The modern workplace is a whirlwind of change, with new technologies constantly emerging, skill gaps widening, and employee expectations shifting.
For L&D leaders and teams, keeping pace with this evolution is a constant challenge. Limited resources, tight budgets, evolving technology, and lack of in-house expertise can make it difficult to deliver impactful learning experiences that drive business results and ROI. As L&D leaders seek to keep up with these demands, staff augmentation strategies (also known as temporary staffing) are emerging as a valuable tool for accessing specialized expertise and accelerating learning and skilling initiatives.
Benefits of a Staff Augmentation Strategy for L&D
As an L&D leader, a staff augmentation strategy provides a flexible and efficient way to access the specialized skills you need, when you need them. Instead of navigating the complexities of hiring a full-time candidate, a specialized provider sources L&D experts for your team on a contract or project basis. These professionals integrate with your team and culture, empowering you to adapt to evolving demands and needs, scale your team to reflect shifting budgets and priorities, and ensure you have the expertise you need for every project.
When to Implement a Temporary L&D Staffing Strategy
If you have any of the following goals for your L&D team, you just might have a case for a staff augmentation strategy:
- Enabling agile learning: A staff augmentation strategy allows you to quickly scale your team and adjust to changing budgets and priorities, helping you to deliver timely and relevant learning experiences.
- Optimizing resources: A vendor-partner with a deep bench of experts can source high performers and right-size their engagement to come in when and where they’re needed, helping you maximize the resources you have.
- Focusing on strategic initiatives: By leveraging external talent for specific tasks or projects, you free up your internal L&D team to focus on longer-term strategic initiatives.
- Bridging the skills gap: To meet emerging technologies and evolving learner needs, we need specialists! A staff augmentation strategy helps you access the experts you need in high-demand areas like AI-powered platforms and tools, immersive learning, and LMS/LXP consulting.
Specialized Skills: A Temporary L&D Staffing Strategy
Staff augmentation strategies play a crucial role in L&D by providing access to cutting-edge expertise, accelerating the implementation of new learning strategies, enhancing learning experiences, and enabling data-driven optimization. By tapping into a network of L&D professionals with expertise in modern learning approaches, technologies, and methodologies, organizations can quickly implement new learning initiatives and programs. This expertise elevates the quality and impact of learning programs through specialized skills in instructional design, learning technologies, and content development. Furthermore, temporary staffing provides access to expertise in learning analytics and data analysis, allowing organizations to measure the effectiveness of their learning strategies and make data-driven improvements.
A Tale of Two Organizations: L&D Staff Augmentation in Action
Here’s how the need for temporary L&D staffing emerged for two organizations in two very different industries:
Organization 1: AI Experts for Personalized Learning
The Situation
A multinational technology company wanted to offer personalized learning experiences for its global workforce.
The Goal
Management’s goal was to provide each employee with content recommendations and learning paths tailored to their individual needs and goals. They envisioned using an AI-powered learning platform. However, the company’s internal L&D team was still developing their AI skills. They needed expert help to select and implement the right AI tools and develop effective AI-driven learning experiences.
The Solution
To secure the AI expertise they needed, the company partnered with a staff augmentation provider to bring in a specialist in AI learning technology. This AI SME guided the company through the entire process, from selecting and integrating an AI-powered platform to designing personalized learning pathways and developing adaptive assessments.
The Results
The company’s successful implementation of AI-powered learning helped to increase learner engagement, boost knowledge retention, and enhance skill development. Because the AI platform provides valuable learner data and insights, the L&D team uses these to continuously improve its learning programs and measure the impact of any updates.
This example illustrates how a staff augmentation strategy can empower an organization to embrace leading-edge learning technologies to create more effective and personalized learning experiences for its workforce.
Organization 2: Compliance Training in a Hurry
The Situation
A large healthcare organization faced a sudden mandate to train all of its employees on new patient privacy regulations.
The Goal
The organization’s internal L&D team was tied up with a leadership development training initiative, leaving them with limited bandwidth. The team also had limited experience with compliance training, making it even more challenging to pivot and change focus. With a strict deadline looming, the team needed a few good compliance training specialists who could develop effective training on a tight timeline.
