1858: SAP Labs - Hybrid Working and Collaborative Communities

Anamarie Huerta Franc is the head of SAP Labs US in Palo Alto. Her charter for one of the largest software companies in the world is an ambitious one - to build a collaborative community across the thousands of developers working in the United States on SAP’s broad range of cloud-based software groups, which includes technologies such as Concur (expense management), SuccessFactors (human capital management) and Fieldglass (vendor management system).

Hiring, motivating, and retaining employees has always been a challenge for software companies, but no more so than today when the demand for developers has never been higher and when companies are grappling with workplace and culture issues driven by COVID-19 and the evolving definitions and expectations of the workplace. One of Anamarie’s charters is to challenge the traditional corporate assumptions that community and culture can only be built in a physical office and determine how to balance flexibility and accountability.

As an example of Anamarie’s efforts, she led SAP’s hybrid workforce pilot program on its Palo Alto campus that involved 300 workers who put its new flex work model into practice. Teams worked in a hybrid fashion at home and in the office, using a new iOS app to help them utilize office space and have meaningful experiences when in the office. The program's goal was to determine the best approach to creating office spaces with high energy and high utilization.

After working at SAP for over a decade, Anamarie shares her story along with many interesting insights and experiences.