Avast More Than Doubling Merit Salary Increases; Adding Other Perks

Towards the end of 2020, we were amidst the global pandemic, with hard lockdowns and uncertainty about the safety of even meeting our closest relatives. I remember we had discussions with my wife whether to still hold our traditional Christmas family get-together. We decided to do it, but we enforced testing of everyone on entrance. We thought it was super-strange and aggressive to do so, but probably the right thing to ensure everyone’s safety. It worked out well – no one got sick, but it was just a small trial of what was yet to come.

In that period, a lot of companies also started thinking about how to best handle the situation – and, perhaps even more importantly, what the world would likely look like when Covid is finally over. For us at Avast, the focus was on Future of Work, and what ultimately resulted from that effort was our Whole-Life Flexibility framework. The key aspect of that was that our people could now choose between working from the office (WFO) or working from anywhere (WFA). This was fully formalized, in that these actually became two different work contracts for employees to choose from. In the WFO mode, we expect people to typically spend at least 3 days a week in the office. In the WFA mode, on the other hand, people would typically spend 2 of less days in the office in a typical week. No time in the office is also fine, including the option of working from a different country. We even provided some basic support for people to set that up.

Other changes that we implemented as part of the Whole-Life Flexibility framework was unlimited paid time off (PTO) and unrestricted, fully flexible working hours. We also redesigned our HQ offices to better reflect the new ways of working – primarily adding a bunch of new private and semi-private spaces for team huddles – new types of “nests”, “studios”, etc. We substantially increased the learning and development opportunities for our people, focusing on both hard and soft skills. And finally, we decided to make all our people shareholders of the company, by granting all of them RSUs (Restricted Stock Units, equivalent to stock options but better because people can get their full value for free). This applied to every Avastian – both long-standing and very recent – and we even committed to the do the same for all newcomers who join us in the future. The cost of that program alone was over $35 million.

Fast forward 18 months, Covid luckily seems to be more or less behind us, but the world is facing a number of new challenges. Russian invasion of Ukraine and further polarization in the US have been destabilizing the global geopolitical situation, the financial markets are all over the map, inflation in many countries is reaching peak levels, and mental health issues abound.

Our purpose at Avast is to protect digital freedom for everyone, and we now see this purpose more important than ever. Not only that cybersecurity attacks and privacy violations are at all-time high, but there are tremendous opportunities to bring more freedom and more equity in the digital world by creating a new trust layer for the Internet – one that can prevent account breaches, identity theft, online scam and spread of misinformation at the infrastructural level, while at the same time bring more convenience and more privacy to our everyday lives.

Our teams at Avast are doing a fabulous job at bringing this purpose to life – and for that I want to say a big thank you. I continue to be impressed by the deep impact our people are having, by their innovative spirit, and the unique Avast culture that they are all contributing to. Over and over again, Avastians are demonstrating that they can stand by each other, and solve even the toughest problems, together.

Our people are our biggest asset, and we are committed to creating the best possible environment for them. ?This includes a strong, values-based culture, flexible working conditions, a functional org design and structure, a safe and truly inclusive environment for everyone, and fair compensation.

This year, we decided to review our rewards strategy, which includes salaries, bonuses, stock-based compensation as well as various benefits.

In recognition of the amazing work our employees are doing, we have decided to more than double the budget allocated for annual salary increases, especially merit-based increases and those focused on non-managerial positions. ?We are also changing the bonus structure for employees below director level, resulting in significant additional investment in our compensation programs. In other words, we are committing to long-term investments in our people.

In addition to that, we are adding new learning and development opportunities, and new mechanisms that will allow internal rotation of our people across various roles and departments. We recognize that people’s interests and priorities evolve, and so should their careers. Creating opportunities for people to pursue their career goals within the company is very aligned with our concept of growth mindset, and is a win-win strategy. My objective for Avast is to turn it into an enablement platform for the success of all our people, and I consider this an important step in that direction.

Finally, I’d like to say big thank you to all the great folks in our People & Culture teams who are bringing these programs to live. It is amazing to see their passion and relentless effort to do the best thing for their colleagues. Thank you, and keep it up!