Wells Fargo pauses policy that led to ‘fake’ interviews, reviews diversity guidelines

JACKSONVILLE. Fla. — In a letter to Wells Fargo employees, CEO Charlie Scharf announced it is pausing the policy that led to “fake” job interviews, some of which were with diverse candidates.

The letter read in part, “... there is opportunity to improve our implementation around some of our activities and in that light, we are conducting a review of our diverse slate guidelines and how they’ve been operationalized.”

>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<

[DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks]

Action News Jax reported in May when a local whistleblower, Joe Bruno, who worked as Wells Fargo’s market leader in Jacksonville, said the bank’s push for diversity led to the “fake” job interviews.

Read: Wells Fargo’s push for diversity leads to ‘fake interviews,’ whistleblower claims

Bruno claimed he was told by Wells Fargo leadership to interview for jobs that were already promised to someone else. At least one of the candidates had to be a female or a person of color.

The story was first reported by the New York Times, which prompted more employees to come forward and a temporary suspension of the policy.

Scharf’s letter said, “...we will temporarily pause the use of diverse slate guidelines for several weeks so that we have confidence that the guidelines live up to their promise, and so that hiring managers, senior leaders, and recruiters fully understand how the guidelines should work.”

“To me, it’s vindication. Plain and simple,” Bruno said. “What they’ve done in the past, they can’t undo. How do you fix the hurt; the harm that you’ve done to all these candidates in the past.”

Bruno was in charge of recruitment and diversity efforts within Jacksonville’s 14 branches. He said candidates who came in for “fake” interviews were given a score of one to five.

Read: 911 back up for residents using landline with AT&T

He said because the position was already guaranteed to someone else, they would have to knock down the scores for other candidates. Those scores are then kept on record if the candidate came back for future positions.

“That is the definition of being marginalized; disenfranchised. That’s what they’re doing. That’s what I was pushing against.”

Bruno said he was eventually fired in August 2021 after pushing back against the policy.

Wells Fargo’s chief executive said during the pause it will clarify its diverse slate guidelines, re-train and continue seeking feedback.

“Make no mistake: we will continue to actively seek diversity in hiring, even during this pause,” the letter said. “The pause is a chance for us to review our guidelines and processes and to make improvements.”

The company said it will make changes to the guidelines and plans to re-launch sometime in July.

Since 2020, a Wells Fargo representative said it put in guidelines requiring diverse candidate slates for the majority of jobs paying more than $100,000 a year.

Read: Gas prices crest $5 a gallon in 15 states

Wells Fargo said more than 42% of hires for annual compensation of $100K or more in 2021 were racially diverse, which is a 5% increase over 2019.

It added that more than 47% of those hires were women, compared to 46% in 2020.

“Diversity, equity, and inclusion is not a strategic initiative. It’s not complicated,” Bruno said. “Find a qualified individual and find other qualified individuals; some diverse, some not diverse. You put them in a pool and pick the number one candidate.”

He wrote an article providing examples of fake interviews. Click here to read it.

[SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter]

Click here to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here to stream Action News Jax live.