The Boeing Company offers extensive training options customized to the needs of its employees, including Learning Training and Development, Employee Health and Safety, the Quality through Training Program and a program entitled Learning Together. The Learning Together program is utilized for the purpose of extending employees’ education by offering tuition reimbursement for college, trade school, or university classes.
The Boeing Learning Center is offered to all employees and is used for the purpose of company-required training as well as courses for personal development with a variety of training options including textbooks, videotapes, audio tapes, CD-ROM and web-based. Boeing has also created an Off-Hour Training program with courses that focus on professional development as well as personal growth. Offerings in the Off-Hour Training program include modules on aviation, communications, engineering, computing, math, and several others (Boeing Employment, www. oeing. com/employment).
Boeing uses a sophisticated training system developed with Plexus for the purpose of introducing its employees to the company’s quality standards and procedures. Referred to as “ Quality eTraining”, the system utilizes standards set by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) to provide training in two key areas as identified by Boeing: Advanced Quality System (AQS), and the Boeing Quality Management System, or BQMS (Boeing News Release, 2002).
Quality eTraining integrates web-based, CD-ROM and classroom instruction with training materials. Ten, high-impact training modules have been developed with such focuses as AQS, BQMS and ISO9001: 2000/AS9100: 2001, AS9003, AS9103 (Boeing News Release, 2002). Ethics awareness training for Boeing employees, referred to as “ Affinity”, uses three modules of web-based training developed by Illumina.
The modules are highly technological and customized to Boeing’s operations by using a photo-realistic illustrative style as well as Flash animation and audio (Illumina 2003 Ethics Challenge, www. illumina-interactive. com). Ethics training in the Boeing Company, while technologically advanced and customized to meet their needs, is but one small part of the training required of its employees.
The Boeing Company has used a system called Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) since 1998 to manage conflicts not only between the company and its suppliers, but for employee conflicts as well. ADR is a four-step process which includes: one-on-one discussion, internal mediation, either panel review or external mediation, and then the creation of a binding agreement.
The ADR process is available for use for all Boeing employees, with the exception of executives. Employees who wish to avail of this process must do so within 30 days of the incident which caused a conflict or dispute. According to Boeing, 95% of employees who have used the ADR process for conflict management claimed it was worthwhile and they would use the procedure again as needed (“ Be it resolved”, www. boeing. com).
According to Robert Ingersoll, Vice President of Contracts and Pricing for the Boeing Company, the use of ADR facilitates the open exchange of information, provides a structured environment, focuses on facts, and reduces the adversarial nature often present in conflict management with the use of a mediator (Alternative Dispute Resolution, www. dtic. mil). The idea of ADR is to promote the use of common sense when it comes to formulating a solution and doing so in a way that reinforces proper behavior and the desired attitude of employees.
Mediation is also used for conflicts arising between union leaders and executives of the company. Employee intervention is the process used to re-align dissatisfied employees with duties and areas of focus which are better suited to their aptitudes. The company’s ethics have been lauded by others in the industry as being an advanced, amenable way to reach a solid resolution to conflicts. It has been adopted by other companies for its reputation as a role model for the proper way to resolve adversarial situations. Ethically, ADR is commendable in its goal of reaching accord through mediation.