Staff Augmentation Engagement Models: Smart Alternatives

IT staff augmentation services help organizations hire experienced professionals to handle various business tasks and projects. Here, we’ll discuss the underrated staff augmentation engagement models and how these can benefit your business. 

Businesses cannot afford to slow down or delay developments in competitive markets. Technological adoption and digital transformation are necessary to stay relevant and retain customer loyalty. However, this requires an experienced and trained talent pool. After all, it’s your employees who have to use innovations and technology to deliver the expected results. Since many organizations suffer from talent gaps, there’s a high demand for experts from different domains. 

Recruiting them as permanent employees is a cost-intensive and time-consuming process. Moreover, there’s no guarantee that the employees will continue to work with your business. An effective alternative is to use IT staff augmentation services. It is a strategic approach where businesses can temporarily hire experienced professionals to join their in-house teams and perform the necessary tasks (or complete a project). Staff augmentation companies handle the process of selecting and onboarding professionals based on your criteria and requirements. 

The staff augmentation procurement market is expected to reach $81.87 billion in 2025. It will continue to be the go-to method for recruiting experts for short-term and long-term needs. Naturally, there are different staff augmentation engagement models to cater to enterprises’ diverse specifications. The project-based model and the hourly pricing model are two such examples and commonly used options to hire talent.

However, there are more models to choose from. The following are the underrated staff augmentation engagement models that offer flexibility, scalability, and cost-effectiveness to businesses. 

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Underrated Staff Augmentation Engagement Models In 2025

Full-time Equivalent (FTE) 

Full-time Equivalent or FTE is a staff augmentation model that standardizes how you measure the work capacity of your human resources or talent pool. FTE is the unit of time used to measure the workload capacity of an employee irrespective of whether they work part-time or full-time. This engagement model is suitable when augmenting teams for large projects that span many months. It becomes easier to handle bigger teams and track their progress. 

What makes Full-time Equivalent (FTE) a worthy choice for businesses? Here are a few benefits it offers: 

• FTE improves project management as it helps in calculating the necessary resources to complete the project, thus allowing you to create a team with a combination of full-time and part-time experts. 
• Since it doesn’t rely only on headcount, you can have a clear understanding of the team composition and how it influences the desired outcomes. That way, you don’t have to be understaffed or overstaffed. 
• Full-time Equivalent helps in evaluating the role-based capacities of team members so that the right person can be assigned the right task and provided with the required resources to complete it. This also prevents the team members from being overburdened with too many tasks.
• Whether you hire someone permanently or temporarily, as an employer, you should comply with the legal regulations about workforce and labor laws. With FTE, you can calculate the work hours, salaries, etc. 
• Finally, FTE is useful in measuring employee performance as it helps compare the allocated work to the work completed by each candidate. This results in more accurate performance reviews. You can ask the staff augmentation company for replacements to remove underperforming employees from the team. 

PEO/Employee Leasing 

PEO stands for Professional Employer Organization. It is a staff augmentation engagement model similar to outsourcing but focuses on small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs). Co-employment is the basis of the PEO model. Simply put, you hire employees from the service provider company to perform the pre-defined tasks on your behalf. The employees will use the service provider’s resources for the job but deliver the results to your business. 

This frees up your business resources and allows you to focus on the core activities for faster growth and expansion. PEOs can cover admin tasks and routine IT jobs like maintenance, updating, debugging, etc. 

Here’s how the PEO or employee leasing engagement model is advantageous for your business: 

• You can save money spent on providing the various resources to employees (and their salaries, etc.) to complete the tasks. You only pay the staff augmentation company as per the agreed terms. 
• By handing over repetitive and routine tasks to third-party offshore companies, you can use your in-house teams for important projects. There will be fewer delays and less stress on employees. Many organizations rely on PEO to outsource IT management. 
• The workplace environment in your business will be more cheerful and encourage active participation as employees can take up tasks that showcase their skills and expertise. Moreover, you can run the business with fewer employees. 
• When the administrative, HR and IT processes are outsourced, it streamlines internal management and accelerates growth. Things will move in tandem and deliver the expected results. 
• There will be greater employee satisfaction as well. Your in-house teams and the PEO employees can both get work-related benefits like healthcare, insurance, bonus, etc., that too without putting addition pressure on your budget. 

Contract Staffing 

Contract staffing is another type of IT staff augmentation services model that provides temporary employees through contracts. In this, you partner with a third-party offshore or nearshore staff augmentation company to fill the vacancies in your businesses with temporary candidates who fit the bill. A contract staffing provider also acts as an intermediary between your business and the professionals you want to hire. From selecting the right candidates to conducting interviews, onboarding, training, and payroll management, the service provider takes care of everything. 

Unsurprisingly, the IT sector is among the top industries that employ the contract staffing engagement model. Government and public sector agencies also use many contract employees due to the extensive nature of workplace requirements. 

