Today, businesses (big or small) are looking to cut down on the operational costs until they recover the losses occurred during the pandemic. Minimising the expenditure will be their key motto. Therefore, many companies will look at outsourcing a few key talents for their projects and assignments, for it is the most cost-effective operational strategy.

Due to the worldwide pandemic, in the past few months, we have observed an increase in the consumption of technology by every sector. Now every company will adopt technology to be in line with their competitions and survive. From manufacturing to financial services firms to non-profits all will hire more technology and IT talents. The mass migration to cloud computing, remote and virtual working will require experienced technology talents with right skill sets. Therefore, technology is one of the top domains that businesses will outsource to different companies. From small to big, all corporates have been opting to choose to outsource IT services for many different reasons. Before choosing to outsource any talent, companies should weigh the benefits of the services provided by the outsourcing partner.

Apart from being cost-effective, here are some of the benefits of having outsourced technology talents:

Experience and Skills

Investing in the services from a trusted and dependable technology service provider will bring in the change and help you grow with the guidance of top-tier technology experts. The external team will possess in-depth expertise with excellent skill sets in the technology domain. The experienced talent will defiantly add value to your project and operations by applying their knowledge to your business processes right away.

GoodWorkLabs’ technological knowledge and the team’s capability to understand the know-how of every business seamlessly is key to offering the solution that best suits the companies. This mix allows us to offer the technological profile that best fits the requirements of each project.

Increased Productivity 

By having an industry specialist in your team, you can be sure that your work will be done to the T with zero monitoring and micro-managing. This will shorten the time needed to complete the projects and thereby finish them in time. Having a highly-skilled expert will only fasten the processes, boost the performance, and yield better ROI.

Focus on core operations

By partnering with an experienced service provider, the companies and businesses can focus on the core – the revenue generation part of their business. This will help them concentrate on their business objectives more effectively. It is very common that businesses, where technology is not their core get distracted by applying more energy and time in understanding technology. While technology is relevant for their company, it is outside their business goals, therefore, for situations like these, outsourced technology companies come to the rescue. They can help business managers to focus their energy on areas within their competencies.

Security

Small businesses that do not have a specialised IT security team needs a bit of expert advice on how can they protect the company data from cybersecurity threats and hackers. If you have an external technology partner, they can assist you in protecting assets against digital thefts by using innovative and advanced cybersecurity tools. Traditionally, implementation of the cybersecurity infrastructure is often expensive, therefore having a technology partner can help you eliminate these costs.

Risk Mitigation 

Ever thought what happens when you do not get desired results from the technology talent you outsourced? Worry not, they can be replaced with no or minimal added charges. Helping their clients to be aligned with technology, the outsourcing partners help companies meet their expectations through all odds. Even if the talent leaves the company before the end of the project, the outsourcing partners start looking at alternatives at no added cost.

If you are looking to outsource technology talents, then let us introduce you to the top technology outsourcing company – GoodWorkLabs. GoodworkLabs helps you with all the technical requirements that you may have, from developing an app/software product to staff augmentation. Also, during this ‘work-from-home’ and quarantine time, we can help you with remote developers who can assist you in your projects and do some great work together! Should you require any more info on our offerings then reach out to us at +91- 9863077000 or [email protected].

The last decade introduced the world to the digitization of many sectors. This helped the global trade to increase worldwide as many developing and emerging countries became important trading partners and potential sales and development markets. Digitization has helped us to be more connected and perform our daily tasks more effectively. It has made the world a global village and people global citizens.

However, the economies built in the previous decade came crashing to the ground in the last few weeks as COVID-19 pandemic hit the world. While the pandemic has had a great impact on the global economy, it taught us how to fight and improve the current condition using technology. It has laid a new pathway by disrupting our lifestyles by enabling contact-less and virtual experiences. Even though the technology cannot prevent the onset of the pandemics, it can, however, help prevent the spread, educate, empower, and warn people around. Today, these technologies are emerging more than ever – mobile, cloud, analytics, robotics, AI/ML, 4G/5G, and high-speed internet.

Let us look at three technologies that are disrupting our lifestyle each day during this pandemic:

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

From tracking the travel history of COVID-19 patents to analysing the symptoms of people exposed to the infection, the applications used by many governments do it all. These applications use chatbots to gather information from people, and the technology used in these applications is that of AI and ML. This enables the government to collect reliable information much easier and faster without any human intervention.

The advent of more such mobile applications and software will help ease the lifestyle of customers.

Extended Reality

Augmented and virtual reality is surely a boon in the world of lockdown and quarantine. This technology can be used in providing more meaningful and real experiences for people. The technology can help you see the world while you are locked in your home. This experience will change the way we travel, work, and relax. For instance: Realty brands can focus on using AR/VR videos to target their audiences by helping them take a walk-through the project while they are seated in the comfort of their home. This is an example of how a sector can use the contact-less experience to their advantage.

