Fidelity Investments

I generally like most of the people I work with.

Recently, I've been given multiple opportunities to learn new things, and management was willing to clear the day-to-day work so that I could do that.

As of late, management has been good at trying to strike a work/life balance (only recently, however).

Management has improved as of late to get a handle on workflow and communicate.

Fidelity has good reimbursement programs for health equipment, gym membership, and computer equipment. You do receive some financial services at a discount, like $8 trades, inexpensive portfolio management, and the like.

Fidelity does have the potential and resources to become an outstanding company.

Fidelity is absolutely out of control.

Fidelity promotes firefighters and not strategic thinkers. I've worked at other highly political companies, and Fidelity is absolutely the worst. This is because how one should succeed is not clear. Since success is difficult to measure and no career path has been mapped out, the schoozers win the day due to an ambiguous environment. I see that many cutthroat but ineffective managers are continually promoted. There are a handful of good managers out there, however.

In general, I find Fidelity a very difficult place to accomplish anything since the focus of mid-management and priorities change.

Merit review and the fact that it's called that is a joke, and we all know it. If an employee wants to find his/her true market value, find a new job. Don't wait around for Fidelity to make an adjustment for you.

Things are not clear when you are recruited, as far as the benefits package, profit sharing, and the 401K match.

Please ensure that mid-level managers actually emphasize good management techniques. Too often, managers spend too much time schmoozing instead of finding more effective ways of doing their job.

Generally, Fidelity has no clue how to manage IT and promotes internal know-nothings to manage enterprise-level systems with little formal training or experience. We should benchmark ourselves against comparable companies or competitors and not just strive for industry best practices, but actually practice them.

Some managers are very detail-oriented, but most want quick answers. Those with 'quick' (not necessarily right) answers are promoted fastest.

This view of firefighting is a cultural shift that senior management should be responsible for, since they created these mentalities in the first place. (It appears the shake-ups of top brass may do the trick).

It seems to me that employees who joined the company in the last 5 years are generally undercompensated or placed in the wrong "grade." This is because recruiters play a game of "how low can we go?" (This stinks when the employee realizes they've been had and there are better opportunities out there).

They have little accountability for their actions, since they are not with the company long after the hiring frenzy is over. Older employees, in some cases (there are some great senior employees out there), are extremely overcompensated and wouldn't stand a chance in an open market environment. In conclusion, the compensation system is totally out of whack.

Fidelity has recruited some talented people but has trouble either placing them in the right areas where they are best suited or unlocking those talented employees. I work on a talented, hardworking team, but we have difficulty getting anything done.

Embrace change and a cultural shift. This is what will make Fidelity a great company. I hope that the strategies that Senior Fidelity management has put in place to remedy some of these issues trickle down to the little guys. Only time will tell.