The global diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) department of Boeing has been dissolved. This is part of the revamp happening at the company under Kelly Ortberg, the new CEO of Boeing.
Sara Liang Bowen, a vice president of Boeing, who was shouldering the responsibility of leading the DEI team has also quit the company a couple of days ago.
Boeing has been in the news for all the wrong reasons recently with its employee strike that lasted over six weeks and before that with the door plug of an Alaska flight being blown out mid-flight in January. Not only did Boeing pay Alaska Airlines $160 million in “initial compensation” post this accident but in August Boeing assured investigators that it would introduce alterations in the design to prevent any such accidents from happening in the future. The Seattle-based airplane manufacturer was criticised by Elon Musk for giving more importance to DEI initiatives than to safety and quality post this accident.
Now Boeing has done away with the DEI division altogether and plans to reassign the impacted employees to other human resource roles pertaining to talent and employee experience.
Last week, Boeing launched a stock offering to raise up to $24.3 billion as it attempts to make its financial situation stronger. Amid the strike in the second week of October, the aviation company had indicated that it was gearing to cut 17,000 jobs, that is, about 10 per cent of its global workforce.
