A year of growth and great achievements

A look back on Diversity & Inclusion at SAP LAC in 2019.

Diversity and Inclusion has never been more of a priority in the workplace than it is today. It is more than a nice-to-have and at SAP Latin America and the Caribbean we’re strongly committed to improving people's lives.

To thrive as an intelligent enterprise, we need an inclusive culture that empowers people to run at their best, enables the many voices at SAP to create a greater sense of community, and promotes accountability for inclusion and collaboration.

Thanks to the engagement and hard work of all our colleagues we’re proud to show our great achievements in 2019 towards Diversity & Inclusion. Take a look at our year

Including:

Diversity in the Streets

• Winner of the 1st Place for the Technology Industry - SABRE Awards
• Winner of the Noon Award – Global Equality Diversity

Autism at Work

• Certificate of Excellence as a Cause Related Marketing campaign SABRE Awards

Our Employee Network Groups made a fantastic year both internally and externally and their work is visible in our results.

Two new chapters for Generations@SAP were created in São Paulo and Argentina this year and they will work on the collaboration of all the employees presented below. Besides, a new ENG called Cultures@SAP was created in Argentina to promote multicultural understanding and facilitate the mutual support between SAP employees of local and international cultural background. Good luck to all of them in their journey ahead!

Generations@SAP chapter in São Leopoldo, Brazil relished their first year from their Kick off in Q4 2018. They’ve gathered under their tree of Generations in several talk series on the topics of work-life balance over time, myths and stereotypes about Generations, cycles of life and they’ve concluded the year with the gathering event in December. Let the slogan “All generations, one SAP” lead them through many activities binding generations through another year ahead.

The Gender Intelligence community with the Business Women's Network is showing their colors with so much action in 10 chapters across LAC that they surely cannot be missed. All together they’ve prepared 81 activities this year engaging men and women and raising awareness on women equality. And all the effort matters as the numbers are raising every year.

A larger number of activities were organized in March and November which are the months that commemorate the gender equality with March 8th as Women’s day and November 25th the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. These dates are an inspiration for our colleagues to gather over activities that remind us about women suppression and inequality that exists in today's society. Our BWN groups are increasing the awareness with various workshops, roundtables, leadership talks, speed mentoring, talk shows and many ways to support their members on their development plans or personal issues.

In Argentina, for instance, they've encouraged their women colleagues by emphasizing the success of women through time and inviting Frida Kahlo, Amelia Earhart, Hedy Lamarr and Rosa Parks for a visit (professional actresses performing full characters). Their appearance in the office carried a message of women empowerment to all the SAP colleagues.

A very important achievement for Argentina this year was their Back to Work policy update where they have, in cooperation with Pride@SAP and HR, changed the terms “Mother and Father” with “Primary and Secondary caregiver”. The purpose of that is to be able to include all types of families in the policy. They’ve also increased the number of free days for the secondary caregiver from 15 to 30 days.

As several campaigns are live globally and regionally, our BWNs replicated some in our offices. In Buenos Aires they have presented a shattering campaign of AVON "You are not alone", in Brazil they’ve encouraged their co-workers to join an international #HeForShe campaign. Campaigns like “Pink October” for breast cancer awareness, “Blue November” for prostate cancer awareness and campaign for “Elimination of Violence Against Women” are initiated globally and were all brought closer to our employees by our BWN groups.

A very strong graphic campaign was launched from the side of BWN Peru in June last year. “Violentmeter” focuses on gender violence and it was replicated to all chapters around LAC in November - Gender Violence Month. The graphics were placed on strategic places around the offices, so employees were able to see them in restrooms, kitchens and lobbies. The campaign was also shared by email and social networks so it could reach the whole region.

Brazil’s chapter, connecting the offices in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro focused the year on three objectives: supporting the success of the individual, engaging men and supporting SAP brand growth and corporate reputation. Their activities reached and engaged a large number of Brazilian colleagues. Special attention should be given to the 285 young girls that participated and were impacted through the #SerMulherEmTech. This initiative has been an inspiration for many young girls since 2016 when Cecilia Marshall, BWN Brazil leader, decided to encourage young girls to step on the path that seemed impossible for them before. Girls from 14 years on were invited to several events throughout the year to participate in the project “Technology as career message” in SAP offices.

