Several ex-employees point to the company's "hostile workplace" and "locker-room culture"
The nation’s largest home lender United Wholesale Mortgage is facing allegations of racial disparities, sexual harassment, and bullying by managers.
More than two dozen employees are calling out the Michigan-based company’s “high-pressure, locker-room environment, Bloomberg reported Wednesday. The company describes the allegations as a “false narrative”.
The story, based on the accounts of several employees who asked to remain anonymous, included descriptions of UWM as a “hostile workplace,” with some underwriting managers treating Black workers differently from White employees, as well as berating subordinates and openly making sexually suggestive remarks.
There were also tales of cocaine use among some sales staff and company leaders. Among those who allegedly encountered cocaine while working at the company was Matt Hutchinson, who left UWM in June 2021 after two and a half years. Hutchinson said a UWM manager invited him to do a bump of cocaine in front of a broker partner while at a client event at a Topgolf location in Auburn Hills in December 2019.
“I’m like, ‘there’s nothing I’d like to do less than sit in a car with you and do blow’. We had never talked about doing any drugs together,” he told Bloomberg. “To just ask me casually in front of this broker like we had done it before, that was crazy to me.”
Former UWM underwriter and team lead Taryn Dover, a Black woman interviewed by Bloomberg, said she sometimes heard a manager talk about bringing co-workers home with him to have sex. She also claimed there was a pattern of “passive-aggressive racism,” with management holding them to a different standard than White colleagues and then citing her attitude as the problem. Dover reported her concerns to the company’s human resources department, but nothing happened.
“I couldn’t count on both hands the amount of times my attitude came up,” Dover said. “I was always ‘coached’ on making sure I wasn’t aggressive.”
In response to the allegations, UWM’s lawyers said that they could not find evidence that Dover and Hutchinson ever complained about the incidents and that the company doesn’t tolerate racial discrimination or sexual harassment. The lender said people of color represent about one-third of its workforce.
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“UWM does not tolerate cocaine or any drug use,” the lawyers said in a written statement, providing a photo of an office entrance marked with the words ‘tobacco, drug, and weapon free campus.’ They added that “UWM’s culture is built on mutual trust, respect, and kindness,” noting that Fortune recognized the company as one of the best workplaces for millennials in 2020.
One account executive said she faced gender discrimination from her manager, who pushed her out of her position last year, telling her she was “not emotionally intelligent.” The former employee allegedly sent a letter to CEO and president Mat Ishbia detailing the humiliation she experienced, including one instance where a male colleague questioned if she was having her period. Ishbia sent a response, which was checked by Bloomberg, thanking the woman for reaching out, promising to investigate the misconduct, and wishing her luck in the future.
The report did acknowledge that none of the employees said Mat Ishbia, president and CEO, himself used racial slurs or sexually harassed employees. Some even said Ishbia helped them jumpstart their careers, provided opportunities for large commissions, and motivated them to believe in the company’s mission. Bloomberg said UWM did not make Ishbia available for an interview regarding this matter.
UWM chief marketing officer Sarah DeCiantis released a statement saying that any attempt to portray a negative culture was “false and misleading.”
“[UWM] has operated for almost 40 years and has employed close to 20,000 team members, and there is nothing, in all that time with all those great people, that suggests this story is anything more than disgruntled individuals or a competitor pushing a false narrative to the media,” she wrote.
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