Helping CSHR to Level the Recruitment Playing Field

CSHR provides talent management and professional resourcing services to the Civil Service. In 2015, they embarked on a programme to modernize their digital recruitment service and overall candidate experience. Valtech was selected to develop an apprenticeship and graduate recruitment platform.

The existing application process was long, collected unnecessary data, lacked accessibility support and was not mobile friendly. Most significantly, it was not designed with the user in mind.

The new platform needed to identify, integrate and share technical capabilities and services across a range of devices and meet Government Digital Service standards.

Valtech was brought in to replace the legacy applicant tracking system with a platform that was more user-centric, focused on making the process lean and simple for the apprentices and graduates to use.

Around the time when Valtech stepped in, the Civil Service had also commissioned independent research to review the make-up of Civil Service employees. The findings triggered a number of initiatives, a key one being the goal of improving the diversity and inclusiveness of the Fast Stream—this required the development of a user-friendly standard to collect diversity and socio-economic data, a model that Valtech user research and design enabled and which has been replicated in other parts of the Civil Service.

CSHR was also faced with a key challenge, which was to reduce time to offer and to bring the best graduates (Fast Streamers), into public service. Valtech worked closely with CSHR to support this key transformation, one that involved changes in culture, business process, improved transparency and trust. The partnership with Valtech enabled CSHR to start delivering on nearly all of the key objectives of this transformation.

The Valtech team engaged directly with the business and enabled CSHR to identify inefficiencies in processes and helped expose direct costs to the business. As part of this engagement, Valtech worked with CSHR to build a new process that operates on tight feedback loops with minimal waste. As a result, the Valtech team successfully delivered an end-to-end service, which facilitated unprecedented operational efficiency and consequently helped transform the CSHR business. CSHR has positioned themselves to undertake continuous improvement and excel at delivery.

Valtech created a device-agnostic web application that allows potential candidates to rapidly create an account and apply for Fast Track apprenticeships in their preferred locations. Now in use for its third campaign, this product has seen apprenticeship applications increase exponentially from 6,500 in 2016 to nearly 25,000 in the 2018 campaign.

In a span of a little over two years, with key support offered by Valtech, CSHR has moved to second position on the Times 100 Top Graduate Recruiters in the country, competing directly with the big four consultancies and others.

The number of candidates submitting applications has risen steadily on the Fast Stream, from 45,000 to 50,000 applications during the 2017/18 campaign. A 12-week average time-to-offer, beats the historic 6-9 months. This aspect is quite significant in leading to a lower drop off rate, and is a clear indicator of the improved quality of candidates who would historically opt for the big four consultancies.

The overall transformation has led to the legacy systems being retired and helped the customer to level the playing field. The developed service has helped to support large increases in appointments, including high quality "near miss" candidates, in a much shorter time period and more efficiently, even supporting the ramp up arising from Brexit. The overall service now carries a smaller footprint and with a reduced cost of ownership and operation.