IT staff augmentation is a successful way to bridge the gap between skills and make many projects succeed. While many businesses use it to their benefit effectively, others still rely on local talent pools, which are closely associated with long-term recruiting and high costs. They are also hesitant to consider alternative avenues that can help accelerate their project and/or improve its quality.

Different from outsourcing IT assistance, staff augmentation basically adds up a specialist to your team when you are working with a new product or technology and you are unable to provide the training and support that your employees need to succeed.

We’re going to find the truth about the major myths about staff augmentation. And, if you’re not sure if recruiting temporary help is a viable option, then read on — we’ll help you to be confident with your choice.

Myth: ‘Staff augmentation is quite expensive!’

Reality: Absolutely wrong. In fact, in most instances, it is certainly more cost-efficient to deal with outsourced companies than to run massive IT staff augmentation. Staff augmentation also allows businesses to circumvent most direct and indirect expenses affecting in-house employees, including insurance and retirement benefits, compensation of staff, legal processes and even management of office supply. And that’s only getting a glimpse.

In fact, staff augmentation plays a tremendous role in risk and resource management, far beyond cost savings. Make sure that your IT staffing members have effective and robust hiring processes that guarantee access to the region’s top talent. It eliminates the risk of recruiting the inappropriate person for the job and provides a smooth process between sourcing and recruitment. Time savings help companies focus on their core skills to increase the product’s ultimate value.

Myth: ‘You don’t have control over your project’

Reality: Another commonly held belief is that you lose control over your project with staff augmentation. You hand over the keys to the castle to the company you employ for conventional outsourcing. You have very little control of the success or path that the project should follow until it is complete.

Staff augmentation is exactly what it sounds. You hire a team, if you don’t have one, which makes use of your resources and follow the action plan. Staff augmentation adds on your software team, allowing you to maintain full control over the project’s course and development. Dedicated developer teams are on the side, and you have direct contact with the manager and developers of the project.

Myth: ‘Staff augmentation brings communication gap between PMs and Developers’

Reality: If you outsource a project, you’re concerned about not understanding the project’s status or speaking to developers about technical answers. You may be worried with time-zone discrepancies for outsourcing abroad, or a language barrier that makes it difficult to get the full scope of what’s going on with the project.

You have power over both the team and the project while you deal with a staff augmentation company. Your augmented developers are part of your team and are devoted to your project. All updates about your project’s progress and success go through you directly. You’re the owner, even with remote augmentation. You work with project manager and developers directly.

Myth: ‘Time/cultural differences can make your project suffer’

Reality: Most certainly, the augmented staff you employ would work remotely with you (although some contracts require their physical presence). This can actually work to your favor in today’s business setting, encourage continuous development, and give you a competitive advantage. Because of the time difference, when your local devs are still sleeping, your remote staff on the other side of the world may respond to the problem. It is also common practice to use communication and project management methods to encourage interactions with your augmented development teams.

Core cultural differences are hard to overcome, but it may increase your worries about them. Many tech professionals are big city dwellers who uphold Western values and speak excellent English in outsourcing areas such as Ukraine. In the end, it’s up to you to decide whether or not you want them on your team.

Myth: ‘Staff augmentation brings along a lot of risks’

Reality: Working with new members often brings a natural worry or anxiety. Nonetheless, if it is not possible to achieve your business goals with the support of your existing staff, you can augment it. It’s less risky than assigning a totally unknown development team with full control of the project. If you want to be as sure of your success as possible and control your web project locally, with a rise in IT staff you can reduce the risks.

Myth: ‘Management of staff augmentation teams is a challenging task’

Reality: Unless an organization can schedule performance, meetings and monitor key performance metrics, this clearly cannot be true. Staff augmentation teams are prepared to assimilate in no time in new environments and transform themselves into the project or organization’s structure and procedures for which they work. Physical distances are not a problem anymore. Staff augmentation can benefit your business remotely. It’s all about breaking virtual constraints in the IT industry. Staff augmentation can benefit your business remotely.

Operating with outside people is natural to fear a little, but factoring in the benefits of staff augmentation will overshadow those worries. Nevertheless, having all important issues in writing and always using transparent and efficient communication channels is good advice.

Myth: ‘It’s hard to get tech support for the follow-up’

Reality: When the project is done and the team no longer has augmented staff, who is going to provide tech support? This is one of the most forward-looking business owners’ genuine concerns. However, this aspect can be negotiated and can be addressed directly in your outsourcing contract. A reputable outsourcing company respects these issues and will provide you with a variety of solution support options.

Take away

Staff augmentation might be the right fit for the needs of your company. While this is a type of outsourcing, it offers a better way to build and maintain a project by a team of developers. Consider exploring staff augmentation while hiring or outsourcing overseas. Additionally, the team will understand more about how to incorporate new solutions and expertise of long-term internal management of everything.