Cloud and Internet

The last few weeks have seen a great transition in the way the workforce can function. Companies got to believe that remote working and work from home concepts can be of their advantage. The transition to work from home and remote working has increased the dependency on cloud and internet infrastructure. The usage of this technology is set to remain the same even post lockdown and pandemic as many companies are moving towards welcoming a ‘hybrid’ way of working. This will increase the demand for teleworking applications and software for the team to be connected and interactive.

Talking about the internet, technology has changed the sector of education. It has enabled kids to learn and study from home using applications that require an active internet connection to connect with their peers and teachers. For times to come, e-learning will be an accepted norm for the parents and teachers alike.

The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated to the world that importance of digital readiness. The acceptance and usage of digital technology will allow the business and individuals to continue their work and chores as usual during the pandemic. The companies at large will focus on building necessary digital infrastructure by using the latest technology to stay connected with their employees and customers. The pandemic has increased their market competition by many folds, therefore businesses will have to take an approach that is human-centred and inclusive using technology governance.

One of the best phrases from the world of design is

‘if a picture is worth 1000 words, then a functional prototype is worth a 1000 meetings.’

From pure experimentation to see your vision turn into a tangible project, prototypes help a lot in the phases of testing and building. The best thing they do is the fact that also take care to preserve the overall design uniformity too.

Designers are under an obligation to design things according to the description of their clients, but not all understand the requirements clearly. Several meetings, emails and phone discussions then follow. All of these are done to arrive at a final design.

This hassle, though, can be avoided to a large extent by the use of correct prototyping tools.

Prototyping tools help the designers and clients to collaborate in a better way and not have any creative differences. The clients get a visual idea about what will get created. The teams too, build a better understanding and explore options becoming visible, only after building and testing.

The most crucial advantage of prototyping tools is the risk involved, because the sooner we get a failure, the faster we can learn. Failing in the initial stages gives us a soft landing. You have the opportunity to work and improve on those errors.

How are Prototyping Tools Used?

We know very well that user experience is a critical metric for the branding of any company. Companies, therefore, use different prototyping tools to show different versions of a product to clients as per their requirements. It allows the UI/UX designers to put a ‘Proof of Concept’, an essential factor for a stable commercial relationship between the customer and the client.

How to Choose the Right Prototyping Tool?

Choosing the right prototyping tool is the key to describe your thoughts and collaborate in a better way with your clients. However, getting the right prototyping tool is not easy. This is because there are too many tools available online; enough to confuse you to pick the best one.

Every tool is different from the other because each one either lacks a particular feature or has an added one to stand separate from the others.

To choose the right kind of prototyping tool for design, a few factors need to be evaluated to check if the tool addresses our requirements or not-

A LEARNING CURVE

It is essential to analyze how easy the tool is to adopt. In other words, a learning curve where it is determined how long it takes for a designer to understand the tool.

SHARING ABILITIES

Because collaboration is crucial in design, the perfect tool will be the one to provide a collaboration feature for multiple people and stay in sync with each other.

USAGE

This is another point to know when choosing a prototyping tool, about how well it merges with your design process and other tools you use regularly.

COSTS

There are several prototyping tools, and many of them have niche features. A lot of these tools fail to meet our budgetary needs, though. Hence, it is better to choose the tool according to costs and not just by the features on offer.

The 11 Top Prototyping Tools for UI/UX-

INVISION

Invision is the most popular prototyping tool available today. With its project management page, it is effortless to organize the design components into a status workflow.

Invision has simplified every single aspect of the workflow and collaboration between design and development. Better, faster and more collaborative design in real-time is what Invision does best.

ADOBE EXPERIENCE DESIGN

Adobe XD allows you to draw, reuse and remix vectors and create artwork and build wireframes, interactive prototypes, and screen layouts in the same app.

With Adobe, designers can be more productive as they can import files from their Adobe tools without any trouble at all. Clients too, can make comments on your shared prototypes and look at the designs in real-time.

ORIGAMI STUDIO

Facebook initially created this tool for helping teams build and design products. Origami enables you to show your designs in a presentation on full screen on various devices.

You can also export prototype components by a single click, and engineers can copy-and-paste in the project. The tool is more suited to freelancers just starting, due to lack of collaboration features.

SKETCH

WebSketch has a lot of similarities with Photoshop, allowing the user to edit pictures. The fully vector-based workflow makes it easy to create beautiful and high-quality artwork from scratch.

With Sketch, the reusable elements like lines and bubbles can be automatically copied and pasted.

AXURE

Axure is a tool providing some very powerful prototyping without any coding. It also makes the process of sharing a prototype for the team or client very easy.

Axure will also publish all your diagrams and prototypes to Axure Share on the cloud. With a single link, others can view your project in their browser.

WEBFLOW

The most significant benefit of Webflow is that the tool provides a very high degree of functionality without the need of writing a single line of code. The tool heavily focuses on web animations, interactions and very responsive web design.

