Wells Fargo’s ‘diverse slate’ policy required the Bank to ensure that 50 per cent of the candidates that it interviewed — for roles with salaries of more than $100,000—belonged to ‘diverse’ backgrounds. That meant, primarily women and members of underrepresented communities.
However, it was brought to light that many of these interviews, which were seemingly attempts at ensuring diversity and giving opportunities to women and people of colour, were conducted for posts that had already been filled.
The employees who revealed this thought this was the financial services provider’s way of improving its scores in the area of diversity hiring.
One employee had even claimed that he received a negative reaction on expressing his doubts regarding the policy, and was dismissed.
After the rule had been formalised in 2020 with an aim to dispel racial inequality, Wells Fargo had also pledged that it would work to ensure double the number of Black members in its leadership ranks in five years.
However, following the recent allegations and the resultant investigations into the matter, the leaders at Wells Fargo concluded that the implementation of the policy could be improved in many ways. Therefore, the plan is to relaunch the ‘diversity slate’ policy next month, which the Bank claims had actually led to the recruitment of 42 per cent people from various racial and ethnic backgrounds.
This is not the first time that the Bank has grabbed headlines for all the wrong reasons. Two years ago, it had paid $7.8 million in back pay following allegations of discriminating against over 34,000 African American job applicants.
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