While it seems there is some momentum in the RTO mandate (except living more than 40 miles/64km from an office) there are some things that SAP can’t address without significant financial investment and/or major legal issues.
Issue 1: Those who were hired, pre-Covid, by SAP in a WFH-when-not-traveling-scenario are not “returning” to the office. In 12+ years, I’ve never had a desk. I was hired in 2012 for a sales role and the local office was 100% AGS/support. A sales person in what was essentially a call/ticket management center provides no value to anyone. I moved nearly 2K miles away while in this role, still with no expectation to be in any office. There is no legal or operationally-sustainable route for SAP to make people who have never worked in an office — in my case, over a decade — start coming to an office. A huge number of people fall into this scenario, and if SAP were to try to force this, sales and internal operations would simply halt.
Issue 2: Real estate/office space. Many SAP offices have been closed in recent years, even before Covid. There used to be two offices in my closest major city (Denver). One closed around 2013/2014, and the other closed 2020/2021. There is a small hybrid office in Boulder, but it cannot accommodate the hundreds of colleagues that live in the area. Many other major cities have closed/consolidated offices also. For this RTO policy to have any semblance of reality, SAP would need to buy/lease new real estate to physically create space for people. Doing so would counter any “cost savings” intended by office closures and RIFs. Unless, say, SAP is going to fire everyone within 40 miles of the Boulder office (which it couldn’t and still expect revenue generation and operational function), this simply won’t work.
Issue 3: Well before Covid normalized WFH, SAP culture has been that there are no boundaries to working hours. This might be different for German and other regional colleagues, but in NA, there truly are no boundaries. If people have to add 2+ hours of driving time (remember, most of NA does not have public transportation) to the days they go into the office, you can guarantee folks will not work more than 8 hours/day, will not take calls at 5am to accommodate EMEA and APJ time zones, and will not work nights and weekends. Productivity will diminish as morale and available time to work diminish. I’m more than 40 miles from an office, but if I wasn’t, I’d decline every meeting that was not between 8am and 5pm, I’d fly only between these hours, and I’d set other appropriate time boundaries.
Issue 4: For those whose roles involve frequent travel SAP would need to choose whether it wants to pay for travel to customer sites 3 days/week or maintain what has become increasing restrictions to travel. In NA, travel usually means flying. In the US West, territories are geographically huge. Historically, I’ve had weeks where I’ve gone to four cities — each with flights between — in a single week. In recent years we’ve been asked to curtail travel. This is a “you can’t have your cake and eat it, too” scenario. Travel restrictions would need to be lifted to accommodate being with customers 3 days/week.
I don’t underestimate the huge impact this policy has for many people. This said, this seems to be more of a threat than an enforceable policy. Above are just a few reasons why this won’t work. I’d like to believe that the raised issues were discussed and understood to be roadblocks but, frankly, at this stage I wouldn’t be surprised if the overpaid, under-qualified, out-of-touch individuals at the helm didn’t consider issues like this. This is utter stupidity on all levels and only brings question to whether SAP’s “leadership” has any viable leadership capability.