Inclusive culture

We embrace diversity in every sense - gender, ethnicity, age, ability, sexual orientation, background, experience, ways of thinking and more.

And we champion this inclusion across our entire business – with our employees, our suppliers, through our brands and within the communities in which we operate.

We believe our ‘Society 2030: Spirit of Progress’ action plan, which sets bold and ambitious goals for diversity, equity and inclusion, will make for a better business and a better world.

It’s important that we attract and retain the best and most diverse talent, while developing our teams. Listening to regular feedback tells us our people are proud to work for us and our focus on inclusion and diversity and level of ambition in 'Society 2030: Spirit of Progress' is key to this.

We’re proud of the strides we have made to accelerate gender equality within our business. Not only is 73% of our board and 50% of our Executive Committee female, but we have been regularly recognised externally for our achievements in this area.

We always seek the best talent for a role, male or female, but we believe that more action is needed to attract entry level women into the drinks industry and STEM roles. We are working hard to achieve this through apprenticeships, returnships and scholarships and our annual graduate intake recruits 50% women.

Inspiring the next generation of female leaders is also vital and we make sure our female leaders are highly visible, with a platform to share their career stories with candour, at panel events, fireside chats and conferences, through formal and informal mentoring programmes and as part of internationally recognised celebrations, such as International Women’s Day.

We employ over 30,000 people of 115 nationalities in over 70 countries, which means we already have a diverse workforce representing the markets in which we operate. However, we want to ensure we have diversity at every level of our business, and a focus on our leadership.

Today, 36% of our Board and 43% of our leadership population, including our Executive Committee, is ethnically diverse. Our aim is to increase representation of leaders from ethnically diverse backgrounds to 45% by 2030, and we believe that we are the first global company to set leadership targets for ethnicity.

To help turn our words into action, we’ve developed a progressive Diversity Framework to support our markets in defining ambitious five-year inclusion and diversity action plans, covering talent representation and development, supplier diversity and inclusive marketing. To help us understand the true make-up of our workforce, and set meaningful goals, we invite all employees (where local laws allow) to voluntarily share their ethnicity. So far, more than 75% of our global workforce have disclosed their ethnic background and 97% of our leadership population.

To support our people and create an equal, inclusive business, we have introduced a range of policies, practices and employee-led events across our business so every unique individual can thrive.

Our industry-leading global parental leave policy gives all new mothers 26 weeks’ fully paid maternity and new fathers a minimum standard of four weeks’ paternity leave, regardless of how they become parents. From July 2019 to June 2021, our people took more than 180,000 days of parental leave with the average number of days taken by men being 99.

We are committed to opening up conversations which can be taboo subjects. Our Thriving Through Menopause Guidelines, to raise awareness and understanding of menopause throughout our business, offer support and flexibility to employees going through the menopause and help all employees, female and male, to build their understanding of how the menopause can impact individuals.

We’ve introduced Domestic & Family Abuse Guidelines. Rolled out globally across 14 markets - including the UK, Ireland, India, North America, EABL and Southern Europe - the guidelines apply to all employees and outline our zero-tolerance approach for all forms of domestic and family abuse.

In partnership with our Rainbow Network, we launched gender identity and gender expression guidelines in support of our transgender and non-binary employees. The guidelines included the introduction of voluntary and confidential self-disclosure of gender identity, sexual orientation and pronouns on our internal Workday system.

As the world of work changes, we have launched two new philosophies, a Flexible Working philosophy and a Wellbeing philosophy. We recognise that everyone has different circumstances and needs, so instead of one set of rules our philosophies set out frameworks of best-practice and a consistent set of principles to help guide employees, and their managers, in determining what works best for them and their wider team.

Our annual global INC Week has become a key calendar moment to drive change across the business. Created by employees for employees, the dedicated week was set up to encourage Diageo people to champion inclusion, celebrate diversity, have open conversations, and step out of their comfort zone. For the fifth INC Week in 2021, more than 25 global and local sessions took place discussing topics from disability and mental health to allyship and belonging.

• In the FTSE Women Leaders Review, for the second year running, we have been named as the top company for female representation at board level
• We are recognised in Equileap’s 2022 Gender Equality Global Report, listed within the top ten companies globally for gender equality, and included on the Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index for the fifth consecutive year
• Three of our Executive Board have been recognised on the Empower Ethnic Minority Role Model Lists 2022, for actively driving a more inclusive working environment
• Two Diageo individuals were recognised on the prestigious “OUTstanding LGBT+ Role Model Lists” 2021, which recognises leaders and allies who make significant contributions to LGBT+ inclusion in the workplace
• For the 5th time Diageo leaders, including our CEO Ivan Menezes, featured in the HERoes Women Role Model Lists, which celebrate business leaders who act as role models to improve gender equality
• Diageo Brazil has been awarded Silver in the UN’s Women Empowerment Principles awards for female empowerment
• In Kenya we won three Gender Mainstreaming Awards for our work to empower women in the workplace and the wider East African region
• In Australia, we have been recognised as a leader in gender diversity by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency and named an Inclusive Employer by the Diversity Council of Australia
• Origiens, our hiring and development programme to increase diversity amongst our workforce, has been recognised by São Paulo’s Municipal Seal of Human Rights and Diversity in the Racial Equality category
• Our We Are All Able (WAAA) Resource Group supports the employment and development of people with a disability at Diageo while driving the understanding of disability across the business. In 2021, one of our manufacturing sites, Shieldhall in Scotland, was awarded an Inclusive Workplace Award through SUSE, for its provision of career opportunities to registered disabled workers

Our people are the foundation to our success, and everyone in the business is empowered and encouraged to champion inclusion and diversity and identify opportunities to drive change and make a difference. Across the 180 countries in which we operate, we have a growing number of Business and Employee Resource Groups who start thought-provoking conversations on a range of important and challenging topics and introduce initiatives to create a sense of belonging and opportunities for all.