There are two terms that are commonly used in the outsourced staffing services business: staff augmentation vs workforce supplementation.
Confused? Are you thinking that they mean the same thing?
Well, don’t be confused. And no, they don’t mean the same thing.
What is Staff Augmentation?
Consider this situation: A project for a client at IT company A is running into a critical delivery phase. However, the client expands the project scope and requests the inclusion of a few additional elements. This means the project requires more high-quality people to join in record time. Further, these people must stay on to see the project go live. The project manager for A calls their outsourced staffing partner for help. Within a week, 20 skilled, experienced engineers joined A’s project team. The company has contracted them for an 18-month period. Yes, they are temporary. However, the project locks them in until its completion.
This operation would qualify as staff augmentation.
From the outsourced staffing firm’s point of view, staff augmentation is a strategic, value-added service. It involves helping clients onboard great quality talent in record time in critical situations. Some outsourced staffing firms call this a “bridge-to-hire” service. That is, a client company can try a talented resource for a period of time (often linked to the tenure of the project) before deciding to hire that talent on a full-time basis.
As part of a staff augmentation service, a staffing firm is not just filling positions and meeting targets related to headcount. The staffing firm actively collaborates with the client to assess a project’s requirements based on current staffing and new workload demands. The people’s requirements to complete the project are then drawn up. These positions are quickly filled with skilled, competent resources.
Since staff augmentation involves thinking like a business leader, staffing services refer to it as a value-added, strategic offering.
What is Workforce Supplementation?
Now let’s explore the other side of the staff augmentation vs workforce supplementation discussion with another scenario:
Hotel B is having an unusually busy weekend. It requires 10 stewards in banquets, three chefs, 20 waiters, and 18 housekeeping assistants. The hotel shares its requirements with its staffing partner. This partner firm arranges temp workers for all those roles for the weekend. The hotel does not require these temp workers beyond the two days they were contracted for. Their roles were indeed temporary.
Retail store C needs 25 sales agents for the next five Sundays, counting down to a local festival. The store places their request with their outsourced staffing partner. Over the next five Sundays, the store employs 25 sales agents, who the staffing firm sends as temp workers. Not all 25 sales agents are the same individuals assigned on previous Sundays. The temp workers keep changing. There is no contract of employment or commitment from either side. They are just temporary workers. They come and go. New ones arrive and leave, to be replaced by a different set the following Sunday.
This staffing service provides temporary workers for short durations to meet specific needs, and it is called workforce supplementation. There is not much thinking required to offer and fulfill this service. It is a plain-vanilla service that manages the head count. Think of sales agents at stores, lifeguards on the beach, caddies at a golf course, traffic wardens on the roads, and hospitality industry workers. These are temporary workers. They get paid for filling temporary positions.
Workforce or staff supplementation is, therefore, the service that supplies temporary workers to clients on a need basis.
Choosing Between Strategic and Temporary Staffing Solutions
Both staff augmentation and workforce supplementation are services provided by outsourced staffing firms. But that’s where the similarity ends.
Both services are poles apart.
Staff augmentation is strategic and adds value. It increases the profitability for both the client and the staffing firm.
Workforce supplementation is a service that helps bridge a short-term, temporary staffing shortfall. It is a low-end service in terms of both the pricing and profitability of a staffing firm.
Even so, outsourced staffing firms that offer an array of services to their clients may often want to provide both staff augmentation and workforce supplementation support. When a service provider is able to meet every possible need of their client, they are able to grow their bond and business with the client. Very often, it is meeting a workplace supplementation need that opens the door for a staffing firm with some clients. This need is almost always urgent. And arises from a crisis-like situation. A client never forgets the service when a partner bails them out in times of crisis. Over time, an intelligent staffing firm will leverage that opportunity and bond to profit from a value-added service like staff augmentation.