You can either host a prototype with Webflow or even export the code in HTML, CSS or JavaScript.

FRAMER

Framer has the premise that with the right code, it is possible to prototype anything, resulting in beautiful designs. It provides an effortless workflow, further eased by version control, device previewing and easy sharing.

Framer also makes it possible to import graphics directly from Sketch, Figma or even Photoshop.

ATOMIC

Atomic is a web-based prototyping tool and requires Google Chrome. The tool provides you with the flexibility to tune your interaction. There is easy access on offer for all developers with a simple shared prototyping system.

The best feature is the history option, allowing you to rewind to previous designs and create new versions from any point.

PRINCIPLE

Principle has been built for OS X and has an iOS app to watch live prototypes. The app appears a lot like Sketch and other aspects like alignment, art-board creation and real-time previews.

Principle also permits designers to work offline at increased speeds so that you do not have any problem with a slow connection.

JUST IN MIND

A significant advantage of Just in Mind is that it can be downloaded on your system for offline work as well.

The tool comes packed with tutorials and guided videos for everyone, who is a beginner or even an expert. You also have access to use items from UI libraries and then download several other add-ons.

BALSAMIQ MOCKUPS

Balsamiq Mockups replicates the speed and convenience to create mockups on paper but at a digital medium. Designers get to choose from more than 500 pre-made icons or components.

If you are not a professional designer but looking for a tool allowing you to create static and straightforward wireframes, Balsamiq is ideal for use.

Still not sure, how to get on with it? Let us assist you, Contact us.

UX design is the backbone of a website. The whole UX design process is responsible for creating your site the way you always visualized it, and how a customer will see your website on accessing it.

UX design is a procedure of enhancing the user experience, or user satisfaction by increasing the overall efficiency, and usability of a website. When we talk about conversion rate, it is directly related to the UX design of the website. This highlights the importance of a great UX designer for any business.

What is very important to note that a great UX design involves several factors than just an intuitive user flow and an appealing layout. A good UX will entirely change the way a user browses a website. It is bound to bring more traffic and increase conversions.

An improvement in the User Experience will convert your website visitors to business leads, buyers, and even brand loyalists.

Ways to Improve the UX of Your Website:-

It is not very difficult to look after ways to boost the aggregate experience of your website.

These four ways serve the purpose for you just as effectively:-

1- Have an Easily Visible Call to Action Button

Call to action (CTA) buttons have a significant role in guiding the users for conversion. The most commonly used CTA’s are: to sign up for updates, start a trial, download the app, schedule an appointment, and a lot more.

Furthermore, having a clear and appealing CTA button always provides excellent experience on a website. This Call to Action attribute deserves a space on every website page. There is no denying that sites with clear CTA buttons bring more conversions with them.

To add to it, if your website has several folds, your CTA button should be above the fold for easy visibility to the users.

You can keep a few more things in mind for CTA buttons-

• The color of a CTA button has a lot of importance. The use of specific colors can provide a lot more visibility to the button. Try to use contrasting colors for CTA’s when compared with the color scheme of the complete web page.
• The text on a CTA should be action-oriented. Passive verbs are strictly not advisable. This text needs to be subtle but active enough to make the user take the desired action.
• The word count, while writing the CTA text, should not exceed more than five words.

Having a visible Call to Action button is very imperative to provide users with a great experience.

2- Control your 404 Errors

When a user looks for something on the web, they expect to land on the exact web page they were looking for in the first place. If they fall on a page error, like 404 in most cases, it will take them no time to switch over to another website for a faster experience.

It becomes very apparent that 404 errors have the potential to take active users away from your web page. What is also evident is that these errors can never be completely taken care of.

This is why a question arises- How to accurately take care of this problem?

• The first way is to find out those pages where the search results show 404 errors and fix them as quickly as possible.
• Instead of allowing your website to display a standard ‘404 error: page is unavailable’ message, you can get some customization done for the error messages to make things a little friendly for the visitors.
• You can take the help of some relevant, pleasing, and entertaining images for the error page to reduce the anger and frustration of a user considerably.
• Convey to the users that you are the provider of a very smooth and comfortable browsing experience. For doing that, personalize the error text to add a personal touch to it.

It is crucial to know that you cannot eliminate these error texts, but taking enough care not to irritate the visitors will always be an added advantage for your UX.

3- Make Use of Authentic Images

Images have the potential to enhance the appeal of any web page instantly and make the content more authentic and believable. The kind of images you use can easily make the entire call of the page is good or bad.

To be sure about the images you use, the first advice is to keep away from stock pictures. Using them is always cheap and very easy, but they tend to be more harmful than beneficial in the long run.

These stock images do look professional, but it is never difficult for the users to understand that they are stock images, and such behavior will make them lose their interest.

Original and authentic images always attract more visitors because they bring a realistic touch with them and ensure connectivity with the users. The stock images, of course, become repetitive and bore the visitors.

