SAP will begin testing its meeting-free Fridays on May 20, 2022. SAP’s Focus Friday program is part of a company-wide campaign to make its meetings more meaningful.
The program will allow employees to avoid appointments on Fridays and instead use the time to empty their to-do lists.
The program will ensure that employees in Germany use their Fridays, among other things, for training and further education, important tasks for IT employees who want to keep up with technological developments.
The company plans to conduct a one-year pilot project of the program in Germany, after which it could be rolled out worldwide in 2023 if the feedback from employees is positive.
“The intention behind Focus Friday is to guarantee undisturbed and focused working time based on business requirements, so our colleagues can complete their tasks and start the weekend without action items,” Cawa Younosi, SAP’s global head of people experience, wrote in a LinkedIn post.
However, the program does not mean the company will ban gatherings on Friday, with Younosi saying SAP digital and information executive Florian Roth was one of the first to try out the new program after it was introduced to the company’s IT department in 2021.