Thread regarding SAP layoffs

And not just these small scale layoffs - massive layoffs will occur if SAP does not meet Q4 financial goals. SAP likes to follow MSFT and Amazon who, between them, have laid off over 20,000 employees. It's simple math - you need to produce innovative new products or open new markets for your existing products to grow - neither of which SAP can do. So SAP will be the "mailbox billionaire" cashing in the maintenance and subscription revenue checks and radically downsize, all while giving the board extra bonuses for profitability. There are multiple parodies on YouTube about McKinsey strategy and it's the same - massive layoffs or encourage employees to quit by eliminating benefits and reducing annual increases. I would bet, if Vegas would take the odds, that SAP will announce mass layoffs in Q1 - as in 10,000 plus and will claim that it is due to the magic of AI!

@qh There will always be exceptions here and there but in general Developers are good engineers fast learners, creative and hard working individuals.

It's not because one developer turned out to be a bad manager that we should prevent all developers from changing to manager roles of they want to.

I can understand that at a certain age and with growing family responsibilities you no longer have the same enthusiasm for software development as when you were in your 20s with no responsibilities.

I don't think that a developer aged 50+ is the same as a developer in his 20+ : different generation.

We also need to make space for the new generation by freeing up positions..

@qp, the low-cost aspect makes sense, but that’s not the situation at Signavio. Non-technical DEI coaches who have transitioned into management roles are all at T4PM level 3 and earn very high salaries. In contrast, most developers are at T3 or T4 grade 1 and are not permitted by these managers to advance because they cannot assess their technical skills.

In HPOM, Signavio management has determined that these managers will need to undergo some HPOM training, and that will be considered sufficient.

Now, picture yourself as an architect or a technical lead with a decade of experience in various technologies. Your manager, who was once a DEI coach, is perceived to be superior to you simply because they completed a few online courses over three months but still lack coding skills. Meanwhile, you earn about 20-30% less than they do. In the March cycle, you can expect the usual 2% salary increase, while these managers will receive nearly 5% because they “acquired” new skills. It’s incredibly frustrating, but there’s nothing that can be done since they have the full backing of SAP HR. This is in the interest of SAP HR, as these HR colleagues are likely to replace nearly all development managers at SAP in the final phase of HPOM.

@qh I agree with this sentiment as well. We lose technical expertise when developers become managers. SAP should try to have low cost managers who are people experts and have better progression paths for technical colleagues so they don’t feel that the only way to grow their career is by becoming a manager.

But I’ve worked with a few Signavio People Leads and they’re worst of the lot. How is a person who doesn’t understand the difference between front end and back end development lead a development team? How can someone who never wrote a single line of code technically evaluate their direct reports for their architectural decisions? It’s a shame that SAP will adopt this id--tic practice after the Signavio Experiment only to keep the HR employees still employed. Because guess what, a lot of these cultural changes are actually pushed by these HR employees and they just want to secure their jobs.

@py I had the opposite experience.

Because of HPOM a very good technical person became development manager and turned out to be terrible at people management.

The non-technical managers I had before were in that position because they wanted that role and were good at it.

Guess in which setup the fluctuation was/is higher?

@ja this theory about developers are bad managers as excuse to reserve manager roles to non some technical people is complete BS. If you give developers the right training they can be as good as anybody else and even better.

A lot of big companies has eliminated non technical managers and reduced the hierarchies to minimum: small teams of developers and QAs managed by tech leads who are former developers and still participate technically in the projects proved to be a much better option: increase speed and quality of releases and more fair in performance evaluations because the manager has a better idea on the quality and effort of its direct reports.

The board would never allow unethical behavior towards Celonis. Proof: we all have to do trainings about ethical conduct.

Please stop posting about what we do with Celonis products. If this comes out in the open, it will help the Celonis legal case and be bad for SAP. Keep your Celonis comments to an internal forum not public ones.

@f5 I work as a development manager at Signavio, and while I can't verify the truth of this, I do think this theory holds some validity. We seldom receive replacement positions for a candidate, and even when we do, it's usually for a lower T level. By giving lower appraisals to our reports, our managers can allocate more funds to give themselves stock options. That's just how team budgets work. This isn't done out of malice; we are genuinely compelled to act this way because if we don't, we risk not receiving more money in our own appraisals. One of the biggest unspoken aspects of our job is to make sure that no one leaves during a hiring freeze. In Germany, we attempt to motivate our teams and invest in team parties, but I can envision managers resorting to threats and fear tactics in regions like India. After all, Indian development managers typically have long tenures and come from SAP, bringing a development background with them.

