Company: Cyber-Duck

Client: Civil Service Fast Stream

Country: UK

Fast Stream (FS) is the civil service’s scheme to provide graduates, career changers, and people in the civil service a fast track into leadership. Their goals are to optimise diversity in their organisation and identify candidates with leadership potential.

To achieve this, they needed to gain a deeper understanding of their users and identify why some groups are more/less likely to succeed. They also wanted to improve the process of running assessments for their operations team by transforming the service into a paperless digital experience, with excellent security and intuitive user journeys.

Cyber-Duck took a user-centric, multi-faceted approach to deliver an end-to-end service design and build, resulting in a reassuring, supportive service that helps guide candidates towards success.

Applying Agile project management principles and working in sprints, we completed the
following ativities and deliverables:

• Data research from previous cohorts, which revealed that those from underrepresented groups (such as disabled or BAME candidates) were less likely to succeed in the final assessments.
• Workshops with key stakeholders to build empathy/journey maps, drawing from their knowledge and experience.
• Ethnographic research, observing candidates’ complete end-to-end experience.
• In-depth user interviews with a broad mix of current and past candidates across different socioeconomic groups, ethnicities, and disabilities.
• Personas and service blueprints, exploring how we could improve the experience for both the candidates and the internal teams.
• An alpha prototype for the new digital service, followed by usability testing with 70
  candidates to inform iterative improvements.
• A finished digital service in the form of a highly secure, performant Drupal CMS, configured as a learning management system (LMS) plaTorm. The new service is intentionally designed to boost candidates’ confidence and help them to succeed, regardless of background, race, gender, disability or any other factors.

Through our ISO-accredited (9241-910) process, we met the 14 required service standards, enabling the service to successfully pass both alpha and beta GDS service assessments.

In 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic prevented in-person assessments from taking place, we pivoted to a completely remote service in four months. Actions included:

• Making the experience (previously tailored for the assessment centre’s iPads)
  responsive, so candidates can work from their own device.
• Implementing security measures such as password-protected logins, helping the
  operations team to maintain control.

Success rates shot up for under-represented candidates a]er we implemented the new service, fulfilling the client’s important objective of improving diversity in their organisation.

This included a 27% increase in success rates for disabled candidates. The platform received praise from candidates and internal teams alike. It won Target Jobs National Graduate Recruitment Awards "Best Innovation in Student Recruitment" award in 2020, and Personnel Today’s Diversity & Inclusion Award in 2021. The client continues to operate a fully remote service as of 2023.