If you use stock images for your web page, it sends a wrong message that you were lethargic in investing your efforts to design your website. Stock images will not allow your site to look unique, as users will most certainly have come across the pictures before.

You should make it a point to use only original images, irrespective of how basic or simple they look. The key here is to stay away from stock photos at all costs.

4- Ensure a Quicker Page Loading Time

If your web page is guilty to load slowly, it is enough reason for users to eventually abandon your site and go to a website having a quicker response time.

So, if your landing page is slow, there is a high probability that visitors will not even go through your website entirely. Also, you should also take care that just improving the loading speed is not going to be enough. Optimizing your website for mobile users is also very important.

Conclusion

Providing a lot of relevant information is not what User Experience is about. It is about how interactively, and how engaging are your efforts to ensure that information.

You might have a great product to show, but if you fail to catch the attention of the user, it will never be enough.

If you wish to have a website with all the trending practices for a great User Experience, we can help you. Get in touch with us!

Stratistics Marketing Research Consulting released the figures for spending in the worldwide IT outsourcing market. Expectations are that the amount will reach $481.37 billion by the year 2022. 

The figure is not at all surprising- this is because companies are looking forward to reduce their IT component spending. The focus is shifting to the main functions of the organization.

To solve the various enterprise challenges, the two models of IT outsourcing- staff augmentation and managed IT services are considered the best. 

We take a closer look into both these models to determine which one is better suited to the needs of companies.

Staff Augmentation

Staff augmentation refers to hiring professionals from outside the company. This is done on a contractual basis to cover up for the in-house staff.

Staff augmentation model has several benefits-

• Cost-Effectiveness

There are a lot of companies without the need for added staff. This eliminates the point to pay regular wages. Staff augmentation provides businesses with complete support through skilled professionals.

• Adaptability

Whenever a project comes up to a company, it is easy to understand and make a note of the missing skills to complete the project. Staff augmentation comes with the feature of adaptability. As a result, you can quickly scale up and down as per the project range.

• Resistance to Attrition

Obtaining and keeping a permanent staff is a difficult task for companies today. Because IT services are growing in demand, employees move over from their present employer to another more quickly.

There is not much companies can do to avoid this, but staff augmentation makes it less difficult to fill their staff with qualified specialists.

These are the important attributes of staff augmentation. However, it is interesting to note that staff augmentation is perfect only as a short-term solution. Future-oriented companies want to keep their technological development safe for a long time.

With the benefits on offer through staff augmentation, many people in the top management look to make this model a permanent one in their operations.

A Few Limitations of Staff Augmentation 

Choosing staff augmentation from a permanent hiring model brings two critical disadvantages to light-

• Overall Cost- Effectiveness Gets Challenged

When you choose staff augmentation, the labour costs increase. These expenses include overheads and positive margins too. Regularly hiring freelancers on a contractual basis is not a permanent solution, as the administrative costs become higher also.

• You Don’t Get Enough Insights For The Work Done By Your Contractor

Staff augmentation model does not generally mention any other service commitments than the work hours. As a result, the permanent staff often ‘invents’ new tasks to keep temporary hires busy. 

Staff augmentation brings you high-cost permanent resources. Yes, the quality of their services will be outstanding, but every company will also need favourable results too.

With staff augmentation, the customer company is entirely responsible for the infrastructure management procedure as well as quality assurance. The result, therefore, also becomes the responsibility of the company.

Managed IT Services

The managed IT service model is a definite mix of services, responsible for applying an external degree of control on a company’s non-core systems.

The model brings in all benefits of flexibility and skill access of staff augmentation. It then overcomes the major disadvantages the former model has to offer.

The advantages of managed IT services are the following-

• An Improved Cost Model

The vendors of managed IT services tie the pricing of the contract to the outcome. In other words, if customer demand for certain services grows or decreases, the price of the contract will differ accordingly.

• Guaranteed Output

Because service delivery includes a service level agreement (SLA), the overall scope and time limit of the service are all documented. Service providers try to fulfil their commitments, so they are required to put their value of work at a maximum.

• Access To Many Different Skills

Organizations providing managed IT services are often more significant than staff augmentation companies. 

As a result, these companies offer their customers an extensive base of skills, knowledge and solutions necessary to meet the ever-evolving requirements of customers.

Managed IT service model keeps your focus on the core business and transfer all the supporting services to a skilled and result-oriented company.

Adopting Managed IT Services

Stepping to a managed service model is not a single step, but involves a gradual procedure of four phases-

• Planning

Firstly, it is essential to have a clear definition of what to outsource.

It is vital that you do not delegate the processes, knowledge-intensive and makes you stand apart from the crowd. If you choose the wrong service for outsourcing, it can result in vendor lock-in.

Also, have a clear decision regarding the scope of managed IT services. If it is a hosting service, for instance, you should have a clear idea when the hosting begins and ends. It looks pretty ordinary but can have problems in the future.

