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EMPLOYEES
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Headcount increases significantly
At the beginning of 2004, SAP announced a forecast of 5%
headcount growth for the year, to be staffed chiefly outside
of Germany. The Company said that headcount would grow
in the United States, that a significant portion of the new
positions would be created in India and China, and that there
would not be job losses elsewhere.
To accelerate technology and application development,
the Company decided in the course of the year to recruit more
new employees than originally planned. Year-end full-time
equivalent headcount grew 2,595 (9 %) to 32,205. Around 250 of
the new employees work for companies bought by the Group
in 2004. At the end of 2004, the headcount of SAP AG, the
parent company, was 8,175 (2003: 7,688), representing 25 % of
the total Group headcount.
Most of the new positions were for developers. Across
the SAP Group, headcount grew 12 % in development departments,
8% in maintenance and in sales and marketing, and a
modest 6% in finance and administration. Turning to the
regional numbers, it was Asia-Pacific that again recorded the
highest rate of headcount growth: 31% in 2004. This was chiefly
because of the expansion, announced in the previous year, of
development facilities in China and India.
In previous years, establishing shared service centers
in the Asia-Pacific region and in Latin America had brought
efficiency improvements to SAP’s internal processes. This
encouraged the Company to start setting up a shared service
center in Prague, Czech Republic, for Europe, the Middle East,
and Africa (EMEA). In the future, it will handle specialized
human capital and financial administrative tasks for the entire
EMEA region.
An attractive employer
More than 80 % of SAP workers worldwide took part in the
biennial employee survey, which provided valuable insights
into employees’ workplace perceptions and into SAP as an
organization. The high response rate is a clear sign of the
importance employees attach to their work and how involved
they feel in how the Company develops going forward. Eightyfour
percent of respondents said they were proud to work for
SAP.
Praise for SAP as an employer does not only come from
within the Company. In early January 2005, SAP was named
Germany’s best employer in the category for companies with
5,000 or more employees. The award was based on a survey
of 36,000 randomly selected employees in 110 large and midsize
companies in Germany, conducted by the research institute
Psychonomics.
SAP’s success depends on its employees. Their innovativeness
and commitment are key, as is their standard of
education. Most SAP employees have a science, engineering,
or business degree from university. The Company pursues a
policy of investing in training to maintain the high level of
employee proficiency. SAP University, the Company’s internal
training service, held more than 2,000 courses in 2004 and
provided a wide range of Web-based learning modules. |
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