Unpredictable workloads are a common challenge for businesses across industries. Along with unpredictable workloads, seasonal fluctuations, project deadlines, and unexpected surges in demand can cause hurdles in meeting project deadlines, compromised quality, and employee burnout.
To maintain productivity in unpredictable workloads and seasonal spikes, organizations need a flexible and scalable solution. Team augmentation offers a strategic approach to managing these peaks by providing access to specialized talent temporarily. By supplementing your in-house team with skilled professionals, you can optimize your workforce, reduce costs, and deal with sudden workloads with ease.
This blog will introduce you to how you can manage your workloads effectively and get your job done smartly.
How Does Team Augmentation Offer Relief In Peak Workload Times?
Scalability
Team augmentation is a scalable approach to managing the workload with ease. You can easily scale up or down the team according to the project requirements. So, whether you have an immediate workload or a slow workflow, team augmentation can help you in any case. You can easily bring the relevant skills to the team without stringent efforts or a prolonged onboarding process.
Moreover, when you are done with the seasonal workload spike, you can easily scale down the augmented resources. There is no need to pay them or bear the excessive burden once the workload season is over.
Specialized Expertise
In-house teams are skilled and expert in their respective domains and technologies. But what if you need to have a particular skill set for specific projects and your deadline is approaching fast? But don’t worry, your project deadlines shouldn’t be missed due to the lack of specialized skills. Team augmentation allows you to quickly bring specialized resources to your team.
Cost Factors
In many of the cases, organizations do not hire resources permanently as it is costly. When they have a workload spike, they prefer to have a temporary resource, the temporary resources not only save the long run cost but it is also cost-effective in terms of training the staff. Augmented staff is already trained and expert in a particular skill set.
In such cases, team augmentation proves to be a cost-effective solution that offers temporary resources to the team. The organizations can avail the services of the resources for a specific time and thus only have to pay the resource for the actual service. They do not face other expenses such as in-house space expenses, medical allowance, and other facilities.
Reduced Burnout
Due to excessive workload, your in-house team may burn out, which can affect their productivity and increase the chances of turnover rate. Team augmentation gives temporary relief to the in-house team and helps them become more productive in their respective domains. It keeps them aligned with their core responsibilities and reduces burnout.
Strategies for Effective Team Augmentation
- Identify Peak Periods:
Have you ever wondered what will be the right time to have augmented resources? Before it’s too late, you need to analyze the previous workload trends to assess the workload spikes in order to make a proactive plan.
- Skill Assessment:
Before the workload spike begins, determine the specific skills and expertise you lack in the team for the workload spike. By analyzing skills at the initial stages, you can have resources at the right time, which keeps you on track, and your in-house remains stress-free.
- Flexible Engagement Models:
Once you finish the skills gap assessment, you are all set to select the right engagement mode. You are clear about your requirements and now have clarity in selecting the right team augmentation model. There are various engagement options (freelancers, contractors, staffing agencies) so you can hire resources from any of the given models.
- Onboarding and Integration:
To produce effective outcomes from the augmented resources, smooth integration of augmented team members into the existing workflow is essential. Make them feel inclusive in your team and culture so they can better understand your team dynamics and the nature of the job they have to do.
- Performance Management:
To get the results on time, define a plan that sets clear expectations for the augmented team. Another important thing is to provide regular feedback to the augmented team members. It will help them understand whether they are doing their work in the right direction or wrong.
- Communication:
Promote a culture of active communication in the teams. Open communication between core team members and augmented staff will help produce the desirable outcomes without any mistakes and delays.
How Leading Organizations Are Leveraging Team Augmentation?
The team augmentation model has gained huge acceptance in every other domain. Almost every other organization is leveraging the game-changing benefits of team augmentation. Here is a list of some of the well-known businesses using team augmentation in different business domains.
- IBM
- Apple
Facebook is using team augmentation to bring skilled talent to the team. To support the strategic initiatives, Facebook started using team augmentation. Through team augmentation, they successfully brought skilled resources and strengthened their team.
Managing and monitoring content is one of Facebook’s major operations. Managing the vast amount of content posted daily on Facebook demands a massive workforce with relevant capabilities.
With its global presence and availability in diverse regions, Facebook requires third-party collaboration with specific language skills and cultural knowledge. Managing content from diverse regions requires a diverse talent pool.
Moreover, during events or crises that result in increased user activity, such as elections or global incidents, Facebook scales its content moderation efforts through augmented resources. This allows them to handle the surge in content that needs to be reviewed without the delay that hiring new full-time employees would entail.
IBM
IBM uses team augmentation to gain access to niche skills and expertise that may not be available in-house. This approach allows them to quickly fill skill gaps in areas like artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and cybersecurity without the lengthy process of hiring full-time employees. For projects, IBM needs skilled resources to meet project demands quickly.
For cybersecurity threats and security incidents, IBM augments expert resources to take effective measures to curb cybersecurity threats. The domain experts bring effective techniques to address the threats effectively.
Apple
Like other major technology companies, Apple is utilizing team augmentation to maintain its competitive edge, drive innovation, and manage workloads effectively. For cutting-edge technology and product development, apple needs specialized skills.
Team augmentation allows Apple to bring in experts with specific technical knowledge and experience for short-term projects or particular stages of development. This approach helps Apple to innovate continuously without committing to long-term hires.
During peak product launch seasons or major software updates, Apple can augment its teams to handle increased workloads, ensuring that deadlines and product quality remain high. Moreover, they need an expert team for research and development. For this, Apple looks into global talent to come up with the best idea of utilizing the best talent. Onboarding talent through contracts allows Apple to optimize resource allocation while reducing the cost.
Final Words
Having the dream team is not as difficult as it once was. As we are living in this advanced era, the ease of selecting and onboarding the relevant talent is no longer a struggle now. The skilled and expert resources are just a few clicks away. Technology and hybrid culture have cultivated the roots of effective team models for the emerging needs of organizations.
Looking for the right resources for your projects? Don’t wait any further and contact BITLogix. With a highly experienced team, we offer team augmentation solutions to get you ahead in the competition. Our approach in each project starts with a consultation and ends with successful execution. We approach each project with a consultative approach, working closely with clients to determine their goals and create customized staffing solutions that match their needs.