According to a report, Boeing’s top dogs are living the high life – refusing to move their residences despite pressure from the aerospace giant for employees to return to the office – and instead jetting to the company’s headquarters via private jet. Are travelling.
David Calhoun took over as CEO of Boeing in January 2020, just before the pandemic.
Like most of the American workforce, he worked from home between his two residences: a sprawling waterfront estate on Lake Sunapee, New Hampshire, and a gated resort community in Buffalo, SC, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Flight records reviewed by the Journal showed that Calhoun has made more than 400 trips using Boeing’s fleet of private jets. However, not all travels took him to Arlington, Virginia, where Boeing moved its corporate headquarters from Chicago last May.
The Journal found that records showed Calhoun used company private planes to travel around the U.S., stopping at several locations on the coasts of California, Texas and Florida.
According to the outlet, other flights headed to Berlin, Dublin and Turks and Caicos.
Flight records show Boeing CEO David Calhoun made more than 400 trips to destinations including California, Texas and Turks and Caicos using his company’s fleet of private jets. Boeing Handout/EPA-EFE/REX Boeing moved its corporate headquarters from Chicago to Arlington, VA. , last May. Although many employees have been ordered to report in person, Calhoun is reportedly rarely seen in the office.AFP/Getty Images
Boeing’s board reportedly requires Calhoun to fly on a Boeing-supplied private jet for all business and personal travel for security reasons, so it is unclear which of the 400 private flights Calhoun took. C was for commercial purposes.
Meanwhile, Boeing CFO Brian West also has not relocated from his home in New Canaan, Conn., where the median household income in 2021 was more than $214,000, according to U.S. demographic data firm Name Census.
West started work at Boeing in August 2021.
According to the Journal, by spring 2023, Boeing will open an office in New Canaan, which is five minutes from West’s residence.
However, the new office — which Boeing is leasing for more than $100,000 a year — was not built to accommodate West, but rather to accommodate the recruitment of David Whitehouse, the company’s new treasurer, the Journal reported.
Whitehouse launched the company in February and is about 30 minutes from the Connecticut outpost.
Calhoun and West have barely been seen at Boeing’s Arlington offices since they opened two years ago, people who worked there told the Journal, despite a major push for lower-level employees to report in person. Has gone.
Managers reporting to Arlington headquarters are reportedly hosting happy hours, guest speakers and even inviting alpacas into the office to entice their employees to visit in person, though it’s not working Is.
“People are angry that they’re being told to come to the office,” Rich Plunkett, a union official with the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace, told the Journal of Boeing’s workforce.
Boeing CFO Brian West, who joined the company in 2021, also has not relocated from his workplace in New Canaan, Conn.© Matt Greenslade /
Plunkett said many employees complain that they are doing work in the office that could easily be done remotely, while Calhoun can be home whenever he wants and sometimes takes a private jet to the office.
Boeing employees in Arlington even seem to poke fun at the CEO’s absence, placing wooden “Lake Sunapee” signs in their offices – one even drinks from a Lake Sunapee souvenir mug that reads “Love Lake Life” – Calhoun’s Residence according to the journal pointing towards the lake shore.
While it’s not unusual for a top executive to live and work remotely from his company’s headquarters, Peter Cappelli, a professor of management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and author of “The Future of the Office,” a recent book about remote work, said: The Journal says it contrasts with the current message from corporate America, which encourages workers to return to the office.
“If you want people to come back and you’re not doing that, it really weakens the message,” Cappelli said.
A Boeing spokesperson told The Post: “We are changing our leadership culture to encourage our management team to engage more frequently with employees, customers and other stakeholders. That’s why we moved senior leaders out of our Chicago office and closer to their teams three years ago, and why we continue to empower them to spend less time in corporate headquarters and more time with employees and stakeholders. .
About 30% of open positions at Boeing are for hybrid or fully remote gigs. Reuters
The spokesperson stressed that the increased flexibility makes its workforce “the most productive and supportive of our global business.”
“We are pleased that this approach has allowed us to attract top talent across all disciplines as we continue to execute our recovery plans.”
Although some positions require full-time presence, about 30% of recent job postings shared by Boeing were for hybrid or fully remote positions.
Boeing’s website shows 128 open job positions in Arlington, Virginia, most of which require candidates to be able to report to the office.
