Whenever a facility is thinking about an outsourcing strategy, there are primarily two modes that come to mind: staff augmentation firms and consulting companies. The common mistake made by the public is that these two are one and the same, often mixing one up with the other. The truth is that despite having similar goals, their delivery model and methods used are different. Read on to find out more about these differences, learn which one is best for your company, and discover why more facilities are gearing towards these avenues of hiring skilled persons.

In staff augmentation, the leaders or managers of the workforce are often experts professionals in the field where they are in. This means that they are able to deliver to you the exact contract workers that you need, with the right skill set, the ability to meet your set deadline, and all in your preferred budget.

In some cases, however, companies arent looking for one firm to come in and entirely take over the project. These days, consulting firms concentrate on this very thing: putting all of their energy and time into facilities where they can set up their services (which are solutions-based). This means that upon installing their own Project Manager in the facility, they will fill up the rest of the project team using their own pool of candidates. This is the main principle behind consulting. If this is what your work system needs, then a consulting firm is the right fit for you.

However, if you prefer assistance that is only project-based for your company, then staff augmentation would fit the bill nicely. They can provide you with trainers, project managers, and analysts as well. Just let them know of your specific staffing requirements (if any) and they will take care of the rest. Soon enough, youll have your entire workforce in top shape, ready to take on projects and deliver your desired outcome on time.

Another advantage to staffing is their ability to listen to specific needs. This is because in staff augmentation, there are no bench players. Everyone is there for a specific purpose. Everyone who is there is always functioning towards a benefit. Therefore, they arent concerned about presenting to you individuals who have no expertise, training, or experience on-the-job. Instead, they will offer you contract workers who actually know what theyre doing â people who can best fit your needs, no questions asked.

In addition, staff augmentation is a flexible option for all your logistical needs. If you demand that someone has to work from Monday through Friday, or to be on-site at all times, then the project manager will focus on providing you with candidates who will be able to do just that. This can be advantageous to you, as opposed to consulting firms which use a model wherein employees work set hours (four 10-hour days with weekends off).

If you are working with a smaller scale or an older system, staffing can also be helpful for you. Since staff augmentation custom-tailors the search and provision of a workforce for your particular requirements, they are able to present you with unique (and, often, difficult to find) skill sets. These firms often stick to specific skills and talent that they already have a strong roster for. Most times, working with consulting firms who claim that they are willing to accept unique requests only means that they are also partnering with staffing companies for their employee needs.

Staffing agencies are comprised of staffing professionals as well. These are the people who have excelled in a career of headhunting: finding people that possess tough-to-find skills and building relationships with them. More often than not, consulting firms are manned by former consultants, who can implement the system that you want but can also fall short whenever they are relied on to provide affordable and qualified skilled persons for the job that you have.

In a business enterprise, many of us have been advised at some time that, “if you’re not pushing forwards you’re actually going backwards.” Basically, this cuts to the core of why change is necessary to a positive and stable business. Sound businesses progress with the times and evolve. Run-down companies fight change, go stale and then cease to exist.

Change is the key ingredient of growth and in business change needs vision, a driving team and also a tight context if it is to be generated effectively and positively. This is why capable leadership is so vital in an organization.

But while discussing change, it’s important to not chuck the baby out with the bathwater because, on the flipside to change is the importance of consistency and consistency is likewise crucial, particularly in processes that relate to product line, quality control, profit or even, to some extent, natural growth.

So, these two contrasting principles will need to exist together in a healthy and balanced business. Exactly how do we create that? The answer is to realise that effective businesses require both change and also consistency, change being the specialty of leaders while consistency the terrain of managers. Considering this pair side by side, it is not hard to see why consistency along with change (in fact business managers and business leaders) are often testing to join together. In this piece, I’m going to inspect the main components of great leadership including how these elements work together to create favourable and enduring change.

As an experienced leader, the formula I utilize to produce this adaptation entails a practical four-step procedure that I highly recommend! As follows below:

STEP 1: Take a Long Hard Look

From time to time I wonder whether it is more difficult to recognize where you are really starting from or where you are specifically seeking to get!

As business people and entrepreneurs, we quite often fall into the trap of seeing our endeavours through rose coloured glasses and forget to truthfully perceive where we are starting from – our ‘Point A’.

Acknowledging your real point A is not easy: it is solely achieved by having the courage to figure out, ask, then truthfully answer every one of the confronting questions that relate to your business, your methodology and also how you are going to it. You know the questions; they are those tricky questions you commonly stumble over when they strike you without warning at a dinner party!

My suggestion– pull on your thickest skin, have someone else to define and then ask the questions that need to be asked …
and don’t allow your vanity to hinder the honest self-contemplation that ought to come after. It might amount to the difference between success and failure!

STEP 2: Where to & Why?

Identifying both the specific details of your ‘change vision’ (your ‘point B’) and also the specifics of your true, core reason for change is equally tough. If there is an absolute #1 key for accomplishing positive and also lasting transformation, however, this is it!

If you don’t have the specific details, your vision (Point B) is merely a wish. Without a deep and authentic motive as to why you wish to pursue your vision, you will struggle to inspire many people towards it. People need to share your enthusiasm.

You must be able to move your team, to move your team.

The good news is, those associates who do share and then adopt your vision will stay with you and become the driving influence for delivering it. This is why exceptional leaders understand the stick is not nearly as mighty as the carrot.

My tip– identify the kinds of personnel you need to drive your change vision. Spend enough time to pinpoint specifically who they may be then what it is about your vision that might excite them.

STEP 3: Craft a Clear & Simple Plan

From here on, the cornerstones of your success are sticking to what works, keeping it uncomplicated … and also continuing to sustain the passion that connects your driving personnel to your vision.

Having actually clarified your ‘why’, allotting uninterrupted thinking time to defining the key aspects of your ‘how’ is all-important.

My tip – try to involve your driving group in this course of action:
Determine the repeatable tasks that will achieve your goal (and make sure they are simple).
Determine both the resources you have readily available as well as the resources you are going to require (actually need!).
Figure out the finite checklist of things that might block your development. Create contingency plans for those that are legitimately risky.

STEP 4: Create Lasting Change

Keeping on track and also accomplishing positive and sustainable change is a 99% leadership and 1% management combination of fuel, context and accountability.

The fuel component is Public Relations in its purest form. Its purpose is to construct and then keep momentum: communicate the vision, impart the simple, repeatable steps, celebrate successes … and ultimately guide your driving team to do the exact same things. Each reinforces that the change vision is correct and that the group’s approach is the most suitable one.

Importantly, as leader, the code of conduct or ‘context’ you establish around your team and its behaviour is critical to their ability to stick together and attain outcomes. Your group will certainly look to you to live up to this code at all times and as you do it will begin to take a life and power of its very own.

This is where keeping on track as well as achieving positive and lasting change requires your personal dedication, courage and also discipline: following the message you teach and getting in touch with your team in an authentic fashion when delivering it is most important.

Your capability to create and cultivate a strong context is directly commensurate to your capability to do these things, and with a strong context your group will self manage; self align; move mountains; and then deliver the positive and lasting changes you desire.

My suggestion– Take a deep breath and be prepared to be human, to concede shortcomings and to be open to change yourself. You will be respected and also followed as a business leader in a far more powerful fashion when you have the nerve to do these things.

4 Steps for Business Leaders to Improve Business Outcomes Formula provided by Stuart Hayes Leadership