All product companies want to grow quickly and stay ahead of their competitors, but they often face various obstacles. One of them is a shortage of personnel. Finding qualified specialists is difficult, expensive, and time-consuming. Then there’s the need to take care of the employee’s adaptation, handle their paperwork and taxes – in general, there’s a lot of hassle. Outstaffing services can solve these problems and satisfy the need for personnel in a short time. In this article, we will talk about what outstaffing development is, how it works, and who it is suitable for.
Companies usually turn to outstaffing services when they lack manpower and do not have the time or resources to search for a new specialist and hire them as permanent staff. Finding an employee can take from several weeks to several months, and if they don’t meet expectations, it’s not easy to let them go. With outstaffing, you can just bring in a person for a specific project or a specific period of time and then smoothly part ways with them – they will just return to their employer or move on to another project.
In the case of outsourcing, the client company does not hire just one or even several employees, but a full development team. The contractor will fully handle your project, and you will simply need to approve the work. You will set the direction, while the contractor will control the processes.
The difference is that with outstaffing, you are buying the specialist’s time, while with outsourcing, you are buying the result. Outsourcing is more suitable when you don’t have your own development team and want to create a product from scratch. If you already have an in-house team but lack specific specialists, such as backend developers, then outstaffing would be a better fit for you.
Here is how the process of selecting specialists for development outstaffing looks like with us:
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What is IT outstaffing, and why is it needed?
Outstaffing development is when one company “rents” specialists from another company. The specialists are legally employed by the intermediary company but work temporarily for the client company. The intermediary takes care of all HR matters: pays salaries, handles documentation, pays taxes, etc. The client only pays for the time of the specific specialist.Companies usually turn to outstaffing services when they lack manpower and do not have the time or resources to search for a new specialist and hire them as permanent staff. Finding an employee can take from several weeks to several months, and if they don’t meet expectations, it’s not easy to let them go. With outstaffing, you can just bring in a person for a specific project or a specific period of time and then smoothly part ways with them – they will just return to their employer or move on to another project.
Outstaffing and outsourcing: What’s the difference?
At first glance, it may seem that they are the same thing because these work formats are very similar. However, outstaffing and outsourcing are needed for different tasks and cannot replace each other.In the case of outsourcing, the client company does not hire just one or even several employees, but a full development team. The contractor will fully handle your project, and you will simply need to approve the work. You will set the direction, while the contractor will control the processes.
The difference is that with outstaffing, you are buying the specialist’s time, while with outsourcing, you are buying the result. Outsourcing is more suitable when you don’t have your own development team and want to create a product from scratch. If you already have an in-house team but lack specific specialists, such as backend developers, then outstaffing would be a better fit for you.
Advantages of outstaffed development:
1) Saving money and time on recruiting a specialist ✔️
To choose an outstaffed specialist, you only need to review the resumes provided by the contracting company that match your requirements. You don’t have to spend time searching and conducting interviews, which reduces HR expenses.2) No need to worry about taxes and benefits ✔️
As we have already mentioned, outstaffed personnel are employed by the contracting company, so all matters related to taxes, paid time off, sick leave, etc., are handled by the contractor. The employee simply completes your tasks, and you pay their hours to the contractor according to the agreement.3) Convenient team scaling ✔️
IT outstaffing allows you to expand or shrink your team at any time. You don’t have to deal with the process of firing an employee if their expertise is no longer needed. If you need a specialist for a short period of time, outstaffing development is the ideal solution.4) Opportunity to enhance internal expertise ✔️
Although the outstaffer is temporary, you can use this time to train your in-house team. Finding a niche specialist can be very difficult, but with outstaffing, you can “rent” such an employee and acquire some of their expertise.Who is this service suitable for?
❗️ Large companies with multiple projects
Banks, online stores, aggregators – such companies have a large infrastructure and multiple development departments for different projects. They turn to IT outstaffing when they want to quickly get a rare specialist or create a temporary team for a new project.❗️ Companies that need to complete a task urgently
If there is a planned release of a new feature, tight deadlines, and one of the developers in the team falls ill or resigns – and no one else in the team works with the required technology, it would be difficult to find a new specialist using the traditional method. Moreover, hiring a specialist as a full-time employee is not cost-effective, as there will be no tasks for them once the project ends. In such cases, even small companies with their own IT department can turn to outstaffing.How to work with an outstaffed specialist?
Even though an employee is outstaffed and employed by another company, they are still part of your team. They integrate into your internal processes, learn the company’s values, and communicate with your employees. When working with a specialist in this format, it is important to remember that they are also a person and need to be provided with comfortable conditions. Here are a few tips:🔴 Define expectations for deadlines and results
Try to set realistic expectations so that the specialist can complete all tasks on time. Also, determine what you want to achieve from working with the employee, so they can understand how much time is needed to accomplish tasks.🔴 Immerse the specialist in the project
Set up communication with the outstaffed worker, provide them with the necessary accesses, and immerse them in the project’s processes. This will help them to quickly integrate into the work and understand the context of everything happening on the project.🔴 Plan tasks
In order to track the results of the employee’s work, clearly plan tasks and provide them with optimal workload. It is not necessary to overload the specialist or, conversely, give them too few tasks.How does the selection of outstaffed employees look like in Brivian?
We have two types of collaboration in the staff outstaffing format. We can connect our specialist to your team to strengthen it, with a fixed hourly rate for the employee’s work. Or we can provide you with a full development team tailored to your business needs, with a fixed rate and a monthly hour quota.Here is how the process of selecting specialists for development outstaffing looks like with us:
✔️ We have a call with the client and ask clarifying questions: what are your tasks and business needs, what specialists are needed, and what expectations are there regarding the budget. If necessary, we sign an NDA agreement.
✔️ Depending on the request, we select resumes of specialists or teams and send them to the client.
✔️ The client reviews the resumes and selects the specialists, after which we coordinate the interview time. After the interview, you can consider the decision and reserve the specialist so that we do not show them to other clients.
✔️ After the client approves the specialist, we agree on the start date, provide access to the client’s project, and sign the contract. Then you can start immersing the specialist in the project and assigning them tasks.
✔️ Every month, we send a report on the specialist’s work and issue an invoice based on the hours worked.
✔️ If something goes wrong during the work with the specialist and you want to replace them, we will find another specialist. We will also need your feedback to understand the issue and avoid it in the future.
As outstaffed employees, we provide backend and frontend developers, iOS and Android developers, specialists in manual and automated testing, business analysts, DevOps and ML engineers, and UI/UX designers. If you want to strengthen your development team with outstaffing specialists or get a full team for a project, contact us – we will respond within 24 hours and help you with your request.
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