(Bloomberg) — Wells Fargo & Co. fired more than a dozen employees last month after investigating claims they were doing fake work.
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The executives, all in the firm’s asset and investment management division, were “dismissed following an investigation into allegations relating to the simulation of keyboard activity that gave the impression of active work,” according to disclosures filed with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.
“Wells Fargo holds employees to the highest standards and does not tolerate unethical behavior,” a company spokesperson said in a statement.
Devices and software to imitate employee activity, also known as “mouse movers” or “mouse jigglers,” took off during the pandemic-boosted work-from-home era, with people trading tips for using them on social media sites Reddit and TikTok. Such gadgets are available on Amazon.com for less than $20.
It is unclear from Finra’s disclosures whether the employees Wells Fargo fired were reportedly actively working from home. The financial sector was among the most aggressive in ordering workers back to the office as the pandemic subsided, although Wells Fargo waited longer than rivals JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
San Francisco-based Wells Fargo began requiring employees to return to the office in early 2022 under a “hybrid flexible model.” The bank now expects that most employees will be in the office at least three days a week, with members of the management committee present. four days and many employees, such as branch employees, are in five days.
The nation’s fourth-largest lender has sought to grow in asset management under CEO Charlie Scharf and his deputy, Barry Sommers, who joined the company in 2020. The department was hit particularly hard by a series of scandals that broke out in 2016, causing advisers to flee by the thousands, taking lucrative clients with them.
The recent layoffs are reminiscent of another Wells Fargo episode from 2018, when the company investigated the investment bank’s employees for alleged expense policy violations after they tried to get the company to pay for ineligible evening meals.
–With help from Noah Buhayar and Dean Halford.
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