Arm technology is at the heart of a computing and connectivity revolution that is transforming the way people live and businesses operate. Our advanced, energy-efficient processor designs have enabled intelligent computing in more than 150 billion chips and our technologies now securely power products from the sensor to the smartphone and the supercomputer. In combination with our IoT device, connectivity and data management platform, we are also enabling customers with powerful and actionable business insights that are generating new value from their connected devices and data. Together with 1,000+ technology partners we are at the forefront of designing, securing and managing all areas of compute from the chip to the cloud. We are a company filled with amazing people doing amazing things, and we recognized that we wanted to do something rather special for our employees.

To keep our people energized and motivated, Arm offers many benefits (gym, healthcare, very competitive salaries) but there is one that has really captured the imagination of everyone that works here at Arm. That benefit is one purpose-built to support our employees financially and from a well-being perspective too. It is the Arm FlexPot.

Arm is an extraordinarily diverse mix of employees spread across 22 countries. The interests of our employees are naturally extremely broad; inside and outside work. Following Softbank’s acquisition of Arm in 2016, we saw a need and opportunity to tailor our reward offering in order to emphasise and improve the focus on our unique culture through co-investing in things that mattered to all our people. Our Reward team wanted to enhance and evolve our approach to reward, fully engage employees and be truly leading in the tech sector. However, given how much diversity is valued at Arm, a one-size-fits-all solution was not going to work. By consulting with our employees, it became apparent that they wanted flexibility and choice in their reward offering, allowing them to take advantage of things that really make a difference to their lives.

In November 2017, Arm introduced FlexPot - a unique annual pot of money available to all of our colleagues to spend on their wellbeing. People are able to claim for a number of varied activities across wellbeing and development to support themselves and their families, including further education, long-term saving, supporting family members through education or getting on the property ladder. We wanted to offer flexibility to support employees’ work-life balance and maintain our already high employee engagement rate. By allowing colleagues to choose how to spend their FlexPot, including donating money straight to charity, we have remained aligned to our Core Beliefs, encouraging everyone to ‘Be their brilliant selves’.

By offering FlexPot, we have achieved an objective of offering flexibility and providing a truly personalized experience. As a result, 96% of the total available funds were spent on employee claims last year. We approved 98% of the claims made by employees, proving just how flexible the pot really is. Notably 80% of claims were for wellbeing, including; childcare, gym memberships and financial wellbeing elements such as student loan repayments or retirement plan contributions. The other 20% of claims were for personal development such as learning a language, academic study and cooking classes.

Ali Stripling