Case study: BDO

20/08/2026

BDO is one of the UK's largest accountancy and business advisory firms, built around a simple purpose: helping its people, and its clients, succeed. In 2025, that purpose extended to a new pre-boarding and onboarding experience, designed to feel personal at scale, whatever stream or level someone was joining at.

BDO partnered with Eli to build their new experience and platform, rolling it out to early careers hires in June 2025 and experienced hires that October. Around 1,500 new joiners have used it so far, each following a journey tailored to their business area, role and career stage, from a graduate joining audit to an experienced hire joining as a tax director.

Customised checklists, welcome videos from senior leaders, and a social wall where new joiners can connect with each other before day one all help BDO's culture come through authentically, not just on paper. And, a two-way integration with Workday keeps the process consistent and dramatically reduces manual admin for the onboarding team.

"Less than 12 months after go live, our eNPS score after pre-boarding hit +62!" – BDO

The results speak for themselves. 91% of new joiners engage with the portal before day one (a figure that rises every month), visiting an average of 18.8 times and spending over seven minutes per session, well above Eli's own platform benchmarks. Almost all, 99%, said they felt adequately prepared for day one, and advocacy is strong too, with an eNPS of +63among early careers hires and +62 among experienced hires. New joiners describe the experience as “smooth,” “informative” and “encouraging.”

Eli's wellbeing tracking means the small number of new hires who do feel unsettled, just 8% at any point since launch, get a quick check-in from the onboarding team rather than being left to find their feet alone. And the commercial case is clear too: in September 2025 alone, a reduction in early career reneges of 3% is estimated to have saved BDO £36,317.