Coca-Cola Europacific Partners Case Study: Reinventing Talent at Scale: CCEP's People First Digital Talent Transformation

Insights From  suzy jearum, Global Digital Employee Experience Lead - Talent Management at Coca-Cola Europacific Partners

For many employees, career progression can feel difficult to navigate. Opportunities may exist, but they are not always visible. Development conversations can depend on individual managers, informal networks or simply being in the right place at the right time.

At Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP), this created a clear challenge. With more than 41,000 employees across 30 countries, the organisation needed a way to make career growth easier to understand and more accessible to people working across offices, factories, warehouses and customer-facing roles.

Speaking at the Engage Employee Summit, Suzy Jearum, Digital Talent Experience Lead at CCEP, shared how the organisation built Career Hub — a digital talent ecosystem designed to help employees learn, develop and grow.

From “who you know” to what you can do

CCEP’s starting point was uncomfortable but revealing: LinkedIn knew more about its people than the organisation did.

Employees told the business that they could not see their career options. Opportunities were often unclear, inconsistent or dependent on informal conversations and personal networks.

Leaders also lacked a complete view of employees’ skills, experience and aspirations. As a result, succession planning and talent decisions were often based on who managers already knew.

CCEP wanted to change that by giving employees greater visibility and ownership of their careers, while giving leaders better insight into the talent already within the organisation.

The ambition was to move from static, manager-led conversations to an employee-led skills ecosystem.

Designing a career ecosystem

CCEP began planning its future talent experience in 2018, creating a vision that covered the employee journey from talent acquisition through to talent management.

The organisation then partnered with Eightfold AI to build the technology needed to support that vision.

The first Career Hub pilot launched in Great Britain in 2021, focusing on the commercial team. Employees were asked to create a talent profile, which connected them with learning opportunities, internal vacancies, short-term projects and networking opportunities.

The pilot ran for 12 months and achieved 69% profile creation among employees in scope. However, participants also made it clear that the platform needed to reach a much broader population to have a meaningful impact.

Scaling through employee stories

In 2022, Career Hub was rolled out across Europe. CCEP used employees from the pilot to share their experiences and explain how the platform had helped them learn, develop and grow.

This proved to be an important decision. Rather than presenting Career Hub as another HR technology tool, the organisation positioned it as a people project shaped by real experiences.

Employee storytelling helped colleagues understand what was possible and made the platform feel more relevant from the outset.

The following year, CCEP added local-language functionality and expanded into Germany. The process took longer than expected because of detailed discussions with the German Works Council, but those conversations improved the quality and employee focus of the final solution.

By 2024, Career Hub had expanded into Asia Pacific, making it available across CCEP’s markets.

Connecting skills to real opportunities

As the platform developed, Career Hub moved beyond simply hosting employee profiles.

Employees could use Career Explorer to discover potential next roles based on their skills and experience. They could then add those roles to a development plan, identify relevant learning and connect with colleagues who could help them progress.

This made development more practical and actionable. Previously, development plans had existed in a separate system and often became static documents. Bringing them into Career Hub connected aspirations with real opportunities and learning.

The platform also introduced “gigs” — short-term projects that allow employees to build skills alongside their existing roles.

This recognises that career development does not always mean moving into a new position. Some employees want to stay in their current role while gaining new experience, meeting colleagues and developing different capabilities.

Making succession planning more inclusive

CCEP also digitised its succession planning process.

Previously, succession plans were often managed through spreadsheets and presentations. They were heavily dependent on local knowledge and individual business partners, which meant valuable information could be lost when people changed roles or left the organisation.

By moving succession planning into Career Hub, CCEP could connect information about employees’ skills, experience and career aspirations.

The organisation has since introduced AI-recommended successors. This helps broaden the talent pool beyond the individuals a manager already knows and creates opportunities for conversations with people who may otherwise have been overlooked.

The emphasis shifts from “Who do we know?” to “Who has the skills and potential to succeed?”

Building access for deskless employees

A major consideration for CCEP was accessibility.

Many employees work in customer service, supply chain, sales and operational environments. They may not sit at a desk or have regular access to a laptop.

Career Hub was therefore designed with a mobile-first approach. Employees can access it through personal or company devices, while digital hubs at supply chain sites give people time and space to use the platform, complete learning and explore opportunities.

CCEP also used face-to-face events and interactive activities to build confidence. At conferences and annual meetings, employees could play games, answer questions about Career Hub and connect to the platform on their own devices.

This helped turn awareness into action.

Local context drives adoption

Adoption varied across countries, so CCEP used data to identify where additional support was needed.

In Indonesia, adoption was initially very low. The organisation responded by running HR business partner-led sessions with managers. Within a few months, adoption had increased to 40%.

The wider lesson was that there is no single approach to digital talent transformation. A platform may be global, but the way people access and understand it needs to reflect local circumstances.

In some markets, employees are highly desk-based and digitally confident. In others, colleagues may work on the road or in environments with limited connectivity.

Local leaders and local stories were therefore essential to building trust and relevance.

Measuring what matters

CCEP tracked both adoption and employee experience.

The organisation wanted to know whether people were using Career Hub, but also whether they found it useful and enjoyable. Listening sessions and employee feedback helped identify gaps and shape improvements.

In some countries, employee profiles contained limited information. This restricted the quality of recommendations the platform could provide.

CCEP addressed this through targeted campaigns explaining the benefits of adding skills and career interests. The message was simple: if employees provide more information, they receive more relevant opportunities in return.

The organisation also introduced “Growth Months”, using employee career stories to encourage colleagues to update their profiles, explore potential roles, create development plans and connect with others.

The impact of a connected approach

The biggest change was not a particular feature or piece of technology. It was the way employees began to see their future at CCEP.

Career growth became more visible and actionable. Employees no longer had to wait for a manager conversation or a suitable vacancy to appear before taking control of their development.

Managers gained better insight into the skills and aspirations of their teams, supporting more meaningful career discussions.

CCEP reported that employees using Career Hub are three times more likely to move internally and less likely to leave the organisation.

The platform also helped uncover unexpected talent journeys. One employee, originally a line operator in a factory, discovered a short-term project connected to diversity and inclusion. Through that experience, she became more connected to the people and culture function and later successfully applied for a role in the team.

Without Career Hub, those two career paths may never have crossed.

The foundations matter

One of CCEP’s most important lessons was that technology cannot compensate for poor or incomplete data.

The organisation needed a clear job architecture: an understanding of its roles, how they connect and what skills are associated with them.

Building that architecture took around five years and involved many stakeholders across the business. It was complex and time-consuming, but it became the foundation for effective recommendations, talent planning and career visibility.

The lesson for other organisations is clear: digital talent transformation requires investment in the underlying data and structures, not just the platform itself.

What comes next?

CCEP continues to develop Career Hub as an evolving talent ecosystem rather than a project with a fixed end date.

Future developments include:

• More personalised learning journeys.
• A single learning system across countries and employee groups.
• Global mentoring based on skills and experience.
• More data-led succession planning and talent reviews.
• An AI career coach that provides guidance based on each employee’s role and career interests.

The organisation is also continuing to reduce the number of separate learning systems it uses, creating a more connected experience for employees.

Keep people at the centre

CCEP’s experience demonstrates that technology can make career opportunities more visible, but it cannot create a culture of growth on its own.

That requires employee stories, engaged leaders, accessible design, reliable data and a willingness to listen and improve.

The central challenge is not simply scaling the platform. It is keeping employees at the centre of every decision.

When technology is designed around how people actually work and develop, it can help create a fairer talent experience — one where progression depends less on personal networks and more on skills, aspirations and opportunity.

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