How a Nearshore Staffing Agency Can Boost Your Tech Team

The #1 reason behind outsourcing is no longer cost savings, but rather access to top talent. This makes sense considering that the current developer shortage in the U.S. is a whopping 1 million tech professionals.

Under these market conditions, hiring a nearshore staffing agency is a go-to solution to fill gaps in your technology expertise. Just consider that nearshoring demand for Latin America – a first choice for U.S. companies – has increased by 286% in recent years.

Let’s explore why nearshore talent sourcing has gained traction today, including key advantages such as time zone alignment, cultural know-how and scalability. To give you a comprehensive overview of nearshoring, we’ll explore benefits, feature comparisons, hiring tips, best practices and more.

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What Is a Nearshore Staffing Agency?

A nearshore staffing agency is a partner specializing in recruiting talent from a specific region. For the U.S., these agencies typically focus on sourcing Latin American developers.

Top nearshore recruitment agencies not only connect businesses with first-rate talent, but also oversee logistics related to HR. Often these partners are well-versed in building local talent networks, as well as complying with relevant regulations.

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Best Use Cases for Nearshore Staffing Solutions

Nearshore staffing solutions may be the right choice for a range of scenarios. In particular, you can reap the benefits of nearshore staffing if:

• You’re struggling to find the tech professionals you require.
• You don’t have the resources to hire internally or don’t need this expertise long-term.
• Your project is scalable and may require ongoing staffing changes.
• You’re keen to get a dedicated project team to speed up development.
• You want to avoid the risks of offshore outsourcing (such as time zone differences, culture misalignment, subpar security, low quality control and a revolving door of tech talent).

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Why Work With a Nearshore Staffing Agency?

Choosing a nearshore staffing agency to handle your talent needs lets you harness key advantages. Today, 80% of U.S. businesses are considering nearshore talent sourcing to meet their technology requirements.

Access to Top Talent

Nearshore recruitment agencies build up skilled talent pools by leveraging local networks. Through these solutions, you can connect with elite talent in diverse specializations. Specifically, developers in Latin America have a reputation for outstanding technical prowess – and many countries are even globally ranked for developer skills!

Time Zone Compatibility

Having overlapping time zones isn’t just convenient – it’s necessary to facilitate seamless collaboration. This is especially true when using the agile method, which is based on constant iteration. Sharing geographic proximity also means that you can enjoy stronger alignment with culture, workplace expectations, in-person visits and more.

Cost Efficiency

Developer rates in regions such as Latin America are much more affordable. Overall, you’ll pay 40-50% lower rates compared to the U.S. At the same time, you’ll enjoy cost savings by choosing efficient, well-established teams and eliminating recruitment expenses.

Cultural Alignment & Communication

LatAm developers are also known for their cultural fluidity. Given the proximity to the U.S., professionals here are practiced in workplace expectations and communication styles. As a result, this know-how streamlines teams and boosts engagement.

Scalability & Flexibility

Nearshore staffing solutions can set up scalability for your business. With a partner, you can easily modify your talent arrangements to scale up or down your project. This adds an extra layer of flexibility to ensure you’re using your team members as efficiently as possible.

Security & IP Protection

Nearby regions tend to have shared trade agreements and protections. Nearshoring enables your business to take advantage of these regulations to lock down your security and IP. For example, Mexico and the U.S. have specific deals to ensure top digital security for trade. In comparison, other regions worldwide may not have these enforceable protections in place.

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Comparison: Nearshore vs. Offshore Staffing

As you build global technology teams, you’re likely deciding between nearshore vs. offshore staffing. While both have their advantages, nearshoring tends to be the most trusted choice. That’s because nearshore staffing solutions offer the best of both worlds: impressive talent at affordable rates, with top cultural alignment and project quality.

Nearshore vs. Offshore

The biggest issue with offshore staffing is that you may not share time zones. Under this model, it’s common to have your developer teams located across the world. For software that requires ongoing iterative cycles, the lack of real-time communication can be challenging.

Additionally, as a result of distinct locations, you may also face friction related to cultural alignment, workplace practices and English proficiency.

Overall, offshoring depends greatly on your staffing partner. Some agencies have achieved top standards, while others have given offshoring a poor reputation due to low quality, project delays and subpar security.