• Choosing a Vendor

The reliability of a managed IT service vendor is a huge factor in making companies doubtful of selecting this model.

Shortlist managed IT service providers based on criteria like recommendations from experts, the capabilities of vendors for a particular technology and testimonies from previous customers.

The rest of the process is simple. Interact through one-on-one sessions to get more information and proceed ahead.

• Transition

A transition plan is generally in an SLA, where the methodology and schedule of a project are specified. Over-specification on the way the service will be delivered is a common problem to avoid in this phase.

Transition is the phase where the actual transfer of knowledge happens. At the start, a new vendor observes how the internal staff works. Right after that, this vendor takes over the overall responsibilities of service management.

• Governance

For maintaining the consistency of managed IT services, it is vital for a customer to conduct regular reporting and performance audits, review the services in line with the SLA and ensure that the vendor stays alert to what the IT service market offers.

The Dilemma Among Staff Augmentation and Managed IT Services

Choosing between these two models depends on the kind of company looking for them. Essentially, the best way to choose is to have a detailed cost-benefit analysis.

If your company requires specific services for a limited period, staff augmentation is the perfect option for you.

However, if you are looking for a continuous operating model, having a predictable cost structure, you will want to consider managed IT services for your company.

You can connect any time in case of any doubts about the two models we have discussed above. Also, we offer staff augmentation services and co-working space, Reach out to us, if any of the above service interests you.

How to implement microlearning in employee training to drive significant business results?

As per the 2017 Workplace Learning Report, 27% of the companies increased the budget for talent development. Learning initiatives like this have a major impact on business growth, given that human resource is the major asset that any organization can count upon.

In this blog post, we would like to cast the focus on how to implement microlearning in employee training to drive significant business results. Before that, let’s first understand what is microlearning, to begin with.

Is Microlearning worth investing time in?

Microlearning is a popular training method in terms of Staff Augmentation, which is known to crack its way through the busy work schedules of the learners and provide effective results. In a microlearning program, small nuggets of information which carries the essence of the underlying topic are delivered to the user for quick and effective learning in a short period of time, usually 2-5 minutes.

On average, a modern learner is estimated to have only 1% of the work week available to dedicate to training and development programs. This necessitates the learning programs to be crisp and effective.

Microlearning serves as the major knowledge spread technique with major benefits like:

• An improved knowledge retention rate
• Reduced costs of learning
• Compatibility with Mobile Learning

Surprise! You can make it More Fun.

This is a widespread misconception that microlearning can only be in video clips form. Though videos are a great way to deliver information, there are other ways of microlearning which are known to be effective:

• Gamified activities
• Short Articles
• Interactive modules
• Infographics

5 Crisp yet Effective Ways to Implement Microlearning Into Your Employee Training

1. Set Training Goals

Before designing an effective training course for your employees, analyze the objective of the training program. Outline and answer a few basic questions to set the direction of your training program.

• What problems do you intend to solve with this training program?
• Which behaviors do you want to address specifically?
• How do you desire to track results?

Microlearning can be directed in any direction that you want. It might be used for quick questions that employees might have, for continuing educational modules, and for tips and tricks for success.

2. Design a Comprehensive and Cohesive Course

Once the goals for the course is decided, take a head-start to design a course which incorporates all the learning objectives. The lessons should not be fragmented or have cliffhangers. Every piece of content should deliver a complete understanding of the underlying topic.

3. Encourage Continual Use of the Course

An effective microlearning program is one which is implemented continuously and improves knowledge retention. Learners should be given access to these informational training courses any time to advance their long-term memory, and instantly find an answer if they can’t recollect it.

P.S. Few tricks to improve the impact of your microlearning program:

• Spaced Repetition: Make the learners practice a new topic over increasingly long intervals. This will deepen their memory.
• Retrieval Practice: In this practice, memory is strengthened by using questions to recollect information.
• Confidence-based assessment: This involves comparing what you think you know vs. what you actually know to improve memory and enhance self-awareness.

4. Make Microlearning Content Easily Accessible

In contemporary scenarios, the work schedules run tight and thus there is a requirement of a training course that can fit in day-to-day workflow. An easy way to make this happen is to pair microlearning courses with mobile learning which can allow learners to access and complete training courses anytime.
A great Learning Management System can help you a lot to achieve the all-time accessibility of the training programs. With an LMS in the system, you can streamline the training process and help the learners easily access the microlearning content.

5. Evaluate Results Periodically

It is essential to track results periodically to get an understanding of the effectiveness of the implemented training program. This will allow you to track the strong areas of your training program and pinpoint the difficulty areas with which you can continuously optimize the training program.
Again for effective tracking of the results, a robust learning management system has a role to play. With the analytics and insights provided by the LMS, you can easily understand the flaws and effectiveness of a training program and tweak it for betterment.