BWN Brazil also prepared a large number of events like TEDx speakers leading reflections on gender parity, webinars, speed-mentoring, panels and a fantastic “Canto da Mamãe”, a cozy space for breastfeeding to support the return of new moms to work.

All this led to an honorable award they’ve received from the United Nations:

GOLD IN THE LARGE COMPANY’S CATEGORY WEP – Women’s Empowerment Principles.

Congratulations for this fantastic acknowledgement of a dedicated work!

“Girls compete with each other. Women empower one another” is a slogan that empowered BWN at SAP Labs Latin America, in São Leopoldo. They had a very busy year preparing 33 activities for their office colleagues and participating on external events as well. Leadership talks, social role playing “Walking in woman’s shoes”, Reiki for women, speed mentoring and Jiu-Jitsu for women are just some of the events for gathering men and women in discussing and acknowledging women’s role in our society with the challenges and insecurities they face every day. This way they are building a space where they can be themselves and count on each other.

They’ve watched FIFA women’s world cup, discussed emotional intelligence, learned about the traps of the Impostor Syndrome, talked about self-esteem at work and mentoring. Their plans for this year are already prepared so the office is surely looking forward to it.

Business Women’s Network in Miami had an amazing year of learning and growth as well. Their work inspired their colleagues with SAP experts speaking about the opportunities of working in Tech, opened discussions about concerns and experiences with gender violence in society and in the workplace and understanding how much we can all still learn about each other.

They’ve kicked off the year with a session called “Invest in Yourself”, discussing gender equality as a core company value and preparing their yearly commitments. From there on they’ve had workshops about unlocking leadership potential, resilience and leadership. They’ve been great allies to Pride@SAP, raised funds for Venezuelan refugee children, organized professional journey series, invited a vast array of speakers from different industries to discuss emerging technologies and skills of the future, raised awareness of breast cancer and mental health. In November they’ve focused on violence elimination and in December they’ve concluded the year with celebrations of their incredible journey.

BWN Mexico had an active year as well. They’ve presented the project Diversity in the street in SAP NOW in February through VR and organized a session with Alison Biggan, global Chief Product & Field Marketing Officer at SAP, who has been very active in BWN initiatives. In March the International Women's Day was celebrated with sessions for employees with the ingenious gift. The participants watched a 5 minutes video related to the “machismo” and stereotypes of the women’s role giving them the message that the gift they were receiving was “The freedom to be”.

SAP Mexico aims to become an ambassador of inclusive culture both inside and outside the company. This is why their members participate in outside events like “Mexicans of the future" by AMITI WIT – to encourage the girls who attended to choose careers in the technology industry or the event on Amazon, where Adriana Servín, Director of Government Relations of SAP Mexico and BWN Executive Sponsor, was invited to give a presentation to talk about the masculinization of women in the workplace. They also cooperate in the network “Mujeres innovando” to help the group members create their own business apps.

In September, Diversity & Inclusion Month, they were breaking paradigms with the humanist trainer Julissa Ortega of the ADAÍSMO group with her dynamic talk and had a “Breakfast in the dark” with Mónica Vázquez, President of the Fundación Faro de Vida AC. All the participants had their eyes covered and this way faced the barriers of people who are blind.

For the Elimination of Violence against women in November they’ve decided to remember and honor the memory on the victims of feminicide with a beautiful Mexican tradition which is an essential part of the Day of the Dead celebration in November, called ofrenda – “Dead offering”. They also had a social experiment with a performance of violence in the office to raise awareness, prepared a bookmarker with a violent meter and panels with guest speakers to raise awareness, sensitize and educate the participants to reinforce their commitment to the elimination of Violence against women.

The members of SAP’s Business Women’s Networks show impressive strength and strong spirit and what’s best of it: they don’t reserve it only for themselves. They share their knowledge and connect with others – whoever needs them. This makes women even greater and their power is truly inspiring to all of the Diversity and Inclusion community. 

Our ENGs focused on Differently-Abled People are working towards attracting talents and finding the way to make changes and an inclusive workplace for all the significant needs of differently-abled people who are neither victims nor heroes, just people deserving respect, equal treatment and opportunities to use their talents, knowledge and skills to contribute to society and lead meaningful lives. This is a great opportunity for making diverse teams who can develop their empathy, broaden their minds and learn from other thinking stiles and perspectives and work as one team.  

 The DAP team in São Leopoldo, Brazil divided their focus on three pillars: Talent acquisition, Inclusive workplace and Employee engagement.

