SAP SE is facing swelling discontent among employees in its home market, according to an internal survey, as Chief Executive Officer Christian Klein pushes through a restructuring plan announced in January.
The percentage of German employees with “full trust” in the software company’s executive board fell to 38%, the lowest in at least three years. The poll was taken in June and presented on Thursday at a general meeting of the works council at SAP, Germany’s most valuable company.
The poll highlights a growing divergence between SAP’s share price, which has surged to a record high this year, and staff sentiment at a time when the company plans to cut or retrain as many as 10,000 employees. Just 15% of SAP workers said reorganizations have improved their working conditions in the past 12 months.
Klein announced the restructuring plan as part of a push to integrate artificial intelligence into SAP software to help enterprise clients become more efficient. Among German employees, 70% said they approve of the company’s strategy, down 2 percentage points from the previous survey.
“Employees signaled their strong approval of this transformation,” SAP spokesperson Marcus Winkler said. The poll “showed employee engagement and trust in the board as areas for improvement,” he added.
SAP’s shares rose 1.3% on Thursday to €204.50 in Frankfurt. The stock is up 47% so far this year.
The results of the survey were presented at SAP’s headquarters in Walldorf during a general meeting of the works council, which is a group of elected employees who represent the company’s workforce for the German SE entity, to discuss the restructuring.
It was conducted before several departures from SAP’s board. Chief Marketing Officer Julia White and Chief Revenue Officer Scott Russell left the company in August. Chief Technology Officer Jürgen Müller will depart at the end of the month and faces a criminal probe from German prosecutors over inappropriate conduct.
SAP is also facing a civil investigation in the US, its biggest market. The Justice Department is looking into whether the company illegally conspired with product reseller Carahsoft Technology Corp. to fix prices on sales to the US military.
