As of 2021, Wells Fargo prioritizes financial success for their customers in their mission and vision statement. Their values center around their views of what is right for their customers and effectively motivate their employees. To fulfill their customers’ financial needs, Wells Fargo aims to provide reliable guidance, build a trustworthy relationship, and value leadership, ethics, and inclusion in their mandate. However, after several malpractices in the past and ongoing government scrutiny, the company has fallen short on some of its promises. We will discuss Wells Fargo Mission Statement And Vision Analysis 2021 here.
Employee Alignment:
The following conclusions can be drawn from data provided by Comparably.
- The company’s goals were clear to employees and important to them – but only while job searching.
- Most employees are motivated by the mission, vision, and values.
- Yet, the company’s chief aspects for the employees were a work-life balance, career advancement opportunities, and healthcare benefits.
- The mission is the last reason employees choose to stay in the company. In contrast, benefits provided by the company were imperative for employees to continue working.
- Employees are strongly loyal to their co-workers rather than the company’s mission.
- Employees believe transparency and integrity are the most meaningful values of the company.
From a comprehensive analysis of this data, their core values and mission may not be the main reason why employees continue to work for the company, nor is it the priority for what employees hope to achieve in their work. Despite these results, Wells Fargo still believes “a focused mission statement and cohesive core company values are vital to maintaining employee alignment.” However, one thing is certain that the company did succeed in motivating their employees with the mission, vision, and values statement.
Wells Fargo Mission Statement:
The company stresses that personal growth and profit are not their main priority. Wells Fargo mission statement is “we want to satisfy all of our customers’ financial needs”. Their mission first and foremost is to assist customers for their financial success and to “satisfy their financial needs.” These aims are being achieved through the company’s variety of services.
The bank offers services that cater to all kinds of industries. For individual clients, these services include retail and online banking, insurance, and loans. Wells Fargo provides employee retirement services, financial information reporting, asset management, and increased purchasing power with a lower risk for commercial industries. Wells Fargo also extends its aid to small businesses, with Wells Fargo Works for Small BusinessSM, an online portal that provides services such as building credit and sustaining the growth of the business. Even for rich people, Wells Fargo not only dispenses advice on maintaining one’s wealth but also helps set up foundations and efficiently address inheritance issues before they arise. The company has managed to satisfy most of its customers’ needs in this way. Most, but not all. The company has a history of committing unfair practices that impacted customers detrimentally, which will be discussed in more detail in this article.
Wells Fargo Vision Statement:
The company hopes to present itself as a “trusted provider” for “reliable guidance” and serve a range of financial needs. However, in recent years the company has had major scandals that resulted in negative publicity, which has pushed away customers.
- In 2016, to meet their targets, the bank’s employees opened millions of fake accounts in the names of real customers who had no knowledge of it or consented to it. Officials said that the bank forged signatures and prevented other employees from contacting customers during routine surveys about their accounts. Since the fraud became public, the bank faced a wave of lawsuits and agreed to pay a $3 billion fine to settle a civil lawsuit and resolve a criminal prosecution filed by the Justice Department. However, none of that money went to compensate customers. $500 million of the settlement was used to compensate the investors who had responded to the bank’s strategy.
- Since 2018, The Federal Reserve implemented a way to keep the bank in check following the fake accounts scandal. The idea was to stop Wells Fargo from growing any more than $1.95 trillion in assets until the bank fixed the structural issues revealed in the scandal. With the COVID-19 pandemic causing a shutdown in businesses nation-wide, and small businesses suffering the most, The Federal Government has asked many banks to chip in billions of dollars in loans. But that punishment is prevented Wells Fargo’s customers from getting access to any such aid. Soon after they started accepting applications for the stimulus money pledged to small businesses within the $2 trillion packages Congress passed, new submissions had to be stopped as the bank neared its $10 billion limits. Customers were told to apply elsewhere, but few banks provide loans to new customers. Like Aquesta Bank in Cornelius, those banks that do have limited capacity and told applicants to expect delays in the process. Eventually, in April 2020, the Fed announced that they were loosening restrictions on Wells Fargo’s lending cap, and the company said it would continue issuing loans under the program. However, many small businesses now feel that their collateral damage was used for Wells Fargo’s benefit.
- In May 2020, Wells Fargo revealed that federal and state authorities were investigating the company’s lending practices to provide relief to small businesses facing economic damages from the COVID-19 pandemic. This came after a number of big banks were accused of placing larger businesses over smaller ones to increase their profits from administering PPP (Paycheck Protection Program) loans. Wells Fargo is the only bank so far to admit that its participation in the program is under scrutiny. Although Wells Fargo’s participation is limited, it is no surprise that regulators are investigating their operations intensely for a company that has committed malpractices in the past. In a report released in January 2019, the bank assured that they were making great progress in rebuilding public and government trust, and their work to improve the company will never be stopped. They said they were making efforts to “identify and remedy problems.” Two years later, they are still under government investigation. After so many scandals, the bank’s public perception is at an all-time low. The bank has failed to maintain trust with its customers and prove that transparency and integrity are something that they take into serious consideration. Therefore, it is not far-fetched to assume the company has strayed from its vision.
