Thread regarding Fidelity Investments layoffs

Failure starts at the top

The worst part about everything happening lately is the complete lack of accountability from senior leadership. They’re the ones who championed the Spotify model. They’re the ones who forced people into different roles to support it. They’re the ones who went on a hiring spree during the pandemic. They’re the ones who shut down overflow sites. They’re the ones who dragged their feet on AI adoption. And now they’re laying off some of their strongest supporters while forcing everyone else back into the office without a clear strategy or any acknowledgment that mistakes were made along the way.

Our department head held a Q&A today, and it felt like a wasted opportunity. This could have been a moment for honest discussion about the layoffs and reassurance for employees. Instead, it came across as heavily managed dramatics. Submitted questions were either ignored, removed, or reworded in ways that changed what people were actually asking. There still weren’t any answers about the reasoning behind the layoffs or the return-to-office push. They said employees should stay home when sick, but also warned there are consequences for missing too many days without defining what that means. Then the meeting ended with comments about how stressful this situation has been for leadership and suggestions that employees seek therapy to cope.

If a workplace is creating so much stress that employees are being told to talk to a therapist, maybe leadership should reflect on what that says about the environment. People who dedicated years to Fidelity are now worried about supporting their families, finding new jobs, or remaining in the country, and leadership wants sympathy for how difficult this has been on them? Pardon the language but b!tch please.

Don’t talk about transparency while filtering out uncomfortable questions. Don’t frame this as a shared hardship when employees are paying the price for leadership decisions. Whatever culture used to be here years ago is long gone. The rot is here and it won't go away because it starts at the top.


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| 5 views | | 12 replies (last 29 days ago) | Reply
Post ID: @OP+1krerh6ct

12 replies (most recent on top)

We are just making the Johnsons richer. I wish they could see how they have demoralized even the best employees. Sat on team meeting today and watched faces and it was just so sad. Doing the absolute bare minimum and approaching everything with apathy. I don’t even have the energy to vent in meetings.

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Post ID: @ep+1krerh6ct

@db it's data-driven when the rest of us need to make decisions. When the top makes a choice they can go off thoughts and feelings. They feel we work better in an office therefore it's back to the office, data be damned!

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Post ID: @e3+1krerh6ct

@b0 , good point, but Abby is a feckless leader, so that will never happen. There's not a humble or empathetic bone in her body. I think she ascribes to the notion that leaders at her level do better when they lack empathy. My VP once told me about that concept when Emotional Intelligence was all the rage, and he believed in the concept himself.

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Post ID: @de+1krerh6ct

Where's the data? We're supposed to be data-driven but never get any data to support these decisions. We all know the numbers exist which means if they aren't showing it then it doesn't say what they want it to say.

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Post ID: @db+1krerh6ct

Where is the leader of this company, the CEO, the head of the family. How about some accountability, send something out, make video message, something c'mon.

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Post ID: @b0+1krerh6ct

@aa No seriously, this is exactly it. Maybe instead of telling employees to “talk to a therapist,” leadership should ask why so many people are stressed, paranoid, and burned out in the first place. Everyone’s pretending this is “business as usual,” but nobody believes it anymore.

You can hear it in people’s voices on calls. We're all exhausted, checked out, afraid to say the wrong thing. Meanwhile leadership keeps rolling out canned messages that sound like they were generated with Copilot - while ourteams get gutted and workloads double.

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Post ID: @az+1krerh6ct

@ab you're right. They tell us we're doing what so and so other big company did and that's the end of it until the next reorg.

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Post ID: @ay+1krerh6ct

I would not describe them as leaders but more like followers. Most are only interested in managing up to better their own careers and I wouldn't expect anything regarding the layoffs except for the talking points that were given to them to read. The last few years has been nothing but constant change. Seems to me like the constant change is a reflection of not being able to get good leadership in there after so many senior people left during the VBOs

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Post ID: @ab+1krerh6ct

If a workplace is creating so much stress that employees are being told to talk to a therapist, maybe leadership should reflect on what that says about the environment.

This might be the best summation of working at big green I've ever read. I got out a year ago but still know a lot of good people there. A few less after last week's layoffs. At the time I thought that maybe I had gotten unlucky with a toxic team but the more I hear the more I realize the culture itself was toxic. So many people breaking their backs to make a billionaire and her friends richer.

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Post ID: @aa+1krerh6ct

If it's the call I think you mean @OP then I agree all the way. By the end I was waiting for them to shed a fake tear. Is anyone buying what they're selling?

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Post ID: @a9+1krerh6ct

@OP agree to every word and if this was done to cut high paying employees and redundancy how come no senior leader lost their job ? Aren’t they most expensive ? Out of 1k employees cut I see 2 SVP .. what a sham

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Post ID: @a8+1krerh6ct

Fidelity's leaders should be ashamed but that would require them to be able to feel shame. Ned must be rolling around in his grave, rest in peace. I didn't agree with everything he did but he never showed the lack of respect for employees that we see today.

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Post ID: @a6+1krerh6ct

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