The banking giant has rehired employees who left or were fired over their concerns about the bank’s ethics or stratospheric sales goals during the fake-accounts scandal
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Wells Fargo has rehired about 1,000 former employees who left or were fired during the bank’s fake-accounts scandal.
The rehirings come as part of reforms introduced by CEO Tim Sloan, according to a Bloomberg report. Sloan said that the bank created a special human resources team to help “innocent” employees come back to work.”
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The fake-accounts scandal broke last year when it was discovered that Wells Fargo employees, under constant pressure to increase sales numbers, had opened 2 million unauthorized accounts. The scandal prompted congressional hearings, steep fines, and an independent inquiry by Wells Fargo’s board of directors into abuses at the company. It also led to the ouster of then-CEO John Stumpf – who, it was announced Monday, would be required to return some $28 million in compensation for failing to heed warnings of abuses in the company.
But many employees said they were unfairly punished for speaking out or resisting unrealistic sales quotas. It’s that issue Sloan is attempting to address.
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“When you violate your code of ethics at Wells Fargo, you don’t have an opportunity to come back,” Sloan said. However, many employees “left because of their concerns” over the scandal or because of the bank’s stratospheric sales goals.
“I can’t promise perfection,” Sloan said. “But I can promise that we are going to learn from these mistakes that are right here in black and white in this very exhaustive and thorough board report, and we’re not going to let those mistakes happen again.”
