2024 Staff Augmentation Trends
- March 29, 2024
Among leading companies, staff augmentation serves as a common strategy for overcoming gaps on the IT team. These gaps could be driven by missing skills, limited capacity to complete mission-critical projects, or simply by lack of qualified resources to fill urgent full-time hiring needs. Today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape is creating a greater sense of urgency to leverage subject matter experts to help propel an organization’s IT transformation. As we continue into 2024, IT hiring managers are facing unique challenges and opportunities in sourcing, hiring, managing, and retaining top talent.
At a recent ASUG (Americas’ SAP User Group) Carolinas Chapter meeting held at NC State University in Raleigh, NC, attendees discussed this very problem in a lively panel debate on the ‘war for talent.’ This article discusses the most pressing trends addressed by the panel and highlights examples and strategies for leveraging staff augmentation to win the war. As you transition into Q2 and navigate the challenges in finding resources for your project and support needs, consider these trends and ways to meet your needs with flexible staffing arrangements.
2024 Trends
#1: Remote Work & a Global Talent Pool
IT teams, like most, have witnessed a significant shift towards remote work, driven by technological advancements and changing workforce preferences. In 2024, remote work will still be the norm, enabling organizations to access a global talent pool and overcome geographical limitations in talent acquisition. In fact, data has found that remote jobs attract a 125% larger inbound candidate pool than non-remote jobs. Prior to the widespread adoption of cloud solutions and the pandemic era, staff augmentation was primarily delivered onsite – whether by local resources, or, more commonly, by traveling consultants. Now, most IT resources typically expect to work 100% remote or with limited travel to project sites. How do you resolve the need for firsthand, in-person exposure to business and functional challenges solved by IT solutions?
This is not a new challenge and companies have invested heavily in technologies and business practices to overcome the challenges inherent to the remote working model. With a remote workplace, hiring managers are leveraging collaboration tools such as Slack and Microsoft Teams to facilitate seamless communication and collaboration among distributed teams, and cloud computing platforms like AWS and Google Cloud have further facilitated remote work by providing scalable infrastructure and access to critical resources. As a result, hiring managers can source augmented talent from anywhere in the world, leading to greater diversity and access to specialized skills.
#2: Soft Skills Over Degrees
In 2024, traditional qualifications are no longer the sole determinant of a tech candidate’s suitability for a role. Instead, hiring managers are prioritizing candidates with relevant skills, practical (contextual) experience, and certifications over formal degrees. The number of job postings in the US that didn’t mention qualifications such as academic degrees or certifications has increased steadily over the past few years, and in September, the percentage reached 41.6%, up from 37% in November 2022.
This increasing focus on skills-based hiring also allows organizations to tap into new candidate markets while simultaneously giving way to more opportunities for the “hidden workforce,” which represents 14-17% of U.S. workers, and includes retirees who want to work, caregivers who have increasing obligations at home, neurodiverse individuals, people with long-term health problems, ex-inmates, and people without degrees.