Reference no: EM133674026
What are the three practices that you assign the highest priority?
1: Tone from senior management- The stressfully enforced; daily, monthly, and yearly sales goals and the repercussions for not meeting them introduced two essential elements of the fraud triangle, motive, and rationalization. Managers were told to "Figure it out" when voicing concerns about these goals. (Whitman, 2018, pg. 133). In some cases, employees who complained about the pressure or tried to speak out were terminated and some were even blacklisted from working in the banking industry. (Whitman, 2018, pg. 132) Also, the "EthicsLine" that WF set up as a whistleblowing program was inadequate. (Whitman, 218, pg. 134)
2: Unrealistic sales goals- Managers and employees alike were constantly reminded of these sales goals with sayings like, "Eight is great", to set the bar on how many products each customer should hold with WF. (Whitman, 2018, pg. 131) Also, unusually high stress occurred every January with the "Jump into January" campaign where managers and bankers were pressured to have friends and families open accounts. (Whitman, 2018, pg. 135) There were even daily pressures from sales status calls which served as a real-time progress check on the daily sales quotas. (Whitman, 20148, pg. 134) These stressful and often unrealistic motives helped lower management and employees to rationalize their non-ethical behaviors and involvement.
3: Decreased employee permissions and increased internal audit permissions-
The fact the lower-end employees had the access to change customer e-mails, move funds and even set up new accounts without the customer knowing provided them with the means to an end. It also provided the last remaining fraud triangle element, opportunity. If the employees had less access, they and lower managers would not have had the means to perpetuate this scandal.
Had the internal audit function had increased access to all aspects of the data it was auditing, their purpose would be better served and the employee fraud would have been exposed sooner. With adequate permissions, they could have forewarned the board, better mitigating this risk. For example, examination of accounts only opened for short periods is a high-risk concern for an audit of a banking institution and only Community Bank management could access these details, not its internal auditors. (Whitman, 2018, pg. 133)