To Sum it up

Microlearning is the best fit for all your business training needs, the only underlying condition is, it should be optimized for relevancy.  Crisp targeted nuggets of information can bring monetary results in the times to come as they contribute directly to the business growth. Are you thinking of getting a Learning Management System (LMS) for your organization? Let us help you!

Drop your details here and we will get back to you shortly.

How Staff Augmentation can help your Business

Having a tough time hiring nerds every week?

Can’t get your hold on the cream talent of the mass?

Working in an IT firm means the staff turnover ratio is quite high. We have only one straight simple solution for all your hiring related worries – Outsource!

At GoodWorkLabs, we have helped both startups and fortune 500 companies with their technology needs by providing them with the right resources. Be it popular, on-demand, or niche skills, we have helped thousands of clients achieve their product development needs by deploying the best talent pool.

Not just that, GoodWorkLabs has also helped companies set up large teams in design, development, and QA with a concentrated staff augmentation strategy.

In this blog, we share FIVE reasons why you should outsource your tech requirements.

1. Massive reach of a highly-skilled talent pool

Consulting or staff augmentation firms have a grip on both the active and passive market. While an active resource pool is accessible to all, the real cream of talent sits in passive markets that are mostly untapped. Here is where outsourcing to a staffing firm makes all the difference to your hiring process.

The reach of consulting firms is much higher and you can hire highly skilled professionals easily. We all want technology experts to work on ever-changing product demands. Hence, it definitely makes business sense to outsource hiring.

2. Credibility with hiring managers

Staffing firms often work with the same hiring managers in order to keep the trust factor high. Corporate recruiters, on the other hand, work with several hiring managers. This trust factor and credibility is leveraged by the staffing firms and they continue to source better candidates for a given profile in comparison to the corporate recruiters.

3.  Longer guarantee periods

The best add-on benefit that comes with using staff augmentation services is that they offer an employee guarantee of 6 months to 1 year.  This is a great assurance and also a big relief to the IT firms as usually the minimum project length is 6 months. Businesses will be able to complete at least one project with the resource in the minimum guarantee period. 

4. Very Flexible and Cost-effective

The compensation of the staffing firm depends on the placement and not on how many candidates they managed to schedule for an interview. One of the biggest advantages of outsourcing your technology needs is that you enjoy the flexibility of utilizing a resource. From 6 months to 2 years, you can choose to renew your outsourcing contract and not worry about having too many resources on bench.

The staff augmentation model is very cost-effective as well. You don’t have to worry with admin and other employee onboarding costs as all of this will be taken care of by the staffing agency.

5. More consultative and less transactional

The primary aim of a technology consulting company is to find resources that are passionate, skilled, and are the perfect fit for your organization. Rather than being transactional, they go over and beyond to hand-pick candidates who will support your business in the long-run.

“Build relations and not quick transactions.”  At GoodWorkLabs, we give quality of candidates the highest priority.

Final Takeaway

Using the services of a high-quality external recruiting firm should be in your talent acquisition strategy if you are an IT firm. Instead of forcing these firms to stick to your internal control policies, leverage their potential of finding the best resource for you. Look at staff augmentation services as a multi-year investment that will continue to give you ROI. 

Get a gist of the consulting services provided by GoodWorkLabs and if you would like to get a free consultation on your outsourcing needs, then contact us.

The Ultimate Leader – MSD

Mahendra Singh Dhoni or MS Dhoni is one of the most successful sportsperson and an iconic captain of the Indian team. Many people believe that  he thrives 0n mere luck, good fortune and great timing but actually a clear pattern of skills and qualities can be observed in him.

However, entrepreneurs must be thinking how would it help them to flourish? Since, an individual can be inspired by any success story and what else can be better served than that of the great leader on the field.

Therefore, following are some lessons that a tech entrepreneur should learn for  better growth of business.

1. Dealing with failures

Failures can lower the morale of any person. It is an art: how to handle failure. After a chain of losses, MS Dhoni came back with a bang with the victory of World Cup 2011. All it requires is a great character with a healthy attitude. Entrepreneurs must be focused on the work rather than crying over the spilt milk.

2. Leading with example

Being a leader, it is important that you lead from the front. MS Dhoni has been an inspiration to not only the people outside the dressing room but also people inside the dressing room. Dhoni has crossed all boundaries of getting out of his comfort zone. He constantly ushes his abilities everyday.

He has been the best at keeping wickets and with the bat. He was the first Indian to be awarded as the player of the year by ICC. A ticket collector to an Indian captain, the story has surely been inspiring.

3. Absorbing Pressure

Dhoni might have ninety-nine problems but absorbing pressure isn’t one of them. In fact, there isn’t probably a man in the cricket world who can absorb pressure like Dhoni does. Dhoni has always been surrounded by pressure on and off the field, may be one of the prime reasons for his white beards at 30.

To reflect the pressure through performance and not through anguish is what Dhoni has mastered over the years. As a leader, you have to keep yourself calm when your team needs you the most. If  the leader breaks down, you can’t expect the team to sail through. No doubt he is called ‘Captain Cool’.

