Like numerous banks in the past weeks, U.S. Bank scrubbed mentions of diversity, equity and inclusion from its latest annual filing, published Friday.
Gone from Friday’s filing is a three-paragraph section that was present in last year’s 10-K, detailing DEI efforts. Most notably, the bank’s pledge to interview at least one woman or person of color for all roles is absent from Friday’s filing.
U.S. Bank would not be the first major lender to de-emphasize such a policy. Citi, in a memo Thursday to staff, noted it is scrapping its previous requirements for diverse rosters of candidates for job interviews, and panels of diverse interviewers.
Also missing from Friday’s filing is a breakdown of U.S. Bank’s workforce by demographics. Last year’s document noted that 57% of the company’s U.S. employees were women and 39% were people of color. The previous filing also indicated that 34% of employees at the bank’s executive and senior management levels in the U.S. were women and 21% were people of color.
This year’s filing provides no such data, but it should be noted the Minneapolis-based lender has said its president, Gunjan Kedia – who is both a woman and a person of color – will become its next CEO as of April 15.
Not every bank has been so thorough in downplaying its previous DEI highlights. Morgan Stanley last week also wiped several DEI references from its annual filing but left in a demographic breakdown of its workforce.
References to equity in U.S. Bank’s paperwork were deleted even at the subheading level. Last year’s section on “Equitable and Competitive Compensation, Health & Wellness Programs” was retitled simply “Compensation, Health & Wellness Programs.”
Further, “flexible work” is no longer highlighted as an employee benefit in U.S. Bank’s filing from Friday. The bank, last March, mandated that employees work from the office three days a week. Thus far, there hasn’t been a public indication that that is changing. But its absence from the latest paperwork arguably leaves open that possibility.
By comparison, the bank’s February 2024 filing included the statement: “The Company continues to support flexible work programs with remote and in-person work arrangements, providing additional optionality and flexibility for most employees, which helps the Company attract and retain talent. The Company continues to adapt and evolve its flexible work programs as it recognizes the changes to employee and customer priorities and its customers’ and employees' changing needs.”
Also missing from Friday’s filing are huge swaths of language on pay equity, including a statement from last year’s document that U.S. Bank “remains committed to fair pay and continues to prioritize pay equity efforts,” and that it “has processes to address any gender and racial pay inequities identified within its workforce.” Rather, this year’s filing details only that the bank “maintain[s] competitive compensation and benefits practices” and discloses a compensation range for open positions to help with pay transparency.
The bank struck from its filing that it “conducts periodic reviews of base pay … across gender and racial categories with the assistance of an independent third-party consultant.” It also dispatched with a disclosure that its women employees “were paid greater than 99 percent of what their male counterparts were paid,” and that U.S.-based employees “were paid greater than 99 percent of what their white counterparts were paid.”
U.S. Bank would not be the first major lender to strike that language, either. Capital One’s most recent annual filing Thursday no longer includes verbiage describing pay comparisons by gender or race.
Mentions of U.S. Bank company-sponsored business resource groups based on ethnicity, LGBTQ, veteran or disability status – included in last year’s filing – were not included Friday.
