'A great addition to the site'

The 4-81 building in Renton, Wash.—where Final Assembly of the 737 takes place—features an Employee Service Center (ESC). The center offers Boeing employees amenities such as dry cleaning, photofinishing and banking services. The facility supports the Future of Work initiative, which envisions services currently found outside the plant or campus becoming increasingly available inside the workplace. Among the 4-81 employees who are grateful for the facility is Danny McBroom, a lead inspector in the Quality organization supporting the 737 program. Here's why McBroom appreciates the ESC, as told to Debby Arkell of the Boeing Frontiers staff.

My first thought when I heard Boeing was going to open an Employee Service Center here in Final Assembly, offering services such as dry cleaning, DVD rentals and banking, was "That seems crazy!" But now it makes perfect sense to me. I'm an hourly employee with a 30-minute lunch break. Banking is a common errand for me. It's about seven miles from here to the [Boeing Employees'] Credit Union. If I need to run an errand like that at lunch time, it's a 10-minute walk to my car from where I work and 10 minutes back. That leaves me 10 minutes to drive there and take care of business.

I use the center's banking services most of all, but I like that I can also get things notarized, rent DVDs, ship packages or learn how to use online banking. Having BECU staff right here at the Employee Service Center relieves a lot of stress, and I no longer have to worry about planning and rushing my errands during the day or after work.

It's a tremendous benefit to employees, and I think that it's very accommodating and convenient for hourly people in particular. It really helps me use my time more efficiently, freeing up my time after work so I can continue to work as an umpire off-hours. That's really important to me.

I think the company benefits, too. It gets more productivity out of people, for sure. It keeps us in the workplace, and we don't have any worries about being late or getting into trouble if the errand takes longer than we anticipated. By providing ESCs, the company is sending a message to employees that it's trying to help us do our work, and that it wants to make life more enjoyable for us. I feel the company is taking the time to think of us, and it's the little things like ESCs that make the difference.