4. Delegation of work

A leader must delegate the work to lessen the burden. As Dhoni did, all entrepreneurs should give others a chance. If you are not capable of taking any decision in a certain matter, let it be and pass it on to the able one. A leader is not the best player necessarily, but he brings out the best from every single team member.

5. Trust

MS Dhoni shows great trust on his players. So being an entrepreneur, you must display confidence on your team members without any fear of failure. Your act of showing faith will improve the morale of the team as well as smoothens the functioning at the workplace. The employees will be blessed with a sense of responsibility.

6. Knowing the strengths and weaknesses of the team

In a match presentation against Bangladesh in the T20 World Cup, Dhoni gave a detailed story of how he knew that Jasprit Bumrah was rather “weak” in the fielding department or that Hardik Pandya isn’t the best person to bowl a yorker. The fact that his decisions are spot on most of the times is because he knows how to use the right resources at the right time.

The ability to have the knowledge of the skills of each and every individual in the team gives an edge to any leader to use the right resources at the right time. That’s again a  sign of a great leader.

7. Believing in instincts and taking risks

A true leader is one who is never shy of taking risks. Taking risks has always been a part of the game for this man, be it the finals of the 2011 world cup where he promoted himself up the order or the Joginder Sharma over back in 2007. Though many of his decisions have come under the hammer but most of the times he has been spot on with his moves.

His ability to take risks and more importantly, backing them has fetched brighter results for the team. Moreover, the ability to believe in himself is what makes him one of the great minds on the field. Being a leader you have to analyse where you went wrong and have to take risks in order to achieve bigger results.

Be the leader everyone wants to follow!

The Art Of Hiring

Often, managers think that if they want to speed up decision-making, they must also be prepared to make worse decisions. For example, a recruiting decision could be made more quickly but without getting as much internal input or spending as much time ensuring the candidate “fits” with the organization. They think they must trade off making a fast decision to ensure they make the right decision.

HR teams feel this fast/right conundrum in many parts of their work, but there are eight in particular where they can speed-up decisions without getting them wrong.

Following are a few tips from out talented HT team to hire the best talent and ways to retain them for a longer period of time.

1. Compete for talent more intelligently: Firms increasingly need highly specialized roles and skills regardless of the industry they operate in. But many HR teams lack the right data, or the right ability to use it, to find such people and hire them.They must first take the time to understand and anticipate what types of skills they will need in the future; this will pay dividends later. They must also understand how to use talent analytics cost-effectively to find the people best placed to fill these roles. And, finally, they should concentrate on non-traditional labor markets they may have overlooked (in an adjacent industry, say).
2. Streamline the recruiting process: The average time it takes for a recruiting team to fill a position has risen substantially in the past five years. Most HR functions have a big opportunity to speed up hiring without compromising quality.More complex hiring requirements have complicated recruiter workloads, recruiting processes, and hiring decisions. As a result, the average time to fill an open position is at 63 business days – 21 more days than it was five years ago. This can mean less savvy firms lose talent to competitors and waste an average of $8.5 million per 1,000 vacancies in lost productivity and additional recruiting work.Many firms try to combat this by giving recruiters more: more resources, more policies, more tools, and more information. But it rarely works. Instead, they should look to streamline the recruiting process itself. Recruiting teams should take three steps:
   • Realign resources for recruitment to focus on speeding up hiring for current and future posts.
   • Identify and remove hidden process inefficiencies that slow down hiring.
   • Slim down the amount of information and stakeholders that influence hiring decisions, and learn how to manage it better.
3. Don’t ask employees to “own” their careers, partner with them instead: Two-thirds of companies will face an internal skills shortage in the next three to five years, and only 30% of employees are satisfied with the future career opportunities at their organizations. This makes it imperative that HR teams engage and retain the right people to staff the roles the company needs in the future.To do this, 90% of heads of HR say they want to move away from a promotion-based career culture to a “growth-based” one where employees move laterally to acquire new skills that then put them in a position to take on a better paid, more responsible role. Most firms try to do this by encouraging employees to “own” their careers, and providing sample career paths, access to job boards, and career conversations. But this can often mean that employees don’t develop the skills the firm needs, which produces an internal skills shortage and/or the firm losing employees it wanted to keep.Instead, firms should encourage “career partnerships” that are of value to both the company and employees. Employees should be shown how the skills the firm wants them to develop will make them more employable. The HR team should market the right position (full-time or project-based) to the right employees rather than using passive channels like internal job boards, and then make it easy for employees to shift between teams. This keeps employees engaged and provides managers with the right skills at the right time.

We will share similar tips in the coming days as we completely understand the hiring process. This makes us one of the best options for contract staffing and staff augmentation options.

