Fidelity Investments reviews

Career counseling: Many of us were told early in our career that you needed to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps when it comes to career planning. Essentially meaning, the cream will rise to the top, and the driven folks will figure it out. While there is merit in this strategy,it is outdated for the size of our company. Like many companies of our size it can become difficult to navigate. I feel that is why many of the comments on glassdoor related to this topic are correct from the perspective of the person writing the review. However, this is absolutely not the intention of senior leadership. The leadership team wants to hire college grads and watch them progress out of entry level positions and branch out throughout the business. The individuals who do, are generally immensely successful. The problem lies in the lack of programmatic career planning conversations and marketing of the internal opportunities and job matching. To their credit, the firm has recognized this issue and I have heard is working on building career centers to help facilitate these dialogues and career plans. I would expect comments related to issue to start to subside as this rolls out. To make a long story short, the sr. team has shown that they care and want to help find the solution. HR systems and training: Simply put, we have antiquated systems in HR, and training needs to be modernized to adapt to the way college grads learn. A better mix of classroom training integrated with a lacking digital solution that ties to our HR systems. HR system and staffing: HR needs an overhaul. Specifically in staffing. We have a very traditional model and staffing and HR are loaded with career HR and staffing people. We need to take a cue from Silicon Valley companies and add more business consultants and business leaders to the HR function to modernize it. We need to keep about a 1/3 of this business unit as traditional HR and Staffing consultants, but there is a serious lack of creativity and challenge of old processes because of the the similar backgrounds of everyone in the group. Until we do, we are destined to be average in this space.

Pay and bonus structure is significantly subpar - every time this is brought up you're reminded "how great" Fidelity's non-salary benefits are, which is somewhat true, however the fact that I have access to all kinds of benefits that don't apply to me ,or don't really have any personal benefit to me, personally, irrelevant. I can't pay rent, buy food, or pay all the other bills I have will my "great benefits." Money is the only thing that helps with that - and the salaries Fidelity pays, compared to the broader industry, are ridiculously low. Moreover, there have been numerous changes that have occurred in the last 12 months that are ostensibly to "make things better" for the customer, as well as the associate, but the net effect has been the opposite ... for both. They've basically significantly increased the scope of the role, while narrowing the performance metrics ... all while creating an increasing environment where it essentially makes it impossible for you to provide the positive experience the customer is expecting, and meet your goals. How this has played out out to associate is ... you can kiss making more than the bare minimum for your quarterly bonuses (which also ... in not very much at all) goodbye. Also, over the last 12 months or so, there seems to have been a dramatic concern with turnover, primarily among the associates who have been with the company less than 12 months. The company has become ridiculously preoccupied with finding ways to keep this demographic with the company that they're basically throwing everything but the kitchen sink at them in the misguided hope it will keep them from leaving. Basically ... they're focusing all their measures on increasing salary, compensation, and quality at work to the employees who have been there the least, and contribute the least to the company's overall functionality. I've been with the company, and in this function for years, and even though I've been given yearly bonuses and increases I sit next to people who have been licensed less than 6 months, and are making the same amount in salary as me, or more. It's really insulting, not to mention makes all the experienced, and seasoned employees feel extremely unappreciated. Then there's also the issue that performance and ability really have no bearing whatsoever towards promotions or recognition for achievement - the current situation at the location where I work reminds me more of my senior year of high school, and everything boils down to a popularity contest. The end result is you have people who weren't even competent to begin with and routinely failed to meet even the most basic of their performance metrics, being given increased levels of responsibility and management if they're "popular." Granted this exists to some degree or another no matter where you work, however the level I've witnessed over the years is on the order of 20 times worse than anything I've experienced in nearly 15+ years in the workforce.