WFC Wells Fargo and Company

By Emily Glazer 

Wells Fargo & Co. has admitted it has culture problems related to its sales-practices scandal. Now, it is turning to an academic for help.

Chief Executive Timothy Sloan said at a company town hall Tuesday that the bank is aiming to survey all its roughly 269,000 employees about its culture, working with an academic who specializes in this area. The bank declined to name the academic, though the 20- to 30-minute survey will roll out in May.

The bank declined to say when the survey will be completed, but Mr. Sloan said the analysis and proposed actions will be shared with senior executives. He added that "high-level results" will be shared with bank employees.

"Our goal is to uncover our culture's positive attributes and its potential weaknesses, so our leaders can understand how best to foster an ethical, inclusive, and customer-focused culture," Mr. Sloan said.

The push comes at an opportune time. Earlier Tuesday, a regulator continued to jab at Wells Fargo about its culture problems. Federal Reserve Bank of New York President William Dudley said in remarks prepared for a speech in London that the Wells Fargo sales-practices scandal is just one example of how banks have to improve their cultures.

"There was a serious mismatch between the values Wells Fargo espoused and the incentives that Wells Fargo employed," Mr. Dudley said in prepared remarks. He has been one of the most outspoken regulators on bank culture in recent years.

Speaking at the bank's Orlando, Fla., event, Mr. Sloan echoed the criticism. "This is why our operating committee and I agree on this important point: If there's one thing we must get right as we lead Wells Fargo forward, it is our culture," he said according to prepared remarks.

Wells Fargo in September paid a $185 million fine over opening as many as 2.1 million accounts using fictitious or unauthorized customer information. It has since faced a barrage of public and political criticism and ongoing investigations.

Mr. Sloan said the San Francisco bank used a different type of survey for seven years about how engaged its employees are, including how they score on a happy-to-grumpy ratio.

Since the sales-practices scandal erupted in September, the bank has sent surveys to more than 110,000 employees about its culture, Mr. Sloan said. But it wants to dig deeper.

This isn't the first time Mr. Sloan addressed the culture problems facing the bank. In a late-October company town hall, he admitted "things that need to be fixed within our culture. There are weaknesses within it that we must change." He said that starts with understanding where things "broke down, and where we failed -- as a culture, a company and as leaders."

Mr. Sloan then said Wells Fargo would hire outside independent "culture experts" to help it understand where its weaknesses are.

The bank also has said the lofty retail-banking sales goals it has since done away with drove its culture. Those changes, along with restructuring how employees are compensated, will filter through the workforce and take time to change.

Wells Fargo isn't the only bank turning to academics for culture assistance.

Citigroup Inc. has an on-call ethicist it consults on "weighty questions of right and wrong, supplementing its armies of lawyers and compliance officers," according to The Wall Street Journal.

Write to Emily Glazer at emily.glazer@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 21, 2017 15:39 ET (19:39 GMT)

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