Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson’s Post

They got the wording wrong. All of the banks "tolerate unethical behaviour" - witness the GFC as well as the last few years of empty PR and greenwashing on issues of critical importance to the public interest. But indeed they do NOT tolerate such behaviour when it hits their OWN bottom line, so perhaps they could have just said "we don't like getting ripped off so we fired them."

There is an apocryphal story from the Soviet Union that a nail factory was thought to be underperforming. So the local commissar set them a production target: they had to produce a certain number of nails in a certain amount of time. The next time the commissar visited, he was shocked to see that instead of making nails, they had switched to making tiny pins. Horrified, the commissar changed the target from a number of nails, to a tonnage of nails. The next time he visited, all of the workers in the factory were standing in a line and making a single, huge nail. Whatever you measure, gets done. If you pay people to move a mouse, they move a mouse.

Maybe they were fired for not meeting their “cheating the customers” quota.

Interesting, their use of language. They said they wouldn't tolerate 'unethical behaviour' from their staff. Which is at odds with their $3bn fine in 2020 when the bank were found guilty of the wholesale opening of fake accounts to simulate growth in order to obtain more favourable credit terms. Not only were they actively participating in unethical and illegal behaviour, but were found to be bullying staff into opening these accounts. So, looks like the 'little guy' takes the fall again, for the eye-wateringly appalling corporate failings.

What I want to know is why Wells Fargo ever thought that measure mouse activity and keystrokes would be a good metric for productivity? If you pay your people for moving the mouse, that's what they are going to get done. That's a bit like paying programmers for the number of lines of code they produce: It leads to over-bloated code. Writers that get paid by the word will add extra filler to make their articles and stories longer. You get what you pay for. It's also shows a complete lack of trust in their employees, treating them like school children. Instead, maybe these companies could measure their productivity and their ability to bring value to the customer while supporting the aims of the business?

Nothing good here. Wells Fargo has seen scandals, this is just another wrinkle that suggests ethics and culture are broken. What metrics drove this behavior? It sure wasn’t accountability based on delivery. Measuring keystrokes instead of value speaks to an organization that doesn’t understand how employees create value, setting up performance management systems that don’t make sense.

Not to stir the pot but who would actually believe that Wells Fargo "holds employees to the highest standards and does not tolerate unethical behaviour" when in fact they tolerate unprofessional behavior from the higher ups? They never hold their high and mighty corporate leaders accountable for any practice of unethical behavior. Wells Fargo fosters a highly toxic environment - closing their eyes to discrimination, retaliation, hostility, bullying, harassment - just to name a few, when such acts are committed by their so called managers or directors. I know for a fact that they get rid of their lowly employees when they start to speak up!

100% fake news spin. Another linkedin lie and spin as if working from home was the direct culprit. You hired questionable workers to begin with. While working from home. You were able to figure out they arent good employees. It because of working from home you were able to figure how bad the employee is. Not because they were working from home. Had they been in the office. They were doing the same thing. Just buy talking and taking long breaks or whatever else. You just couldnt see it as well. So thanks to working from home you discovered who isnt actually working. Please tell the story how its really is not the garbage spin to try to force people back into the office.

Interesting the statement that the bank “holds employees to the highest standards and does not tolerate unethical behaviour”. I thought we were talking about Wells Fargo.

I remember working in a shipyard drawing office with a colleague who was well into his seventies and had perfected the art of taking an early afternoon nap at his desk whilst apparently writing on his pad. I noticed this a few times, as did others, but as he was otherwise fairly useful, our section leader let it slide. So one doesn't need to be working from home, or even working on a computer to "create the impression of active work"!