Boeing to tie more worker bonuses to safety after series of lapses

ARLINGTON, Virginia – Boeing will make safety and quality a bigger metric for employee bonuses after a series of safety lapses tarnished the planemaker’s reputation.

In the biggest change, workers at the Boeing Commercial Airplane division will see 60 per cent of their annual incentive score based on safety and quality metrics.

Previously, 75 per cent of the score was based on financial metrics, whereas operational metrics accounted for just 25 per cent, and included targets beyond safety and quality.

The changes, which were communicated at an all-employee meeting on March 6, come two months

after a near-disaster on a new Boeing 737 Max operated by Alaska Airlines

, when a door plug blew off shortly after takeoff. No one was injured and the plane landed safely.

“It’s very, very important to drive the outcomes that we’re all committed to, and that’s to deliver a safe and quality product to our customer,” Boeing chief operating officer Stephanie Pope told the employee meeting.

Earlier this week, US crash investigators,

in a highly unusual rebuke

, accused Boeing officials of failing to cooperate in a probe of how the panel flew off. Investigators are also looking into another incident involving the 737 Max, in which the plane’s rudder system malfunctioned as pilots were landing.

Other Boeing business units will see minor changes to the bonus structure.

At the Defence, Space and Security division and Boeing Global Services, operational metrics will continue to be 25 per cent of the business unit scores, though they will focus solely on safety and quality.

The Enterprise, or corporate, plan will be an average of the three business units’ scores.

Details of the bonus metrics changes were reported earlier by the Wall Street Journal. BLOOMBERG