How to Find the Right Partner with IT Staffing Agencies

Staffing your digital health teams is extremely challenging in the current market. Considering the Great Resignation, and the developer shortage, finding quality staff takes time. 

As a result, some digital health companies have turned to IT staffing agencies. Like recruitment agencies, they handle the interviewing and hiring process on behalf of the development company. They field the talent to maximize your time. However, as the market stands, recruitment agencies struggle to find real talent in the space too. 

Ultimately, it’s important to find the right recruitment partner in digital health. It’s critical that you have a shared understanding of what you’re looking for, and your partner understands the industry. 

Consider whether IT staffing agencies are the right fit for your business or whether alternatives, like in-house recruitment or outsourcing, can provide you with the talent you need. A digital health development partner needs to provide the numbers that you need, with skilled workers, and compliance expertise.

Specialize in Digital Health Staff

Tech development in the digital health space requires digital health experts. Many companies hire recruitment agencies to outsource their hiring. However, this presents challenges, and they do not understand the companies specific needs or market. 

That’s why it’s critical to partner with an IT staffing agency that specializes in digital health. 

The digital health industry can be a risky one. Employees need to be able to meet best practices, write good quality code, and build quality solutions. There’s no room for error in health tech. 

Not only that, but staff need to have some understanding of compliance. Therefore, so does your staffing agency. Compliance is critical in digital health. Compliance problems can lead to breaches and violations, which are detrimental to the company. 

Your recruitment needs to ensure that all potential employees understand regulatory requirements, so they need to know the risks in the digital health space themselves. A specialist and experienced digital health IT staffing agency should be able to identify and provide the very best candidates, with years of experience. 

Candidate Screening

Take the time to assess your requirements for candidates. Begin by making a clear plan for your staffing needs, and consider what you need for individual teams. You need to know what the requirements are for each employee, so that an IT staffing agency can meet your needs. 

Once you know what talent you need, discuss candidate screening with a potential IT recruitment partner. The key is to understand how they qualify out potential candidates. You need to ensure that you aren’t missing out on potential talent, without spending time and resources on poor quality candidates. 

Outline your specific requirements and your total number of roles. Ensure that your needs align with your partner's screening methods.

Testimonials

Reviews are always a great way to test efficacy before making a big investment. The same goes for services. You need to see experience in the field, before taking on a partner. You wouldn’t hire a candidate without seeing their previous experience, so why would an IT staffing agency be any different.

Ask to see your potential partner's portfolio. Who have they recruited for previously? What kind of staff retention were they able to achieve?

Not only do you need to see the figures to prove success, but you also need to hear their partner's experiences. Try to gather as many reviews and testimonials of their service as possible. You might even be able to speak to companies that have hired them previously. 

Again, it’s important that previous partners also occupy the digital health space. They should understand the challenges you face, and be able to speak to the quality of candidate that the IT staffing agency provides. Testimonials are the only way to hear an honest opinion on previous experiences. 

In recruitment, the human experience is important, so reviews should help to guide your decision.

Avoid the Middle Man 

Ultimately, you don’t need to use a recruitment specialist or IT staffing agency to staff your teams. In fact, in digital health, remote hiring is increasingly common. 

The disadvantage to IT staffing agencies is that they can only hire one person at a time. If they have freelancers on their books, there are still limitations to the number of workers they can provide. 

Unfortunately, this doesn’t meet the requirements of a scaling digital health development project. Also, any hires that you make will need to continue employment beyond the specific project. Therefore, an IT staffing agency could end up costing you even more in extended salaries and training costs. 

Your next staffing option is to outsource. You can outsource the entire project, or augment your existing teams, depending on your current employment situation. It may take some time to find a good outsourcing partner on your own. However, once you do, they handle the project and the required quantity of employees, so you don't have to. 

Outsourcing

The first outsourcing and staffing method is full project outsourcing. This involves handing over the majority of the project to an outsourced company. This company could be offshore, nearshore or onshore, depending on your requirements. 

For instance, offshore outsourcing typically has cheaper labour costs, as your partner team are located some distance away. However, there are language barriers and issues raised by time zones.

Nearshore outsourcing can help to keep labour costs slightly lower, while managing the difficulties with language barriers. Typically, the outsourced teams would be based in the same time zone as your company.

Onshore outsourcing is mostly useful when you just don’t have the numbers required to complete the project. Teams are located within the same area as you. 

With any kind of outsourcing, you do lose some autonomy over your project. You need to have complete faith in your partner, as they will handle the build of the project. You need to trust their best practices, and their knowledge of the industry. That’s why it’s critical to partner with a digital health specialist. 

Staff Augmentation

Staff augmentation can offer the best of both worlds. Your outsourcing partner simply provides the number of skilled workers that you need to complete your project. You still maintain the majority of the control over your project, but can quickly acquire the staff that you need to complete it.

This is most useful when you need to scale flexibly, as your demand for workers grows and shrinks with projects. 

Your development partner still needs to have clear coding practices, and have staff that can operate cohesively with your existing teams. This is the primary challenge with staff augmentation. 

However, if you pick the right partner, their teams should be familiar with digital health and the challenges it can bring. They should combine with your teams to drive the project forward as you need. The teams can then return to their parent company once the project is complete, and handover to your in-house teams.

Follow the Sun

The ‘Follow the Sun’ architecture benefits digital health development, whether your project is fully outsourced or utilizes augmented teams. 

Teams are located around the world, much like offshore outsourcing. However, they are positioned in different time zones. Therefore, for each working day, teams produce 24 hours of work on your project. 

Follow the Sun can be used to meet deadlines in your digital health projects. It is an efficient way to outsource or augment your projects. A Follow the Sun partner can improve efficiency in your projects, while providing taking advantage of the best talent from around the globe.

At Vertrical, we have development teams located around the world that are ready to work on your projects. We can take the reigns, or augment your existing teams to drive your projects forward. Our teams are staffed with development and compliance experts. We have the expertise to guide you through the digital health industry. Get in touch with us today to discuss a real partnership.