As the COVID pandemic subsides, Boeing (NYSE:BA), like many global workplaces, has been encouraging its employees to return to the office. However, several of the company's top executives have not relocated closer to the new Virginia headquarters and reportedly rarely appear in the office, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.
David Calhoun, Boeing's CEO who assumed his role shortly before the pandemic, has been observed using a Boeing-supplied private jet for travel due to security concerns. Over the last three years, a private jet has been chartered approximately 400 times near his two residences in New Hampshire and South Carolina. Although flight logs do not specify whether these trips were for business or leisure, some flights included visits to Boeing's Arlington location.
The company's Chief Finance Officer, Brian West, has also not relocated to be near the Arlington base. Instead, Boeing opened a small office five minutes from his home in Connecticut. The company told WSJ that this Canaan premise was necessary to recruit its new treasurer, David Whitehouse, who lives around 30 minutes away. When visited by a WSJ reporter earlier this year, West was reportedly casually dressed and working from this Connecticut office.
Michael D'Ambrose, Human resources chief who joined Boeing in mid-2020, operates from a company facility near Orlando.
While Boeing has tried to limit remote work—30% of its job ads today allow for remote or hybrid working—a spokesperson told Fortune that there is no company-wide mandate to return to the office. The firm's top executives enjoy more perks than lower-ranking personnel, like private jets. Any Return-to-Office (RTO) requests have been made on a team-by-team basis.
The spokesperson added that they are transforming their leadership culture to encourage management to engage more frequently with employees, customers, and other stakeholders. The leadership team is empowered to spend less time sitting at a desk. This flexibility has allowed the company to attract top talent across disciplines as they continue to execute recovery plans.
However, this remote work trend among Boeing's leadership team has faced criticism. CNBC's Jim Cramer called out the CEO's apparent absence in 2021, and since then, several Boeing employees have begun displaying ironic “Lake Sunapee” signs in their cubicles. Peter Cappelli, a management professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, warned that leaders who defy their own return-to-work policies risk appearing out of step.
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