A few reasons to adopt the contract staffing model are listed below: 

• Contract staffing can be short-term, mid-term, or long-term, lasting from a few days to a few years. This flexibility allows you to work with temporary employees for as long as necessary. Hiring an IT team to handle seasonal loads is a great example. 
• You can hire independent experts or an entire team through contract staffing. Be it a single employee or a hundred, their recruitment, training, and performance will be tracked by the staff augmentation partner. 
• Responsibilities like background checks, compliance issues, legal adherence, and following industry-specific regulations are on the service provider. You just have to make sure the terms of the contract are clear and transparent. 
• Be it entry-level workers or specialists from niche domains, you can hire them on a contract basis through a reliable and reputed staff augmentation company. That way, you gain the best of their knowledge and performance while letting the service provider handle the responsibility. 
• SMBs as well as large and multinational organizations can opt for contract staffing. The size, business volume, complexity of the process, etc., can vary but allow you to hire employees without long-term commitment and affecting your budget. 

Contingent Staffing 

Contingent staffing is another engagement model offering team augmentation services through third-party companies. Though it sounds similar to contract staffing, contingent staffing is a different staff augmentation model. Professionals from outside the organization are hired usually on a short-term basis. They are paid hourly or per task instead of a monthly salary. Also, there’s no ‘contract’ between the candidate and the business as a contingent worker can handle multiple projects simultaneously. 

In short, a contingent worker steps in temporarily to handle a specific task and leaves afterward. They are not entitled to the same benefits as existing employees or contract workers. Legally too, it is easier to terminate a contingent worker when their role ends, which is why they work on more than one project at a time. Freelancers also come under contingent staffing.

So, what are the advantages of opting for the contingent staff augmentation engagement model? Here are a few: 

• Contingent staffing is more flexible than other staff augmentation models as there are fewer legal regulations to comply with. This allows you to quickly hire or terminate a professional as and when necessary. 
• Contingent staffing is usually meant for general and basic IT jobs, unlike some other models that focus on supplying specialists to an organization. For example, you can hire a small team of contingent workers to test a newly developed software and share feedback.
• By paying per hour or task, you can save money on spent on salaries given to contingent workers. Moreover, you don’t have to pay them extra benefits like insurance, etc. Their tax dues are also not your concern. Overall, there will be fewer HR responsibilities. 
• It is a great choice to handle seasonal demands. For example, some of your employees may be on extended leave, resulting in a gap. Or, you may need a temporary customer care team. You can hire more customer care representatives or IT assistants to fortify your in-house team for the period. 
• Replacing contingent staff is easy and uncomplicated. Share your requirements with the staff augmentation service provider. Depending on the business needs, you can ask for the same professionals who worked with you earlier or hire a fresh team. 

Specialized Acquisition Skill

The specialized skill augmentation engagement model deals with niche skills necessary for a business to complete a project or achieve an objective. This staff augmentation model doesn’t deal with general or basic-level skills. It is all about hiring experts with specific domain expertise and certifications. They are usually in high demand due to the lack of supply in the employment market. For example, if you want to hire a data scientist or an AI engineer with over ten years of experience, you can opt for analytics staff augmentation with a specialized skill set. 

The skill augmentation model is majorly used in the IT sector to bring experienced professionals to temporarily handle a project. Though many of them are called consultants, the term is not used in the traditional sense. Here, it implies that they have joined the in-house team for a definite reason and will deliver the results. 

Specialized skill acquisition model is beneficial for the following reasons: 

• Access expert talent without competing with other businesses or offering exuberant salary packages. The specialist will come and work for you for the given duration/ project even when you don’t pay full-time wages and other employee benefits. You only have to agree to the contract terms of the staff augmentation company. 
• There’s no need to spend weeks and months searching for a specialist and convincing them to join your organization. By partnering with an IT staff augmentation company, you can quickly hire an expert (in less than a week) and get started (most companies sign NDAs, so data privacy will not be an issue). 
• Flexibility and adaptability are other benefits of skill augmentation. The specialist teams or professionals can work remotely and collaborate with your in-house employees when you cannot find local talent to bridge the gap. 
• Businesses can save the cost of training existing employees to achieve the same skill level as specialist teams. There’s also less risk of these professionals exiting the project by joining another organization or quitting. 
• The specialized skill acquisition staff augmentation model suits today’s scenario, where new technologies enter the market and older ones become obsolete. The experts ensure they stay at the top of the trends and gain the necessary skills. Since they continuously learn and upskill, you can benefit from using their expertise for cost-effective pricing. 

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Conclusion 

With many staff augmentation engagement models to choose from, it’s vital to understand your business requirements, budget, project timeline, and market trends when making a decision. 

Discuss the case with the IT staff augmentation company and take their input to build a robust team with augmented staff. Choose a service provider with a diverse portfolio and a transparent pricing model. 

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More in Staff Augmentation Engagement Models…

Staff augmentation services are diverse and can be tailored to suit the requirements of each business. Talk to your IT staffing partner to determine the best engagement model for your needs, budget, mission, vision, and objectives. With a reliable staff augmentation service provider, you can gain a competitive edge in global markets, enhance customer experience, and accelerate success. 

Check out the below links to understand more about IT staff augmentation services. 

• Hire Data Scientists or Developers – Right Choice For Scaling Enterprises
• IT Staff Augmentation Services for B2B Enterprises – Top 11 Market Players
• 13 Staff Augmentation Service Models to Consider in 2025

Fact checked by –
Akansha Rani ~ Content Creator & Copy Writer

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