Micro management, double standards, and politics reign supreme. - Account Executive Fidelity Investments Employee Review

We are hired for our past successes in planning, sales and relationship management, but then mircro managed and questioned for every single action beyond belief. It is hard to work here and maintain a sense of self respect and dignity! ~Phone calls are listened-in on by management, and then your conversation with an existing elderly client is called in to question, like, why did you waste 5 minutes talking to her, continuing to build that "relationship", and looking up the status of the TOA for her, when you simply could have forwarded her to the call center cust service team? Seriously? Every rep in my branch has suffered a similar type of encroachment. ~Management will occasionally either sit in to observe an appointment, or they will have you dial their extension and listen remotely from their office phone. It is an arbitrary and random decision as to which appointments they "join", but really, nothing shakes the confidence of a HNW prospect more than thinking the advisor they are here to see is undergoing some sort to management oversight!! It doesn't matter how well the manager justifies it to the prospect, they are thinking, "run"!! Every rep in my branch has suffered a failed appointment due to this hideous micro-management. ~Fidelity preaches the relationship model, putting the customer needs first, holistic financial planning, blah blah, then really only cares about what products you "sold" to each client. Management is very very short-sighted. An appt where you meet with a multi-million $ prospect preparing for retirement in a few months, building the relationship, developing trust, laying ground work for all future wealth planning, is not regarded as a successful appointment or very good use of your time, because it did not result in actual "business" today. ~Fidelity is bombarding their clients with a never-ending barrage of email, mail, just non-stop marketing, all on the S/AE behalf, which drives most clients absolutely nuts. ~They only care about whether or not you are completing the menial "tasks", like clicking all the appropriate buttons in siebel. You are tracked and watched and measured on every single little thing you can imagine. How many clicks you clicked. How many times you dialed out...And all your numbers that are tracked are not only to ensure you are being a busy little bee, but the manager is rated on how many little clicks and menial tasks his/her advisors are doing. It's really all about how to make the manager look good to his/her manager! ~Management at the branch level is extremely lame. They want to treat you like a child, and keep you fearful, knowing every little move is being tracked and watched. Like I said, it is hard to maintain a sense of dignity and self respect in an environment like this. Those who can brown nose management, and are otherwise spiteful, political and backstabbing (to fellow colleagues) do well here. Success is: just tell management what they want to hear, and slam clients into products to satisfy management... Those with little talent and integrity stay, endure, and ultimately get promoted, perpetuating the bad leadership. They stay, put up with the games, and endure because they realize they could not make it anywhere else (except, perhaps, on a used car lot). Those with talent, integrity and truly good planning skills leave for a saner environment. ~Clients in the S/AE book are very frustrated by the fact that every time they get assigned a new S/AE, and they happen to like that advisor and feel that they are working with someone with knowledge and integrity, that advisor ends up leaving. They keep getting turned over, until ultimately, they will end of in the book of one of the talentless, low-integrity bozos that never leave, or, they will just TOA out of Fido. ~Management, by their own admission, have never worked in our S/AE role as it is currently designed. The "relationship" model is relatively new, and as reps, they only served customers that were fed to them by the "green machine" on a transactional, not relationship, model. I think that disconnect helps explain the double standard; why they focus on tracking/forcing transactional business while falsely preaching relationship development. They like to talk about how successful "they" were in the role...but yeah, if all I had to do was take inbound calls and leads, roll the assets over and slap the client in PAS, funds, and/or FILI, then just move on to the next one with no follow up or relationship accountability...well, heck, any moron could do that.