Offer & Onboarding
The Brief
Make joining Diageo feel like something worth celebrating
Diageo’s offer and onboarding process was fractured and siloed — unstandardised across markets, with every new joiner getting a slightly different experience. The firm needed a single, global journey that would excite new colleagues, position continuous learning as a way of life, and prime them to become brand ambassadors from day one.
The Solution
Turn a transaction into a welcome
An integrated, mobile-first, adaptable and personalised experience combining moments of celebration and excitement with seamless UX. New joiners discover the brands, the business, and their own career from a single destination — leading to a faster, more efficient recruitment process for Diageo.
The first impression was fractured
A recruitment and onboarding process sets the tone for a person’s entire experience at a company. Diageo’s existing journey wasn’t standardised across markets, leaving new joiners with inconsistent and often underwhelming first impressions.
Diageo wanted to revolutionise the digital journey around three themes: personalisation and celebration to create excitement, continuous learning positioned as a way of life, and an intuitive, nurturing experience that also delivered on the firm’s objectives around talent attraction, increased offer acceptances, and higher employee feedback scores. The objectives weren’t aspirational — they were measurable. Diageo was tracking offer acceptance rates, new joiner feedback scores, and time-to-productivity across every market. The existing process was underperforming against all three.
Extensive research revealed the gaps: a lack of wow factor and celebration, limited insight around brands and business, and poor visibility of the journey ahead. The space between signing a contract and starting work felt hollow.
Our Approach
Make what feels transactional feel human
The research pointed to a clear opportunity: treat new joiners as individuals, not administrative tasks. Personal welcomes, light and friendly conversation, a sense of genuine connection — especially during the pandemic, when starting a new job felt isolating.
We wanted to make what can feel transactional feel humane instead. Treating people as individuals, personally welcoming them, helping them feel valued. This combination helped communicate Diageo’s ethos around inclusion: celebrating life, every day, everywhere, and for everyone.
We designed the front-end experience and all of its content, building on Avature — a recruitment platform Diageo was already using — to deliver a functional experience in keeping with the brand’s visual identity. The result was an onboarding journey that felt like belonging from the moment an offer was accepted.
Key Project Assets
Mobile-First Onboarding Experience
A single-destination digital journey combining celebration, brand discovery, and career preparation — designed for phones first, adaptable across markets, and personalised to each new joiner.
Personalised Welcome System
Tailored content and messaging that greets each individual by name, role, and market — making the experience feel personal and celebratory from the moment of offer acceptance.
Brand Discovery Pathway
An integrated learning stream introducing new joiners to Diageo’s portfolio and culture, positioning continuous brand knowledge as a way of life from day one.
Avature Platform Integration
Front-end experience design built on Diageo’s existing recruitment platform, maintaining brand consistency while delivering a seamless, functional user experience globally.
Impact
The experience transformed how Diageo welcomes new colleagues globally, replacing a fragmented, siloed process with a single, celebrated moment of arrival.
Project Insights
From process to belonging
Onboarding is usually treated as administration. Fill in these forms. Read these policies. Start on Monday. We replaced the transaction with a welcome — something that makes people feel valued before they’ve walked through the door.
When the reaction across an entire global business is described as overwhelming, you know the bar was set right. The best onboarding doesn’t just prepare people for a job. It makes them excited about the company they’ve just joined.
The reaction has been overwhelming … the concept, the tone, the way it’s all presented. People love the design, and bring through the Diageo brand in a lovely, conversational way.
Stacy Winstanley, Global Transformation Manager (Workday) — Diageo
