We live in an increasingly unpredictable world, in which taking on big and expensive full-time talent is a big challenge due to the costs involved. As a result, augmenting your existing teams with external specialist talent has now become a norm for software development teams. However, it can also be applied for digital marketing, lead generation and even digital transformation.
What is talent augmentation?
Talent augmentation is a strategic approach that business heads and HR leads can deploy to strategically access specialist talent by deploying external staff in a full-time or part-time capacity for specific functions and projects. 35% of IT projects use external talent. However digital talent for marketing, lead generation and transformation who are increasingly available in fractional and part-time capacities across borders can now also help companies add a growth engine quickly and cost-effectively.
Benefits of Talent Augmentation
Access to Experienced, Specialist Talent: Augmentation of digital marketing and transformation talent allows you to access experienced, specialist talent. It can help fill in-house gaps while you focus on product/ service delivery. For example if you were to hire talent focused on lead generation, from an external source, you would be hiring someone who could generate business for your company so you can keep growing while you focus on providing your product/ service really well.
Access to Diverse and AI-ready Talent: Given that a lot of work is now done remotely now, especially digital marketing and lead generation, it is possible to hire from diverse and AI, leveraging talent pools across borders when adopting a team augmentation approach.
Cost Savings: Hiring a full-time team member means that there will not only be a fixed cost for that person, but also a higher cost after including benefits offered by the company to all full-time staff. By taking a talent augmentation approach, the company can use the specialist talent as needed and end the engagement at the end of the project.
Managed Outcomes: For project execution, as a company, its possible to ensure quality control and managed outcomes as the augmented experienced professionals integrate seamlessly with the rest of the organisation and the existing team.
Agility: Based on ever-changing scenarios you can scale up or down without over-spending
When you require specialist talent, are faced with high workloads, tight deadlines or need to stay flexible on costs you should consider reaching out to team augmentation solutions providers.
Ensuring the Success of a Talent Augmentation Approach
Clear Communication on Requirements: According to a study by McKinsey, projects with well-defined requirements are 2.5 times more likely to succeed. Clear communication of project goals and expectations ensures alignment among team members. Establishing precise work expectations and outcomes and ensuring that they are clearly communicated with the augmented team members and the existing team members goes a long way to ensure desired outcomes and project success. A survey by Gallup found that organizations with effective communication are 50% more likely to have lower turnover rates. Transparent communication also fosters trust and collaboration.
Identifying and Partnering with a Trustworthy Talent Solutions Partner: A talent partner that is able to not only identify talent with strong strategic thinking skills and have a track record of success doing so, but can also assess for cultural fit and EQ so the external team member/s can integrate seamlessly with the existing team members, is critical. Doing this well ensures alignment with organizational objectives from day one and increases the chances of success. The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) reports that 80% of employee turnover is due to poor hiring decisions and ensuring rigorous screening can improve hiring decisions.
Be Invested in the Success of the External Team Member: External team members may be from different time zones or have different styles of working. Helping external team members settle in by being flexible and adapting where possible to their styles can improve the chances of their success. Flexible work arrangements increase productivity by 43% according to a report by Buffer; something to keep in mind in order to improve the returns on the amount spent to hire external team members.
Measuring and Tracking: At the outset of the project, it is useful to put down benchmarks for success for external team members. Putting in place regular reviews ensures that team members stay on track to achieve agreed outcomes.
There is currently a huge mismatch between the jobs available and the talent to fill those roles. As a result, the time taken to fill specific roles has gone up exponentially.
Anu D’Souza, Founder and CEO of Bricoleur Consulting, sits on the cusp of business, marketing and HR. Anu partners with CEOs and HR leaders to help address their digital talent needs to help accelerate their growth.
Given our rapidly changing and technologically evolving world, Anu, and her team at Bricoleur add value to organizations to hire digital and data-first leadership talent. Bricoleur provides insight-driven talent solutions spanning leadership recruitment and team augmentation for digital marketing and transformation.
