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What is Staff Augmentation?

By
Steven Calhoun
June 11, 2021
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You’d like to add capacity and capabilities to your organization, but it’s not clear the best way to do this. Staff augmentation sounds like it might be a solution, but the term doesn’t make it immediately clear what this is or how it works.

Veryable is different from staff augmentation, but we’ve walked our business users through enough comparisons to our on-demand labor platform to become experts on the subject.

In this article, you’ll learn what staff augmentation is, when to use it, and what the pros and cons are of this labor sourcing solution.

 

Staff augmentation definition

Staff augmentation is working with an outside agency to add employees to your workforce to fill skill gaps or increase capacity. This can be a temporary arrangement to accomplish a project, or a long-term solution as part of your labor sourcing strategy.

 

Uses for staff augmentation

Many companies use staff augmentation on a long-term basis to maintain a relatively static headcount. Others use temp staffing agencies to augment their headcount for a short period of time.

Common uses include:

  • Filling skill gaps
  • Screening workers through temp to hire
  • Covering shifts for employees on vacation/sick leave

Agencies provide staff augmentation for many industries, including software development, marketing, customer service, and other professional services. These agencies will typically expect you to sign a contract to source labor from them for a specified length of time and with certain usage requirements.

 

Pros and cons of staff augmentation

Pros of staff augmentation:

  • Adds skills to your organization
  • Good for increasing capacity for long stretches of time
  • Vendors aggregate candidates for you

 

Cons of staff augmentation:

  • You could pay for more than you need due to usage minimums
  • Vendors act as middlemen between you and workers you might like to hire
  • Most solutions are tailored to businesses with relatively static needs
  • You aren’t always sure who’s working for you

 

Is staff augmentation good for manufacturing & logistics companies?

Staff augmentation might work okay for your company, but there is a labor solution built specifically for manufacturing and logistics companies that eliminates the long-term contracts and vendor-reliant nature of working with staff augmentation firms.

That solution is Veryable. Our on-demand labor solution has helped thousands of companies achieve their goals with less guesswork and more flexibility.

Compare Veryable’s on-demand labor solution to staff augmentation in our in-depth comparison so you can decide which solution is right for you.

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Steven Calhoun
Content Strategist

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