Wells Fargo Case Study

In 2015, Wells Fargo was named as the world’s most valuable bank being worth around 2 trillion dollars (Fortune, 2015). Wells Fargo started out of San Francisco with growth in the right direction for the U.S. economy. They are a financial services company that has banking, insurance, investments, mortgage, and consumer and commercial finance through 8,700 locations, 13,000 ATMs, the internet (Securities and Exchange Commission, 2015). With Wells Fargo progressing and gaining prosperity, it is a shame that they took a negative method to get to this point. The Wells Fargo scandal has caused many to look at the company poorly. They have lost copious clients due to their bad ethical misconduct and not treating customers with respect following

Staying true to them will guide us toward continued growth and success for decades to come. As you read more about our vision and values, you will learn about who we are, where we’re headed and how every Wells Fargo team member can help us get there.”(Wells Fargo, 1999). The low accountability Wells Fargo has behind their statement makes them look worse after their 2017 scandal. They have a clear indication of how Wells Fargo is supposed to be running the company, but the company has acted in a different manner. It makes you ponder how reliable statements of those at the top of the company are when they speak to the public. Even though Wells Fargo has made vast changes to their management team, one must wonder if they’re way of improving the company has changed over time. Wells Fargo’s replacement CEO for John Stumpf, Tim Sloan, told the Senate Banking Committee that, “[Wells Fargo] is a better bank today than it was a year ago” (White, 2017). A year later, 2017, Wells Fargo has made no significant positive progress toward turning the company back into what it used to be before the

Wells Fargo is known by its employees to have an intense sales culture. They would set a certain number of accounts, credit cards, and much more that the employees needed to meet. According to Chris Arnold (Arnold, 2016), “And the sales culture was so intense she says that some workers even in the headquarters and other San Francisco branches resorted to deceptive practices to make their sales goals”. The employees are only human and not machine, so should they be expected to get a ridiculous number of products and services? If an employee didn’t meet the sales goal, they would have to go through a lecture to see how to improve and meet their sales goal next time. During this lecture, according to Arnold (Arnold, 2016), “Then she says managers would give her a "formal warning" and tell her to sign it. And she says they'd tell her, "If you don't meet your solutions you're not a team player. If you're bringing down the team then you will be fired and it will be on your permanent record”. The company threatened to fire anyone who didn’t meet their standards which scared many employees. They didn’t want to lose their jobs so the only logical way to meet their ridiculous standards was to engage in illegal making of fake accounts so the employees would meet their sale