a large new client, resulting in much more work than your current team can handle. Or let's say an existing client suddenly needs a lot more results. In these cases, hiring new IT employees in enough time to meet deadlines can be challenging – if not impossible.

But you may ask: how will these professionals fit into my current team? How much money will I end up spending? Will I still have control over my projects? How can I be sure this approach is right for my situation? Here we explain a little more about what IT staff augmentation really is, how to know when you might need it and how it can benefit your company and your projects.

What is IT staff augmentation?

IT staff augmentation is the process of adding outside help to your existing IT team. Typically you work with a staffing agency, which hires and trains IT professionals and then sends them on various tasks. This strategy is useful when you need specific skills that current team members don't have, when the project load suddenly increases, or when you want to work with potential team members before hiring them permanently.

Your company may need to increase its IT staff if…

Not sure if IT staff augmentation is right for your team? If the following descriptions align with your situation, this approach is something to look into.

#1: Are you looking for cost-effective IT services

You might think that hiring external IT support to join your team would be more expensive than hiring professionals directly. But this is not always the case. Consider the time and money you save by avoiding the traditional hiring process. You also save when new team members are onboarded because you're not paying full-time salaries, benefits, or training. Plus, you only pay for these services when you need them.

Plus, IT staff augmentation is often provided at a consistent cost, so you can manage your budget more efficiently than when you have a lot of employees coming and going.

#2: You Need to Grow Your Team Quickly

If your company wants to grow quickly, you might get more than you bargained for if a big client with a lot of demands comes along. In these cases, you may not have enough time to find new employees to add to your existing IT team, as talent hunting involves creating job postings, interviewing candidates, and onboarding new employees, which can be time-consuming. .

IT staff augmentation is the perfect solution here as it allows you to quickly expand your team and gain expert assistance that will contribute to the success of your new partnership. You may even find that you would like some of the new team members to stay on as permanent employees. Many IT staff augmentation services allow you to hire your team members after they are part of the augmented team.

This strategy is also useful when you have one or more IT team members out of the office for an extended period of time. You can hire one or more temporary team members to step in during this period only, without the hassle of traditional hiring and firing.

#3: You need to hire your team quickly

The opposite is true if you have a situation where your workload decreases, which means you get a high degree of flexibility, which can help you respond to the inevitable unknowns of your business environment. The staffing agency will handle the termination process and there will be no hard feelings among employees who know their position could be eliminated at any time.

#4: You Need High Project Visibility

IT staff working for augmentation services are trained not only in technical skills but also in project management and communication. This means they are fully capable of keeping you informed about all aspects of the project they are responsible for. They understand the latest communication tools and methods, as well as the importance of using them.

#5: You Need a Specific Skill Set

Maybe your company has taken on a project that requires skills that your in-house IT team doesn't have. Finding the right person can be like looking for a needle in a haystack and you may not have time to conduct an extensive search. But an IT staffing service may have exactly the talent you need, even if that specific skill is rare in your region. In fact, many companies turn to foreign outsourcing agencies specifically for this reason.

You want to maintain control over your project

When hiring an entire external IT team to take on a project, you may lose control over certain aspects of it. It may even be necessary to send the entire project to a different country, where legal challenges may prove difficult if something goes wrong. By augmenting your existing team, you keep the project in-house and on-site and maintain 100% control.

This benefit is particularly useful when you are developing a new product or service. You want to make sure every detail is under your influence to create the best possible result.

You want to minimize risk

Let's say your company wins a large new client on a trial basis, requiring an immediate increase in the amount of work required from your IT team. If you hire enough new people to supplement your team in doing this work, you run the risk of that client sticking around. Otherwise, you will need to fire all new workers. By using IT staff augmentation, you minimize these risks because when the unexpected happens, you can simply lay off the augmented staff.