They’re attracting talents with promoting events and fostering network with universities, communities and other companies. They want to reach out to inspiring talents and encourage them to apply for SAP career opportunities and support young talents from high schools and universities to develop their English skills and technical knowledge.

From July 2018 till today they had 150 people applying through career site, friends and referral program, from these 80 interviews were conducted by managers and 21 people were hired.

Main actions of attracting people are the Talent referral program where employees who nominated candidates who were hired receive a 250 USD nomination reward, Speed recruiting for internship opportunities, Apprentices program, TechSchool DAP, where 16 DAP participants were selected to join more than 20 hours of exclusive workshops featuring Design Eye Opener, Design Thinking, IoT, Innovation, Job tips interview and more.

In an Instagram campaign they’ve prepared three different videos with SAP DAP collaborators talking about the way they work, how the office adapted to better welcome them and how creative are the solutions that the teams found to make the daily tasks as simple and as accessible as it can be. You can check it out at @saplabsla on Instagram!

The Employee engagement pillar focuses on creating a bias-free environment with promoting events and fostering awareness. More than 30 hours and events were offered in 2019 among these we can mention Kung Fu and Tai Chi Chuan seminar, English classes for interns and apprentices, gathering by a “Coffee with empathy” where nearly 50 participants served each other food and coffee while they were blindfolded. The collection of plastic caps for ACADEF institution initiation for wheelchair purchase, Libras Course for several teams, Power hour – where office colleagues learned about how to make inclusive presentations and trainings.

Inclusive workplace pillar is working on adapting different areas of the office so DAP employees can work at their best. The DAP team obtained 25K of investment in accessibility and improved several points of the office. In addition to those showed on the pictures we can also mention adapted Uber stops, special careen reader software, special headphones, walking sticks acquisition and ergometer tables.

Obviously, a lot has been done at SAP Labs this year to improve DAP colleagues lives and the network has a lot of plans for the next, which fills us with optimism for the future of the diversity of our SAP teams.

 The DAP@SAP team in São Paulo, Brazil has been live for a few months now and already has a lot to show. They focus on awareness, DAP employee increase, periodic events and empowerment of DAP employees. Their first action aimed to reinforce the importance of accessibility with #PraCegoVer ("SoTheBlindCanSee") and later on they’ve prepared events like DAP Panel with success cases at work, Coffee with empathy, Enablement sessions with early talent, they gathered with Fernando Fernandes at SAP Now and on DAP day to learn about his “motivation and focus to overcome limits”, prepare SAP potential fair, learned Libras sign Language hosted an external event for Hiring PWD called “Open house PCD – the power to be Yourself” and invited external speakers to have a “Coffee with DAP”.

A very wide and appealing scenario to begin with. Congratulations and keep the pace!

SAP’s Autism at Work initiative had a great year of recognition. In Argentina they were rewarded as the best inclusion program in the country by Great Place to Work and in Brazil the program won the 2019 Disability Matters Europe Honouree in the Workforce Category by Springboard Consulting LLC., and of course the prestigious SABRE awards mentioned on the beginning for projects “Diversity in the Streets” and “Autism at Work”.

This last year the number of AaW employees increased 23% and there were 3 new chapters created in Mexico, Chile and Colombia.

Buenos Aires, Argentina hosted the Autism at Work Summit and invited two local companies with similar programs to participate. Over 70 customers participated and already six of them committed to develop an autism program for 2020. They’re sharing their experiences and captivating other companies to follow their example and also supporting the extension of the program in SAP Colombia and Mexico. They’ve also accomplished a retention rate of 100% during this year, expanded the number of employees over 30% and enhanced the awareness with a fantastic video to promote the program.

Nicolas Neuman, the Autism at Work Argentinian millennial, was nominated for the SAP’s highest employee recognition that celebrates and awards the many projects that carries SAP's founders' spirit of innovation, enterpreneurialism and courage - Hasso Plattner Founders’ Award. He created a posting automation tool to shorten the procedure of invoice posting he meets in his daily work in Account Payable department. The winner for 2019 award will be announced end of January and we're keeping our fingers crossed for Nico.

The new chapters started their first year with great momentum. In Chile they’ve already hired their first employee under the program and Mexico and Colombia will both have their first 3 employees in the spectrum starting in the beginning of this year.

