More people want to leave SAP than severance payments are planned
SAP had originally targeted older employees in particular with offers of severance pay. Now, however, younger employees also want to leave, more than planned.
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The planned job cuts at SAP are apparently not going as the company had imagined. This is according to a recent report in the Handelsblatt newspaper, which cites sources within the company and its works' council. According to the report, the two offers for generous early retirement arrangements and the so-called "voluntary program" for leaving the company with severance pay are in greater demand than SAP had planned.
According to the report, a total of 5,300 SAP employees have applied for the programs. That would be more than 20 percent of the Group's entire German workforce. However, only 3200 of these employees are said to be over 55 years old and therefore eligible for early retirement. According to Handelsblatt, a further 2100 people want to accept the voluntary program with other companies as future employers, which is said to be significantly more employees than in previous measures.
Twice as many voluntary departures as planned
SAP only intends to approve around 50 percent of these applications, as was reportedly announced at a recent works meeting. For those interested in early retirement, SAP wants to approve 99 percent of the applications. The golden handshake that the company is offering its employees is apparently being widely accepted. According to Handelsblatt, it could take months before the decisions are made in detail.
Numerous employees cite general restructuring and salary rounds that would not even compensate for inflation as reasons for the poor mood at the Waldorf Group. However, earlier reports and now a new attendance requirement, which is to apply at least three days a week, were also cited as a priority. SAP previously justified this with the training of new employees.
However, as heise online was able to learn from company sources, employees who had already been working predominantly from home for years before the coronavirus pandemic are now also affected by the office requirement. As an employee representative said in January, SAP had a "long-standing practice of 'trust-based working'". There were also similar protests against mandatory office working at Dell recently, where almost half of the employees spoke out against it.
(nie)
