Wells Fargo Approaches to Damage and Leaders' Responsibility for Employee Behaviors

Wells Fargo
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Wells Fargo
Wells Fargo is among the largest multinationals in the world. The company boasts of branches all over the world. However, in 2013, rumors of a scandal in the company led to the exposition of one of the biggest scandals to ever hit the organization. The organization was accused of opening new customer accounts without the knowledge of its customers. The rumors of the scandal blew up in 2016 when it was revealed that the company's employees had opened more than 2 million accounts for their customers (WatchMojo, 2016). These accounts were quite costly to the customers as many of them were charged fees for accounts they did not know existed. Others reported having received debit or credit cards, with the most extreme cases reporting that they were contacted by debt collection agencies (WatchMojo, 2016). As it was soon revealed, the employees of Wells Fargo opened these accounts because of the pressure to meet every day's target of cross-selling, which was the company's strategy to increase its revenue. Wells Fargo emphasizes the need to build strong relationships with its clients. This mainly entails acquiring as much information as possible from a client to help them offer the best financial advice. However, as it was revealed in 2016, the company was simply trying to increase its revenue flow, and an emphasis on stronger relationships was helping enhance its cross-selling strategy.
Approaches to Repairing Reputation Damage and What Remains
After the scandal, Wells Fargo invested a lot in its PR to help repair its image. The company had risked falling off the pecking order in the U.S. However, many believe that much needs to be done for the organization to make a full comeback.
One of the things that Wells Fargo did to try and repair its image is abolishing the aggressive sales targets that it had in place before the scandal (Flitter and Cowley, 2019). By abolishing this approach, the organization was indirectly removing the temptation for the workers to try and reach their targets through unscrupulous ways.
According to Lenzner (2018), Wells Fargo also pledged a whopping $200 billion investment in climate change in the next decade. The company announced that half of the amount would be invested in clean energy, clean technology, and sustainable transport. This is indeed a way to try and get the public to delink or disconnect from the scandal and view the company in a new way.
Aside from the above, Wells Fargo also pledged to increase its support to volunteer organizations. The company has been aggressive in trying to achieve this feat and looks set to topple the likes of J.P. Morgan in its support to non-profit organizations.
However, the company still has a long way to go before it can completely relieve itself from the scandal's negative PR. Flitter and Cowley (2019) note that employees of the company are still complaining about aggressive targets. These targets paved the way for the 2016 scandal, and it is highly likely tha...