Does SAP reward systematic bullying?

A senior SAP Signavio manager is alleged to have systematically bullied, sexually harassed and manipulated female employees. Despite various complaints, company management is said to have taken no action to stop him, and even promoted him.

At least, that is what the allegations made by five female former employees of the Berlin-based BPM division of Germany’s largest software company suggest, in an exclusive report by US news portal Bloomberg.

The new allegations come to light just a few months after the departure of former SAP CTO Jürgen Müller. He had to resign at the beginning of September 2024 after “inappropriate behavior” at an SAP company event. 

Bullying, manipulation, misogyny

The five people affected told Bloomberg about systematic bullying by their line manager, which either led them to change teams or to leave the company altogether. The manager also took advantage of the fact that the employees were not from Western Europe and did not speak German. In some cases, their residence status also depended on their employment at SAP, according to Bloomberg.

The specific allegations against the senior Signavio manager are wide-ranging and include:

• arbitrary criticism of work results without providing concrete feedback;
• acts of sabotage against the work of those affected;
• the unjustified assignment of “menial” tasks;
• lies and intrigues to isolate those affected from their team;
• verbal humiliation and discriminatory insults, and
• sexual harassment.

Despite numerous complaints to the HR department, no action was taken by SAP’s compliance department to stop the manager’s behavior, according to those affected. Instead, one of those affected was advised to look for a position outside her team.

Disciplinary measures were only taken at the end of 2023, and the Signavio manager was instructed in two cases to communicate with the affected employees exclusively via the HR department. However, this did not change the manager’s behavior, writes Bloomberg, citing conversations with the ex-employees. 

On the contrary, the company finally promoted the accused to “Director” in mid-2024. According to the Bloomberg report, this prompted one of those affected to ultimately hand in her notice — and submit a whistleblower report to SAP’s compliance department. As a result, she was told by two compliance officers that her allegations could not be upheld and that even if they were, the manager had not violated SAP policies. Before the employee left Signavio, she also summarized the allegations against her manager in an email and sent it to 62 female colleagues in the company. Neither SAP nor the manager himself wanted to comment on the allegations to Bloomberg.

SAP responded to our questions by saying only, “We take all reports of misconduct extremely seriously and have a zero-tolerance policy for harassment of any kind. SAP has a robust process in place to investigate all reported allegations. If an employee’s behavior is not in line with our policies and values, we take appropriate action immediately. We do not comment on individual investigations or disciplinary matters.”

Translated from a report by our colleagues at Computerwoche.