What Is Wells Fargo Ethical

With pressure to speak up coming from many different places, Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf finally gave his thoughts on why illegal practices were happening within his company. His response? It was the employees’ fault. He reiterated that efforts had been made to stop the behavior, and that there were no incentives to do bad things. However, the bank ended up removing branch-level sales goals that encouraged employees to cross-sell products to consumers. This practice was the reason for the controversy and why so many fake accounts for customers were made. The bank falsified accounts to make more money, which landed them a $185 million fine. Employees were said to have felt pressure to sell the customers more, in order to retain their jobs or
earn bonuses. Even though the fine represents just a small part of the massive bank’s overall wealth, they could feel more negative shocks as customers could leave and deposit their money with another bank. Stumpf has said that that he and the leadership team do feel accountable when the bank falls short such as this instance. However, he did mention again that some employees went against the bank’s culture. For those employees who were improperly selling, over 5,300 of them were fired. These weren’t just low-level employees. They included bank managers, and even higher up managers. Some people don’t buy Wells Fargo executive’s explanations, and put the blame solely on them. They believe higher up management placed too much pressure on selling, leading to employees creating fake accounts to unknowing customers or even making up fake customers so they could meet their demands. Executives now say the bank still wants to increase sales, but won’t set targets. They will no longer have sales goals, and hope to move forward in a positive manner. I don’t buy a lot of what Stumpf and the executives are saying.
I realize that Wells Fargo is a giant corporation, and that they can’t see what every single employee is doing. However, this isn’t just one single person, this is over 5000 people going against the rules. I think goes back to the company’s culture. They put so much emphasis on selling, and to get it done no matter what. However, that doesn’t merit breaking the rules and being unethical. This has to stem from the top down. The executives probably weren’t very ethical in what they were doing, and it flowed down from there. They didn’t establish upstanding corporate values, and didn’t promote corporate ethics. They just had one goal, and that was to make money at any cost. What really irks me is that Stumpf didn’t take any responsibility and blamed it on the employees. As the top manger, you’re in charge of your subordinates. What they do reflects the company, and you as the CEO. Part of the CEO’s job is making sure the company is functioning properly, and I’m sure Stumpf could see what was happening. He knew what was going on and chose to ignore it, because it made him more money. As a CEO, you set the basis for what the company will do. Your actions and words can take your organization down a certain path. He most likely condoned these actions, and took unethical actions himself. He wasn’t being unethical just to be unethical, it was just to make more money. That’s what every single business in the country is
trying to do. However, you can’t throw away your morals just to make money. Businesses that make money by doing it the right way are the ones who will benefit. Others such as Wells Fargo may benefit in the short run, but the truth will always come back to haunt them.