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04 Dec 2020
by Tegwen Smith

Tegwen Smith of Arm on the primary challenge for 2021 and the changing ways of working

Arm has a strong culture built around collaboration, information sharing and trust. We achieve great things through working in teams, learning from each other’s experiences, and innovating through interaction. Our people have done an amazing job of keeping work moving forwards through this year. It has been a learning experience for us all and our current challenge is looking at how sustainable the new working arrangements will be for our people, given that we believe our remote working environment is here to stay for some time.

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It is critically important that we all pace ourselves and ensure we get some downtime. Like many other organisations, we have seen a reduction in usage of holiday time. While most of us can’t use our leave in the way we would like due to travel restrictions, time away from the computer screen and videoconferencing is more important than ever given that the distinction between home and work is increasingly blurred, and we believe that just taking a few days to yourself at home is a powerful way to maintain your health and wellbeing.  Earlier in the year we gave everyone a ‘Day of Care’, an additional day away from work to switch off and recharge, and we will be doing the same in December. This is time for us to collectively switch off, with no fear of missing out, which we believe to be even more powerful.

It is also crucial that we all think about how we can look after ourselves and each other on an ongoing basis. At Arm we support people’s wellbeing financially through FlexPot (a pot of money our people can spend on their own wellbeing and personal development), and by making resources available globally, such as the Unmind app, which helps people check in regularly with their mental health. We have also expanded our global employee assistance programme into all countries during the pandemic, and improved our medical care benefit in countries where our current provision was deemed unsuitable for the current context (for example, at home Covid care in India). 

Looking ahead, we feel we are burning through “social capital” fast, as people use the relationships “credit” they have built up over the years, to get things done remotely. That capital will erode over time and we need to find ways to replenish it. 

Part of that is around celebrating shared moments. In December, we have a three-day virtual celebration to mark Arm turning 30. This is time for us to come together and feel proud of what we have achieved in three decades. We have a packed agenda with external guest speakers, quizzes and entertainment. We’re encouraging teams to watch and enjoy sessions together (virtually), and have gifted all employees a budget to go towards snacks and decorations (or to donate to charity). As we head into the festive period, Arm’s People Team has also developed a list of fun team building and social activities that can be done virtually to build community. 

Another part to this is a focus on how we continue to connect people outside of their immediate teams.  We know that people miss hearing what is happening in other teams and the moments of spontaneous, unstructured innovation and serendipity. We continue to run large global internal events virtually and as part of our Movember campaign have run a “coffee roulette” to help people to build relationships across the organisation. 

As we look to the year ahead, we will have a continued focus on ensuring our people look after themselves and each other, doing what we can to maintain the social aspects of work. We feel positive Arm will emerge a stronger organisation for having endured and learnt through this period.

The author is Tegwen Smith, senior director - reward, Arm.

Tegwen attended REBA’s exclusive Reinventing Reward for New Workforce Needs breakfast in association with Mercer Marsh Benefits. It brought together senior reward professionals from an array of sectors to discuss the rising challenges, risks and opportunities for 2021.

Read a full round-up from the breakfast event on Reinventing reward: the rising challenges, risks and opportunities for 2021.

In partnership with Mercer

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