Other Wells Fargo Values:
- What’s “right” for patrons. Unfortunately, the fake accounts scandal wasn’t the sole way Wells Fargo wronged its customers. The company has also received complaints about its aging systems. As Wells Fargo failed to meet modern technology standards for years and insisted on holding on to their primitive banking systems, the service they provided has had frequent break-downs as a result. The lack of computerized updates has disrupted many basic functions, which inconveniences customers and dissatisfy regulators.
- “Diversity and inclusion.” During a memo written by Charlie Scharf, it had been promised that the corporate would do more to enhance diversity in its ranks and tying executive’s pay to their progress to do so. Scharf told staff that members of the lender’s operating team would be annually evaluated on how much they have increased diversity among employees in the operations they conduct. It will have an impact on their pay packages set at the end of the year. Scharf also set a goal to double Black leaders at the firm within the next five years and include more Black people in the operating committee. Currently, just 6% of the senior management are Black people. However, the company has faced backlash after Scharf stated that the company’s lack of diversity stemmed from a “limited pool of Black talent to recruit from.” Many believe that this comment is racially discriminatory. This isn’t the first time the company was under fire for discriminatory behavior. In 2012, the company paid $175 million in fines to sell sub-prime mortgages to Black and Hispanic borrowers who actually qualified for prime loans. The company paid $2.1 billion in fines in 2018 when the same allegations were made against the bank again.
- “Leadership.” The fake accounts scandal in 2016 only shed light on how the company lacked values-based leadership. A goal is only important for a values-based leader as long as the method to achieve the goal upholds the company’s values. If an achievement is made at the expense of values, then the trust and public perception of that company are tarnished. At the time of the scandal, the company’s leadership also failed to take any responsibility for the fraudulent scam. When a leader is fully committed to taking responsibility, it sets a standard for other companies, employees, and shareholders. In recent years the company’s leadership has not changed for the better. To this day, scandal after scandal, they are evermore proving that they take their mission, vision, and values into very little consideration.
How Can Wells Fargo Reinstate Their Core Values?
There are a number of ways Wells Fargo can improve its structural weaknesses, and even go as far as to regain public trust. They are summarized as so:
- Focus on smaller towns. Wells Fargo can aid small businesses even further by providing their services in smaller towns or remote areas, as many small businesses tend to start and grow from those areas.
- Limit referral hiring. Referral hiring is why the same types of employees are hired for jobs, even if workers from diverse backgrounds can be just as qualified, if not more. Form a more diverse referral program so that people from underrepresented backgrounds can be hired. There are already online databases and resources showing a pool of diverse and qualified candidates for the banking industry.
- Provide more growth opportunities. One reason for the lack of diversity is that employees from minority communities cannot see a ranking-up in the company, and leadership roles are inaccessible to them. This leads to many Black, Hispanic, and other groups leaving the organization. Designing apprenticeship, sponsorship, and mentorship programs can be an effective way to diversify the pool of leadership positions.
- Expand portfolio. If Wells Fargo is concerned about a potential bankruptcy, they should expand themselves into stable and growing industries instead of meeting goals in unethical methods.
- Invest in newer technologies. Out with the old aging systems, in with the new. Put an end to basic operations failing due to break-downs in the system.
- Improve image on social media. It cannot be argued that with more digital advancements every day, the main platform for advertising and building one’s image has become social media. As the new generation essentially “grows up” on social media, Wells Fargo has a fresh opportunity to positively market themselves so that when the youth begin needing bank accounts, loans, etc., the company would have already established itself as a reliable company, thereby obtaining the new customers’ trust.
- Change the sales culture. Front line bank staff continuously selling up products and obtaining more portions of a customer’s wealth will only cause customers to move away and shift to competitors in the long run. Spending time to create more value with the customer will not only benefit the company by keeping a regular, happy customer, but customers will also survive with the wealth they saved.
- More mandatory training programs. Wells Fargo must continue to set up training programs that are obligatory for teaching ethics and business conduct to employees. This could show employees how to enhance their skills as a banker and build a healthy relationship between employees and customers.
- Weed-out poor leadership. This might be the hardest goal to achieve, but it is no secret that a country that prioritizes integrity must strictly implement its values or suffer the consequences. This also means employees with leadership roles should be ready to accept responsibility for the company’s failures. The higher ranks should take steps to eliminate employees for any form of misconduct.
Also read: Chick-Fil-A Mission Statement, Vision & Values Analysis