Predictions For 2017-18

Disruption has moved from an infrequent inconvenience to a consistent stream of change that is redefining markets and entire industries. In 2016, we saw the astonishing rise of Pokémon Go, which demonstrated accelerated digital change in areas such as augmented reality. Gartner’s top strategic predictions for 2017 and beyond describe not only the disruptive effects of digital business innovation but how secondary ripple effects will often prove to be more disruptive than the original disruption.

Three high-level trends emerge from the predictions:

• Digital experience and engagement will draw people into non-stop virtual interactions
• Business innovation will create extraordinary change from mundane concepts
• Secondary effects will be more disruptive than the initial digital change

Gartner’s Top 10 Predictions for 2017 and Beyond

1. Immersive Shopping Experience – By 2020, 100 million consumers will shop in augmented reality.

Whether they allow you to try on makeup or place virtual furniture in your home, immersive technologies such as AR increase consumer engagement by enabling them to fully explore features and conveying additional information that can aid in a buying decision. Popular applications, such as Pokémon Go, will help propagate the technology and bring it into the mainstream. 1 in 5 global brands will use AR for shopping by the end of 2017.

2. Voice First Browsing – By 2020, 30% of web browsing sessions will be done without a screen.

Many teens already use voice search daily and new audio-centric technologies, such as Google Home and Amazon’s Echo, are turning “voice first” interactions into ubiquitous experiences. By eliminating the need to use your hands and eyes for browsing, vocal interactions extend the web experience to multiple activities, such as driving, cooking, walking, socializing, exercising, operating machinery, etc. By the end of 2017, watch for room-based screenless devices to be in more than 10 million homes.

3. Mobile Apps Decline – By 2019, 20% of brands will abandon their mobile apps.

Many brands are finding that their mobile apps are not paying off. They simply haven’t delivered the level of adoption and customer engagement that companies expected. App stores are crowded and the cost of application support in not only maintenance, upgrades and customer support but also marketing to drive downloads, exceeds original ROI calculations. Google’s effort to make the mobile web more “app like,” will gain traction, and companies will opt to reduce their losses by allowing their apps to expire. Watch for Apple’s reluctant embrace of the mobile web as a vehicle for customer engagement.

4. Algorithms at Work – By 2020, algorithms will positively alter the behavior of over 1 billion global workers.

Employees, already familiar with behavior influencing through contextual algorithms on consumer sites such as Amazon, will be influenced by an emerging set of “persuasive technologies” that leverage big data from myriad sources, mobile, IoT devices and deep analysis.

JPMorgan Chase uses an algorithm to forecast and positively influence the behavior of thousands of investment bank and asset management employees to minimize mistaken or ethically wrong decisions. Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic uses influence algorithms to guide pilots to use less fuel. By year end 2017, watch for at least one commercial organization to report a significant increase in profit margins because it used algorithms to positively alter its employees’ behaviors.

5. Blockchain Grows Up – By 2022, a blockchain-based business will be worth $10 billion.

Blockchain technology is established as the next revolution in transaction or event recording. A blockchain ledger provides an immutable, shared view of all transactions between engaging parties in a distributed, decentralized network. While the Bitcoin blockchain ledger is itself well-understood, blockchain remains an immature technology. By 2020, new businesses and business models will emerge based on smart contracts and blockchain efficiencies. These smart contracts automate at a reliability, customization level and speed not achievable with traditional business systems.

6. Digital Giants Everywhere – By 2021, 20% of all activities an individual engages in will involve at least one of the top-seven digital giants.

Many of us interact with at least one of the digital giants (by market capitalization: Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent) in our digital worlds of web search, mobile, social networking, messaging and music streaming. As the physical, financial and healthcare worlds become more digital, many of our activities will be connected and within reach of the digital giants. Note that collectively, the digital giants will have direct and indirect knowledge of what we do as individuals and the fundamental issue will be what they do with the data.

7. Innovation Requires Greater Investment – Through 2019, every $1 enterprise invest in innovation will require an additional $7 in core execution.

Many organizations have adopted a bimodal style of work to jumpstart innovation. While exercises are designed to experiment and “fail fast,” those that do receive approval for implementation involve a level of complexity, scale, and business change ramifications that may not have been considered in the initial planning stage.

8. IoT Saves Trillions – By 2022, IoT will save consumers and businesses $1 trillion a year in maintenance, services, and consumables.

Digital twins capture real-time data, allowing smarter maintenance and service schedules for physical objects such as large pumps, airframes, and turbines. When the sensor-enabled real world twin sends data to the digital twin, it can simulate the physical state, allowing the digital twin to be inspected instead of the physical object. This would be helpful for a submerged sewage pump or any other asset in which on-site inspection is inconvenient, costly or hazardous.

Consumers, too, will benefit when they can extend the life of the oil in their cars from a prescriptive replacement “every 5,000 miles” to replacement triggered by a measurement of the engine’s performance.

Emerging and established companies need to keep in mind these predictions, especially the tech leaders during hiring and procurement. Investments need to be smarter, better and more calculative in nature.

Source: Gartner