Wells Fargo: A Pioneer in Corporate Social Responsibility
Wells Fargo is a multinational company that prioritizes fiscal, social, and environmental issues as a financial services pioneer. The firm is well aware that its long-term sustainability is dependent on the successes of its customers (Kouchaki, 2016). As a result, it has a significant role to play in ensuring the development of think leadership capabilities and the provision of strategies that have an immediate effect on current and future generations.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
CSR stands for Corporate Social Responsibility.
More than ever, the firm has recognized that in this economy, societies need one-on-one access to financing as well as financial education for consumers and small business owners. They also need opportunities for employment and training for an exceedingly diverse labor force, affordable and safe housing and sustainable sources of energy, and sustenance for non-profits that deliver essential social services. The company has devised a comprehensive Corporate Social Responsibility report that includes their goals, priorities, and new commitments that will improve the company in its communities and the world as a whole (Mallor, Barnes, McCrory, Prenkert, & Langvard, 2015). The report's priorities include diversity and inclusion. Thus, with the company's growing diverse community of employees, suppliers, customers, there are endless opportunities for growth.
Diversity and Inclusion
Wells Fargo's aims to help create a planet where diversity and inclusion are respected and everyone feels appreciated and has equal access to products, resources, services and also opportunities to thrive. Regarding inclusion, Wells Fargo's goals imply donating a substantial amount of money to essential social requirements, for example, the development of women and diverse leaders, cultivating social inclusion through learning, and increasing prospects for varied talents.
Wells Fargo will dedicate person-hours with schools and non-profit organizations in its community. The company is also aiming to spend a part of its controllable procurement resources on diverse suppliers. Regarding economic empowerment, Wells Fargo intends to do everything possible to reinforce financial self-sustenance and improve economic opportunities and movement of income in communities that are underserved. They will achieve this by providing loans, financial education and affordable mortgages. Environmental sustainability is also the part of Wells Fargo 5-year plan. They aim to hasten the transition to lower-carbon economies and also help decrease the effect of climate change on communities.
Encouraging Ethical Behavior at Work
Wells Fargo has had its share of scandals, and one of the major ones was caused by employees who created millions of savings accounts fraudulently on behalf of their clients without their knowledge. Wells Fargo received fines from regulatory bodies as a result of the illegal transactions, and there were also further criminal and civil suits (Kouchaki, 2016). It was initially thought to be the work of individual employees, but further investigations revealed pressure from top-level managers. The customers had the extra charges and unanticipated credit lines.
This unethical behavior was an attribute of the excessive workload placed on employees; accusations were rife of the management forcing employees to meet too high goals. The lesson on ethics the company learned is not to ignore an organizations reward system, which was the primary cause for workers in a bid to hit targets. The company could have avoided the wrong behavior by rewarding them, and there is no clearer signal for employees than a paycheck.
The company can also create strategies to remunerate their personnel in ways such as better working hours, flexibility regarding goals to be achieved and more (Mallor, Barnes, McCrory, Prenkert, & Langvard, 2015). Leadership can also be put to task in cases of unethical behavior in particular departments to ensure that they maintain standards, and the rules are enforced up to the low-level workers. It was also evident that executive pay is linked with ethical conduct to mitigate risks associated with critical management. The company can also solicit employee input on issues they face since it is accurate that workers are more likely to follow policies they helped create.
Legal and Ethical Issues Concerning Whistleblowing
Wells Fargo's scandal drew attention to its purported pressure on employees to meet their goals, but one point that they did not talk about how the bank ignored and discouraged whistleblowers. Several employees raised concerns that they initially aired their discomfort about the burden to attain impossible sales targets at the company's branch offices (Kouchaki, 2016). Wells Fargo's employees even claimed that they received fire notices after calling the company's ethics hotline. The allegations raised pertinent questions on whether employees knew the ethical standards and the legal aspects surrounding the business. Did the company create a responsive and safe environment for whistleblowers to call out unethical practices? Or was Wells Fargo's top management deaf to whistle-blowing workers? The company was at fault for seeming to retaliate against such employees by firing them, which is one of the legal issues that require attention.
Critical legislation has been passed to ensure that employees who know about the scandal could have been an avoidable problem and any loss of funds circumvented (Mallor, Barnes, McCrory, Prenkert, & Langvard, 2015). Besides, Wells Fargo should have strengthened its whistleblower mechanisms to increase compliance requirements for its workers by creating an atmosphere of innovation and collaboration and superior management serving as models for integrity and ethical behavior for the employees.
Conclusion
Wells Fargo should be able to create the conducive environment for its employees in which they can deal with any issues. Most of the challenges they face involved disgruntled employees whose input could have been critical in reducing any threats to its image.
References
Kouchaki, M. (2016). How Wells Fargo’s fake accounts scandal got so bad. Retrieved from http://fortune.com/2016/09/15/wells-fargo-scandal/.
Mallor, J. P., Barnes, A. J., & Bowers, L. T. (2016). Business law: The ethical, global, and e-commerce environment. New York: McGraw-Hill Education.