The Solution
By partnering with a staff augmentation provider, the organization was able to quickly onboard a team of learning experience designers and developers who specialized in compliance training. These temporary team members rapidly assessed the new regulations, developed a curriculum delivered via engaging online modules, and leveraged existing resources to accelerate the training development and deployment process.
The Results
These temporary team members allowed the organization to meet its compliance training deadline without diverting its internal L&D team from its focus on leadership development. Thus, the organization secured both its immediate compliance training needs and longer-term focus on strategic initiatives.
Characteristics of a Great L&D Staff Augmentation Partner
Choosing the right staff augmentation partner is essential for success. While general staffing agencies can provide candidates for various roles, partnering with a provider who specializes in L&D offers distinct advantages:
- Deep Understanding of the L&D Landscape: L&D-focused providers possess in-depth knowledge of the learning and development industry, including emerging trends, technologies, and best practices. Because they do this work themselves, they can accurately assess your needs and match you with candidates who have the right skills and experience.
- Curated Network of L&D Professionals: L&D staffing providers have a deep bench of qualified professionals, including instructional designers, eLearning developers, learning technologists, project managers, and facilitators. Leveraging their existing network saves you time and effort in recruiting temporary candidates with highly specialized skills.
- Cultural Alignment: Experienced L&D-focused providers understand the nuances of your culture—of both your wider organization and your L&D team. They can help you find high performers who fit right in with your values, initiatives, and ways of working.
- Industry Expertise: L&D staff augmentation providers serve multiple industries, which provides them with the insight they need to understand the unique challenges and opportunities within your sector (See “Organization 2: Compliance Training” for one example). Given their deep bench of experts, these providers will be able to connect you with candidates who have the right skill set.
Finding the One: Questions to Ask a Prospective Staff Augmentation Partner
When evaluating potential vendors, ask critical questions about:
- The vetting process for L&D professionals: What is the vendor’s talent philosophy and interview strategy? How do they ensure their talent pool consists of high performers who possess the L&D and subject matter expertise you’re seeking?
- Understanding of the evolving L&D landscape and your specific needs: How well does the vendor understand the latest L&D trends and technologies—and how do they ensure that their talent keep current with the rapid pace of change?
- Commitment to client success: What evidence can the vendor demonstrate of their communication practices, proactive problem-solving, and long-term staffing partnerships? Client testimonials, online reviews, and industry awards and Top 10 lists can help you identify high performers.
- Onboarding and ongoing support of temporary staff: A temporary placement isn’t a one-and-done event. What processes do they have in place to ensure that your temporary team member is onboarded smoothly and integrates seamlessly into your team?
Maximizing Your Temporary Staffing Engagement: Best Practices and Tips
An impactful temporary staffing engagement is a two-way street. Here are a few shared understandings and ways of working that will help you make the most of this important relationship.
- Clearly define project scope and objectives: Share a well-defined scope of work that aligns with your learning strategy. Are you looking to create a new certification program or simply refresh a few of your existing courses? Whatever it is, ensure that you and your vendor-partner both understand what is—and isn’t—included in the current engagement.
- Establish seamless communication and collaboration: From the beginning, establish key points of contact between your internal team and temporary staff. How, when, and what needs to be communicated by each party, and how often? Establish a regular cadence for meetings, updates, and asynchronous work early, and ensure that all team members honor the schedule.
- Provide adequate onboarding and support: Invest time in onboarding your temporary team members, providing them the context, resources, and support they need to succeed. A designated mentor or “buddy” can mean the difference between full participation and integration…versus isolation and lack of engagement.
- Foster a positive and inviting work environment: Create a welcoming environment where temporary staff feel valued and integrated into the team. Just like your permanent folks, these temporary team members have earned their place at the table with their experience, expertise, and shared values—and they’re well worth getting to know.
In today’s rapidly changing workplace and world, agility and adaptability are paramount. A staff augmentation strategy empowers L&D teams to meet the needs of their organization while respecting timelines, budgets, and bandwidth.
Partnering with a seasoned provider who understands the nuances of the L&D landscape can be your golden ticket to a curated network of high-performing L&D and subject matter experts. Beyond just filling an empty seat, the right staff augmentation partner can help you find temporary team members who can help you accelerate your initiatives, innovate, and scale your team to reflect your organization’s evolving needs.
Have some evolving L&D team needs of your own? We’d love to talk possibilities.
