WORKPLACE DIVERSITY: A CONSCIOUS CORPORATE EFFORT-WELLS FARGO’S STORY.

 In the early years of the 1900s, women were not allowed to generally work in conglomerates and other big firms with a notion that their work was bound to the home: taking care of their kids, seeing to it that there is food in the home and the general wellbeing of their husbands and home. This was seen as a form of domestication of women with a few that had been able to break through the corporate ceiling calling for better reforms with better inclusion as they had more offer than being homemakers. The fight by the Civil Rights Movement in the early 1900s also had the longing of women to break the customs as at then with a move for women being treated equal and having the same rights to work and earn income as a subtle by-agenda of the movement. Some known faces and names that helped championed these subtle wars for cognition and empowerment were, Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons who was a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and also went on to become a project director for the Mississippi Freedom Project); Diane Nash, who was an unsung hero in the fight for better cognition of civil rights and the rights of women in particular in the field of work among other areas where the society needed to accord the necessary respect and associated financial kickbacks to such workers and ladies; and also among the many other names that have spearheaded this fight are Doris Adelaide Derby and Ruby Nell Sales whom were both also in the  Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) (www.usacongress.gov ).

Therefore, how does this translate into a fight for same level of equality in the workplace? After both World War I and World War II, there was a shortage of manpower in the industrial spaces which led to an upheaval first of societal norms as at then that women could not do certain forms of work or could not do it as well as men. This shortage of able-bodied men gave rise to women also exercising their rights to work and even prove prowess in the fields of science amongst others (Killingray, 1978). In lieu of this come-to-work move for women, the International Labour Organization (ILO) after several agitations by women within the working community of remuneration disparities between them and the men performing similar tasks to them, The Equal Remuneration Convention was formed in 1951 to smoothen out and also review how workers are remunerated with a focal consideration on bridging the gap of pay disparities for women and men in the same field of work (International Labour Organization, 2004).  According to an article by the American think-tank, Pew Research Center, as at 2022, for the work that both men and women did across the United States, with both full-time and part-time works in consideration, these women earned 82% of what their male counterparts performing same duties earned across a myriad of industries. In a similar research, the U.S Census Bureau also conducted likewise with a focus on full-time workers and also arrived at an 84% to 100% match for women and men respectively in the U.S economy. (www.pewreasearch.org ).

To achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, gender equality must be enhanced across diverse spheres of life. Does gender equality contribute the financials of firms or to economic growth of countries? According to Kabeer and Natali (2013), there exists a form of asymmetrical relationship between gender equality and economic growth. Per empirical review, they established that organizations and countries with better gender equality have a relatively win-win situation based on some criteria both concepts are hinged on, but where there is a reverse causality for economic growth affecting gender equality is what is yet to be established but conclusions remain debatable.

 

Wells Fargo’s Contribution

Wells Fargo as a multinational company seeks to ensure there is diversity in the workplace, that issues of pay equality regardless of gender or race are dealt with expeditiously. From the company’s year on year report on diversity and equality reports, the 2022 report showed a 47% male to 53% women global employee demographics ratio on the basis of gender. This is a commendable feat for the bank.

Source: Author’s Construct.

Out of a governing board of 14 persons, 5 of them are women per this same report. This goes on to show that the glass ceiling which limited most women from having the ability to contribute at the highest echelons of power is being shattered by Wells Fargo’s conscientized contribution to total liberation of women in the field of work (www.wellsfargo.com ).

Source: Author’s Construct.

On the issue of gender pay gap, the London office of the Wells Fargo posted a report in 2020 with the following details disclosed, the mean pay gap (hourly pay) for women to men in the office was 23.2% with a median pay gap of 11.8%. There was also a 40.3% mean pay gap with regard to Bonuses paid and a 36.6% median pay gap for Bonuses (www.sites.wf.com ).

 

 

	Mean	Median
Bonus	40.3%	36.6%

 

	Mean	Median
Hourly Pay	23.2%	11.8%

 

Does workplace gender equality contribute to the financials of a firm? It has already been established by Kabeer and Natali (2013) that there indeed exists an asymmetric relationship between gender balance and economic performance in countries and ergo in firms within such countries. Although Wells Fargo has not explicitly stated a measurable correlation of year-on-year matchups of improved gender balance culminating in improved financials, it is an area of study I much fascinate in and would suggest more work be done to establish and further understand this correlation.

In conclusion, workplace diversity borders on so much more than just gender diversity but goes on to include race, ethnicity and even social background into the equation. The success and going concern status of Wells Fargo can be attributed to a host of reasons both controllable and uncontrollable factors alike; and like all these factors, Wells Fargo’s commitment to workplace diversity and a continual improvement in gender balance at different levels of management could be said to be a contributory factor to its success story and should be a case in point for any other firm with the Sustainable Development Goals in mind.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

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Gender pay gap in U.S. hasn’t changed much in two decades. [Accessed from: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2023/03/01/gender-pay-gap-facts/#:~:text=The%20gender%20gap%20in%20pay,%2D%20and%20part%2Dtime%20workers on 25^th March, 2023 at 8:00pm]

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Gupta, G.R., Oomman, N., Grown, C., Conn, K., Hawkes, S., Shawar, Y.R., Shiffman, J., Buse, K., Mehra, R., Bah, C.A. and Heise, L., 2019. Gender equality and gender norms: framing the opportunities for health. The Lancet, 393(10190), pp.2550-2562.

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International Labour Office. Bureau for Gender Equality, 2004. Promoting Gender Equality: Guide on ILO Conventions and Recommendations of Particular Concern to Women Workers. International Labour Organization.

Kabeer, N. and Natali, L., 2013. Gender equality and economic growth: Is there a win‐win?. IDS Working Papers, 2013(417), pp.1-58.

Killingray, D. (1978) “Repercussions of World War I in the Gold Coast,” The Journal of African History. Cambridge University Press, 19(1), pp. 39–59. doi: 10.1017/S0021853700015942.

Morrison, A. and Morrison, A.R., 2007. Gender equality, poverty and economic growth.