SAP and Boston Consulting Group (BCG) are combining their expertise, services, and technologies to bridge the gap in corporate diversity programs. The result? A “do-good” move becomes a “must-have” lever of sustainable competitive advantage.
Thousands of companies have pledged to build more diverse and inclusive workplaces in recent years. However, most have yet to drive the internal alignment and action needed to create measurable change that resonates across various perspectives and experiences.
According to BCG, 75% of targeted employees do not feel the impact of diversity programs, despite approximately 70% of companies in many countries implementing them. And the reason is clear: their focus is too narrow or overly simplistic to genuinely address underlying employee needs and expectations.
Cultivating a Multidimensional Approach
One of the most widespread myths about workplace diversity is that it’s “the right thing to do,” even if it limits a company’s ability to grow. This belief couldn’t be further from the truth. The relationship between diversity and business growth is not one of oppositional forces.
The more deeply a business values the knowledge and views of underrepresented groups, the stronger its bottom line. A BCG survey of employees in 1,700 companies – spanning Austria, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Switzerland, and the United States – revealed that more diverse management teams gain 19% more revenue from innovation. In addition, three-quarters of those same employees underscored that “diversity is gaining momentum at their organization” as their organizations shape business decisions.
SAP SuccessFactors solutions play a unique role in helping companies gain the full promise of workplace diversity while eliminating conscious and unconscious biases around age, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and personal health in everyday decision-making. For instance, managers can provide equitable and actionable feedback during performance reviews with the help of our writing assistant in the SAP SuccessFactors Performance & Goals solution. In addition, the calibration tool in the SAP SuccessFactors Compensation solution helps identify the presence of unconscious bias in employee compensation decisions.
However, some SAP customers are going further in their efforts to tackle employee diversity and extend value to all people by creating new functionalities for SAP SuccessFactors solutions through SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP). By uniting BCG’s expertise, tools, and services and SAP’s technology, the platform offers the extension solutions, cloud-based analytics, process automation, and countless other applications, tools, and methodologies that SAP partners need to reimagine each element of an agnostic work experience.
Through their innovation efforts with SAP BTP and SAP SuccessFactors solutions, SAP partners help create an environment where unconscious and conscious discrimination is removed from HR processes, including recruitment, onboarding, performance evaluation, development, compensation and bonuses, and succession. Doing so frees SAP customers to foster a culture of meritocracy that addresses the entire career and personal journey of each employee with nuanced, holistic solutions.
One prime example is how organizations improve talent acquisition and retention while giving employees agency over their careers. Integrating sentiment data into workforce management analytics helps managers understand underlying causes of departure and discontentment and the emotional and functional needs that matter most to their employees. This analytics capability makes it easier to recognize well-defined cohorts with similar physical and emotional needs by identifying clusters of demographic and attitudinal patterns. As a result, managers can more accurately predict their people’s challenges and expectations and create supportive communities with unique experiences.
Unlocking Business Value across the Evolving Employee Journey
As businesses seize the moment to fundamentally rewrite the rules of their workplace, the bold intents and aspirations of employee diversity are beginning to take center stage. Organizations that want to unlock what they believe are long-term, sustainable business advantages must also enable each employee to thrive with purpose and meaning.
With SAP BTP, companies can bring this vision to life by thinking differently when developing new capabilities that enhance SAP SuccessFactors solutions. They can recognize identity differences that matter to employees, understand broad groups with similar needs and values, and fulfill employees’ underlying needs systematically with the right digital and process experiences.
And as more refined, bias-free solutions are adopted, organizations can ensure employees benefit in ways that are meaningful to them within a high-value culture of unity, empowerment, and support.
To learn more about how SAP partners are helping businesses succeed with a unified technology platform, explore more articles. If you’re interested in software partnership opportunities with SAP, check out SAP PartnerEdge, Build. If you’re already a partner, check out these exciting initiatives: Hack2Build and SAP Co-Innovation Lab.
Jagdish Sahasrabudhe is CTO of the Global Partner Organization at SAP.