Business reconciliation at SAP Canada: outlook for 2022
In honor of National Indigenous History Month, SAP Canada is taking this opportunity to reflect on our history and the enlightened future we must chart for better relationships with Canada’s Indigenous peoples and communities .
When SAP Canada set out to improve relations with Indigenous communities as well as our Indigenous colleagues, we wanted to ensure we had a comprehensive, effective strategy that took Indigenous culture into account. To achieve this, we have involved partners from the First Nations Technology Council (FNTC) to benefit from their expertise and ensure our processes take into account Indigenous perspectives. The First Nations Technology Council worked with us to create an action plan focused on learning accessibility and systematic changes to help SAP Canada become more inclusive of Indigenous peoples. By working with the First Nations Technology Council and its “Moving Beyond Inclusion” project, SAP Canada is empowering itself to act on TRCCTA#92 to create a company culture that embraces worldviews, culture and thought leadership natives.
In 2021, as part of our commitment to reconciliation, we offered decolonization training, hosted an Indigenous arts presentation, launched an employee networking group, and sponsored trainings, including a 6-week training led by a consultant with Indigenous training and focused on Canadian history from the perspective of Indigenous women. We also celebrated our first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation with a session on Canadian history and took a strong stance on meaningful territorial recognitions. This year has allowed non-Indigenous members of our society to reflect on individual and collective responsibility regarding the decolonization of our business systems in Canada.
SAP Canada is proud to have seen growth in learning and culture in the first year of our initiative. It is a journey towards reconciliation which must continue and evolve.
Through the leadership of our Indigenous Inclusion Steering Committee, we have set the stage for 2022 and continue to move forward on our journey toward reconciliation. We have developed a strategy that allows us to establish achievable and impactful objectives while involving our collaborators in Canada. In 2022, SAP Canada will continue to evolve through our designated business streams. Our objectives and priorities for 2022 will focus on:
Corporate social responsibility
In 2022, SAP Canada strives to increase employee engagement in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities focused on Indigenous initiatives and encourages its employees to deepen their knowledge of Indigenous culture. Recently, we announced that this year our Pro Bono for Economic Equity program will focus on accelerating Indigenous-owned businesses in Canada. The program will enable SAP employees to leverage their professional skills as pro bono volunteer consultants to businesses to help them address systemic and business challenges.
We will launch an internal benchmarking exercise to review our CSR portfolio and conduct an assessment that will determine which organizations support Indigenous programs and to what extent. We will therefore intensify our volunteering approach to increase the involvement of SAP Canada employees in our CSR activities which support Indigenous programs. Our goal here is to build relationships and improve our understanding of local indigenous cultures and communities.
Human resources
To foster an inclusive workplace, our HR team updates ethnicity options for employees in SuccessMap. With more inclusive selections, we hope more employees will choose to self-identify. Having visibility into employee demographics ensures that we invest in initiatives and programs that align with our workforce. Human Resources is focused on continuing the broad learning choices offered in 2021, so employees can continue to develop their knowledge on such important topics. For example, our HR Diversity and Inclusion team partnered with our employee networking group to offer a workshop on territorial recognition to SAP Canada employees in June.
Our recruitment strategy is intended to reinvent hiring processes. This means looking beyond our usual hiring pools to identify indigenous talent and enable an inclusive recruitment process where every candidate has a fair opportunity to showcase their skills. With this goal in mind, our campus engagement strategy for our junior talent and intern groups has worked to build relationships with Indigenous Employer Advisors and experiential learning offices across within universities, while concentrating our efforts and our presence on campuses.
Communication
This year, we are working on implementing consistent and meaningful communications focused on Indigenous initiatives at SAP. This approach will help our employees become aware of the resources we offer and the actions we are implementing at the organizational level, while paving the way for personal commitment.
The Allied Network for Indigenous Struggles
Finally, to ensure that these initiatives were carried out in a relevant manner, SAP Canada launched the Allié.es aux struggles indigenous network in the first quarter of 2022. The Allié.es aux struggles indigenous network brings our collaborators to deepen together their knowledge of Aboriginal culture and history and encourages them to take part in supporting Aboriginal communities. The employee network group will help organize and bring together volunteer resources and opportunities and support activity streams in accomplishing their goals to achieve meaningful actions both internally and externally. This network provides a simple and effective way to foster employee engagement in reconciliation and inclusion company-wide.
2022 and beyond
As we set our course for 2022 and beyond, SAP remains committed to the work of reconciliation and wants to continue evolving our strategy, ensuring our organization reflects the communities whose interests it serves. During our first year of work, we realized that a key factor that contributed to our advancement thus far was combining a partnership-based approach with Indigenous-led organizations with investment from key decision-makers of our organization and employee involvement across the company. We all mobilized to promote change at SAP Canada.