Why Diversity & Inclusion Are Critical For Growth

Today and with this article I’d like to start a blog series that focuses on the overarching topic of Diversity and Inclusion (D&I). It’s a subject close to my and SAP Concur’s heart and while there will always be room for improvement, I’d like to talk about a few aspects that my team and I have decided to focus on in the past and coming months as next steps on our D&I journey.  

But before taking a look at specific dimensions like gender parity or inclusive hiring here in the following weeks I think it’s important to share what D&I means for us at SAP Concur and why we think it’s crucial to invest time and effort in this topic.

Basically, I think that a company with diversity & inclusion at its heart empowers employees with a sense of belonging to their workplace, allowing greater innovation and collaboration, and increasing diversity within the organisation. My vision of an inclusive culture is a company which is welcoming and supportive, irrespective of who you are, where you come from, and wherever you stand on the diversity landscape. Therefore, we have set up a taskforce within SAP Concur EMEA who is leading the charge to ensure D&I becomes an integral component of our everyday life.

I recently had the pleasure to speak with our SAP Concur EMEA D&I leads Hélène Goumard, Director of EMEA Solution Consulting Experts, and Andreas Mutschler, Director Client Engagement, MEE. We talked about the steps we’ve taken over the past 12 months to ensure all employees at SAP Concur EMEA can be their true selves at work and about what’s upcoming.

We talk a lot about the SAP Concur culture – and D&I is an integral part of that. Why do you think D&I is so critical, Hélène and Andreas?

Hélène: An inclusive company culture means that everyone can bring their whole selves to work and be themselves. This means we can create conditions to keep our employees longer and help them grow further. The idea is to ensure that everyone has a good representation within the company, which will make sure we answer better to our customers’ needs while getting our employees to perform at their best: this is the best way to be a sustainable enterprise.

Andreas: I really believe if you have different characters within the team and in the company, it helps not only team leaders to have a successful team, but also the company.

What have you achieved in the past few months since the launch of the initiative? What was your proudest moment?

Hélène: We focused the first year on awareness. For example, we have added a session to our “Ascend” onboarding process for new joiners, which is one of our proudest moments. It seems simple, but new joiners need to be welcomed and feel at home from the beginning. Introducing our vision for D&I at SAP Concur plays a big part in that.

Andreas: In addition to awareness, we wanted to ensure D&I was rooted in clear actions. As a result, we have implemented new hiring and onboarding processes, we have hosted workshops and we have sponsors within the leadership team – such as yourself, PE – who can show that D&I is an integral part of our business. It's important that everybody sees it comes from the top and everybody can relate to it.

What's the "next big thing" in D&I for SAP Concur?

Andreas: For me, it is about building on the foundations we set in 2021. We have drawn the red line and come up with a hiring package, onboarding process, and monthly updates. With this, we are empowering managers to have these conversations within their own teams. This means we can create the storyline – not in Hollywood, but here at SAP Concur.

Hélène: We want to go a step further and engage with a broader D&I family thanks to volunteered representatives in each market units. A big part of D&I is ensuring that employees feel heard. That’s why we will discuss the results of our Pulse Survey as well as their feedback upon their expectations on D&I topics specifically This way, we can determine more actionable items for next year. That's critical to finalize our plan and ensure we can start to execute in 2022.

I hope that this introduction to D&I at SAP Concur provided clarity and insights on underlying definitions and actions to be taken at SAP Concur. In the next blogpost, we will look at the ways we have changed our hiring process to ensure it is fully inclusive.