Nearshore vs. Onshore

Onshore staffing is another alternative to meet your talent gaps. Typically, onshore developers are easy to integrate into your teams, but rates are much higher compared to nearshore and offshore staffing. Due to the costs involved, you may not be able to scale your projects with the same ease either.

It’s also possible that you can’t find the technical expertise you require through onshoring, as the competition is especially fierce. In this case, onshoring may not even be an option.

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How to Choose the Right Nearshore Staffing Agency

Of course, every nearshore staffing agency has its own core focus. You’ll want to ensure you’ve chosen the right partner for your tech talent needs.

Talent Pool Specs

During your selection process, you’ll want to get to know their talent pool, including their main specializations and developer profiles. Nearshore recruitment agencies tend to have local knowledge of specific countries or regions, so ask about where your technology professionals are located, too.

Ability to Align

Get a sense of your developers’ ability to integrate with your teams. A top talent partner will be concerned about aligning with your company’s work culture, industry practices, communication style and more. Moreover, they will understand your business objectives in depth, so that your talent is well-aware of your vision.

Overall Reliability

In addition to teaming logistics such as time zones, verify that your nearshore staffing agency implements best practices. You should feel that you can trust your partner to handle project changes, security protocols, data compliance and more. Find out their specific recruitment processes and read past client reviews to get the full picture of their reliability.

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Real Success Stories: How Companies Benefit from Nearshore Talent Sourcing

At TECLA, we’re proud to be a trusted nearshore staffing agency laser-focused on getting results for your technology teams. Here are a few recent success stories of how we’ve filled roles with skilled, career-driven developers.

Wesper

"The [hiring] process has been very clean, and TECLA has done a great job of making everything very uniform and smooth."

Wesper, a major sleep monitoring device provider, was looking to grow their team during COVID-19. TECLA worked closely to understand their requirements and recruit top LatAm-based candidates for roles in software, product expertise and data analysis. Overall, the recruitment drive was a “huge success” and attained results including:

• 9 specialized hires in a 2.5-year period.
• 7/9 hires are still working with Wesper today.
• 6–8 week median time to hire (rapid for the industry).
• Recently started a new candidate search with TECLA.

Dendi

“[TECLA staff] were always extremely attentive and responsive.”

Dendi, a cloud-based medical laboratory information system, was looking to hire full-time staff who aligned with their company vision and culture. TECLA collaborated to understand their business values and source highly qualified engineering candidates who fit their needs. As a result, TECLA became an integral part of their HR/recruitment efforts. Top outcomes included:

• Hired 30% of their team via TECLA.
• “Immense” time savings.
• Nearly zero employee turnover.

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Best Practices for Working with a Nearshore Staffing Agency

Once you’ve hired the ideal nearshore staffing agency, set up your teams for success. Incorporate best practices to ensure effective collaboration with your talent from the start.

• Undergo robust onboarding. Set up virtual training sessions, meetings and documentation for maximum knowledge transfer. Don’t forget about introducing people via meetings and events, too.
• Do daily stand-ups. This sprint-based method gets your team to align work every day and create new efficiencies. In this way, you can assign regular milestones for each developer and effectively organize the entire project.
• Utilize collaboration tools. Whenever you have a virtual office, you’ll want to guarantee your team members are well-equipped. Make sure your developers have all the tools they need. In addition to Slack, consider productivity tools such as Miro, Loom, Trello and more.
• Foster a unified team culture. Bring together your developers by encouraging a collaborative environment. Peer-to-peer feedback, mentorship programs and after-hours events are good ways to nurture a sense of unity.
• Navigate changes as a team. Take the pulse on your teams’ productivity and satisfaction regularly. It’s essential to get on-the-ground information about what’s working (and not), so that you can continually improve processes, tools and team spirit.

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Your Ideal Nearshore Staffing Agency Is Here

Collaborating with a nearshore staffing agency unlocks endless benefits for your business. From specialized expertise to cost savings to aligned goals, power up your teams by choosing to nearshore. Be sure to implement our actionable tips above to attain the best talent outcomes.

The most important factor for your nearshore journey success is your partner. Hire a savvy nearshore recruitment agency that truly “gets it.” At TECLA, we have a deep understanding of your business challenges and boast of truly world-class talent to bridge your gaps. Discuss your needs with our nearshore hiring specialists ASAP!

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