Developers often lack leadership and management skills, which is where People Leads truly excel. As former coaches, we can guide and mentor our reports, even if we don't possess the same technical expertise. The only way to save SAP is by replacing all the technical development managers with People Leads. Most of these managers are already earning high T5 level salaries and are too entrenched in their habits to alter their behavior. Once they’re gone, we can effect some real change and ensure this kind of coercion doesn’t happen.

@f5 Sorry to hear you are not happy. However, I worked at other companies, and in comparison SAP is good. Even the board is less brutal.

If we keep this in mind, we can at least be content here,

Every single time that SAP gets in trouble for something like this, or corruption and harassment——-We all suffer, if only because we have to take those damn stupid courses in Success Map. My favorites are any where the AI avatar wiggles like a 3 yr old that needs to take a leak!

@dj I’m based in Bangalore and we’re told by our manager that if we don’t participate in the unfiltered or give anything less than 4 star for our manager and upper management, the entire team will get less than average appraisals in the upcoming cycle. They’ve already asked managers to give only 3 or 4 stars in performance management so it’s easier to fire if necessary. We don’t enjoy the same protections as our colleagues in Europe and although we pretend that all is well although it’s hellish here. Looking for another job takes time so we all keep pretending and doing what they ask. And it doesn’t really matter anyway. Two levels up, everyone is only based in Waldorf and they just want to look good and get a promotion every 2 years. Good unfiltered ratings help them get that. But no one asks why the participation in India is close to 100% and the ratings are amazing. It’s like an untold truth. I thought moving to Signavio would be different but it’s actually worse here. We’re asked to create fake accounts with competitors like Celonis and reverse engineer their code to build our features.

@dj Everybody in the company is playing this role to keep their job: pretend that everything is Ok and that you like your job, you can also add puting 5 stars in all surveys...it's called fake it so you have peace...the problem is putting your head in the sand doesn't make the issues go away...

Doing nothing has never solved a problem.

People here aren't crying for help they're just sharing ideas and advices so you're prepared if anything bad happened...

@dj “I ignore everything that comes from the board and upper management”

Does this include the product strategies, employee strategies, operational changes and everything else?

Ignorance isn’t always bliss. Your comment is eerily similar to what most army people said during the Nuremberg trials. And it’s shameful that you need to brag about this to pretend that all is well.

@cm Fortunately in my team people are happy and like their jobs. I have a great manager and I ignore everything that comes from the board and upper management.

This way I can remain happy.

@cm next quarter, the aerospace CFO can tell the employees to flush and clean the toilets immediately after flossing their teeth. Problem solved.

@OP Performance Management...... I know why we need 300+ HRBP in Germany

@br @br What bets are that Trump wants SAP fined so that further mass layoffs happen and Oracle wins?

Seems like the board wants to keep cutting headcount without any real gains in productivity. Why else would the workforce be so demoralized if people felt more productive and secure than ever before?

Walking into the office you can feel the culture change for the worse: people quiet quitting, leaving toilets in a mess, not saying Hi anymore, not going to "events" unless you're a senior leader who has good job security, etc.

This anxious and really depressing atmosphere is gaining ground in the company and is negatively impacting performance. I can see it everytime I'm in the office.

Now people are doing only minimum effort and I could feel also a lot of quite quitting...

It's the management fault and no matter how much AI they put to replace the people they can never bring back the energy, enthousiasme and trust that existed before...

@a8 so how can we change this mindset around layoffs? Not only is it counterproductive as it reduces trust and we lose valuable experience but also it is they are extremely expensive. P23, acquisitions, legal and regulatory issues and increase in Board bonuses are the main reasons why we have such bad yearly appraisals. More layoffs won’t counteract these problems.

Stock goes up, board wants layoffs

Stock goes down, board wants layoffs

AI growth, board wants layoffs

AI slump, board wants layoffs

Increase in revenue, board wants layoffs

Decrease in revenue, board wants layoffs

Someone put too much ice in their red wine at a random bar in Walldorf, board wants layoffs

Can’t they think of anything more innovative than “we’re doing AI” and “we’re doing layoffs”? No wonder the shareholder confidence is low. There’s no real strategy to grow the company. And that is exactly the primary role of the board.

Layoffs and reductions of appraisals are on the cards no matter what. It does not need a special excuse for the board to move in that direction anymore. DA was very clear about that.

@OP Your lack of trust in the board is… disturbing.