 We are proud on the actions of this program and we see an enormous opportunity to tap a bigger pool of talent to enhance our innovation. Hiring individuals on the Autism spectrum reflects our broader philosophy – that a diverse and inclusive culture makes us a better company. And this is what you all help us to be.

In the field of Culture & Identity in the LAC region we have, as always, very active networks of Pride@SAP that have again showed their commitment to making our lives better with nearly 60 activities this year. More details can be found in the blog of their regional leader, showing the amazing year they’ve had.

In Brazil we have two Black Employee Networks that have been very active this year, preparing over 30 activities for their colleagues and external. In São Paulo the chapter has a strong mission to foster a “Best Run” culture that cultivates awareness and inclusion of SAP employees of African descent, prioritizing recruitment, enhancing retention, providing guidance and strengthening upward mobility. Their activities that lead to the realization of this mission have this year reached 450 internal participants of events, 155 clients and over 480 other external participants. The message was shared with talks, round tables, hiring events, forums and through “Voices series” sessions with many speakers throughout the year with highlights like The Ethic Question in the World and SAP, Blacks in the Brazilian Labor market (presence of Danish Makiyama, President of the Institute of Management and Social development) and Good Recruitment and selection practices for Diversity and Inclusion (by Simone Bianche, HR director, Consultoria). Equality business initiative with Raphael de Lima Vicente, trainings, talks about black inclusion experiences in the private and public sector and learnings of how to be a part of the change (plans for the future).

They’ve also participated in Black Culture festival on Black awareness day, Brasil Diverso forum (panel with Cristina Palmaka), connected with several external partners, organized Ethnicities Summit for Early talent, Fatec, The human experience in Technological resources and All hands Finance, Sales, Presales and MCC with action orientation that can be done to retain employees. 

The Black Employee Network in SAO LEOPOLDO prepared a variety of activities as well. A very inspiring activity was the Mindset program that was developed with the aim of improving and empowering local middle and high school students found in underprivileged scenarios. The students were chosen out of a local program called Accera, which is designed to aid teenagers who are dropouts, have learning disabilities and/or other challenges. The first group brought to SAP was of about 50 students ranging from 14 to 17 years old participating in an engaging talk provided by Victor Hugo Farias and later were awarded a tour through the labs and a snack. Their reactions were very positive and can be summarized in a testimony of one of the students:

“Well, I don’t have any complaints for this place, SAP has made me remember that I should never give up for the things I most want in your life”.

The event was replicated in November hosting 40+ students and 5 teachers.

The chapter followed with activities on World day of Cultural diversity, when they’ve connected with colleagues from three different countries, with the aim of sharing a little about their homelands and the great things present in each location. Then the activity called “In our shoes” with the aim to create an environment where colleagues would have the chance to learn and share but also generate a stronger sense of customer empathy. In People Weeks BEN joined with the design thinking session called “Blacks and the social mobility in Brazil”. This topic was raised after understanding that the poorest 10% of Brazil will take an average of 9 generations to move up the social latter, and within these 10%, 78% of this population is composed of African-descendants.

Because of this session, follow-up sessions were created, and the team decided to apply for the Labs Awards with the proposal of creating the first app (Guide Me) focused on social needs powered by SAP. 

For some events and activities both Brazilian chapters connected and collaborated with great success: ID Experience – Ubuntu, Abayomi workshop (dolls made of fabric) and Black Birthday of the month were events organized in both locations.

In celebration of the Black Awareness month, they also created the concept and design and developed the first flag with the aim of celebrating the African culture and history. The branding was developed with the black hand attributing the following:

1.    Multi skin tons, symbolizing the diversity of our society.

2.    The hand is open, asking people to stop.

3.    Invitation to action: We want people to think about all the prejudice and privileges which one may have, that other lack.

On the 8th of November, the first flag for this topic was hoisted in the Labs, generating a moment for every Brazilian to reflect on the impact which slavery has had on our society seeking to understand how privileged or underprivileged one has been due to history. The historical connection gives us the responsibility to improve society towards equality.

2019 was a remarkable year for D&I and we emerged in a group of colleagues with really good intentions to improve peoples’ lives. And what we do today is shaping our future. Everything we saw happening this year is raising the awareness and we’re looking to the future of D&I in SAP with great optimism.

Thank you to all SAP LAC D&I team for making this past year exceed expectations, we are eager to keep working with you to make an even greater impact in 2020.