Wells Fargo Digs Deeper Into Its Culture Issues
March 21 2017 - 3:54PM
Dow Jones News
By Emily Glazer
Wells Fargo & Co. has admitted it has culture problems
related to its sales-practices scandal. Now, it is turning to an
academic for help.
Chief Executive Timothy Sloan said at a company town hall
Tuesday that the bank is aiming to survey all its roughly 269,000
employees about its culture, working with an academic who
specializes in this area. The bank declined to name the academic,
though the 20- to 30-minute survey will roll out in May.
The bank declined to say when the survey will be completed, but
Mr. Sloan said the analysis and proposed actions will be shared
with senior executives. He added that "high-level results" will be
shared with bank employees.
"Our goal is to uncover our culture's positive attributes and
its potential weaknesses, so our leaders can understand how best to
foster an ethical, inclusive, and customer-focused culture," Mr.
Sloan said.
The push comes at an opportune time. Earlier Tuesday, a
regulator continued to jab at Wells Fargo about its culture
problems. Federal Reserve Bank of New York President William Dudley
said in remarks prepared for a speech in London that the Wells
Fargo sales-practices scandal is just one example of how banks have
to improve their cultures.
"There was a serious mismatch between the values Wells Fargo
espoused and the incentives that Wells Fargo employed," Mr. Dudley
said in prepared remarks. He has been one of the most outspoken
regulators on bank culture in recent years.
Speaking at the bank's Orlando, Fla., event, Mr. Sloan echoed
the criticism. "This is why our operating committee and I agree on
this important point: If there's one thing we must get right as we
lead Wells Fargo forward, it is our culture," he said according to
prepared remarks.
Wells Fargo in September paid a $185 million fine over opening
as many as 2.1 million accounts using fictitious or unauthorized
customer information. It has since faced a barrage of public and
political criticism and ongoing investigations.
Mr. Sloan said the San Francisco bank used a different type of
survey for seven years about how engaged its employees are,
including how they score on a happy-to-grumpy ratio.
Since the sales-practices scandal erupted in September, the bank
has sent surveys to more than 110,000 employees about its culture,
Mr. Sloan said. But it wants to dig deeper.
This isn't the first time Mr. Sloan addressed the culture
problems facing the bank. In a late-October company town hall, he
admitted "things that need to be fixed within our culture. There
are weaknesses within it that we must change." He said that starts
with understanding where things "broke down, and where we failed --
as a culture, a company and as leaders."
Mr. Sloan then said Wells Fargo would hire outside independent
"culture experts" to help it understand where its weaknesses
are.
The bank also has said the lofty retail-banking sales goals it
has since done away with drove its culture. Those changes, along
with restructuring how employees are compensated, will filter
through the workforce and take time to change.
Wells Fargo isn't the only bank turning to academics for culture
assistance.
Citigroup Inc. has an on-call ethicist it consults on "weighty
questions of right and wrong, supplementing its armies of lawyers
and compliance officers," according to The Wall Street Journal.
Write to Emily Glazer at emily.glazer@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 21, 2017 15:39 ET (19:39 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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