Fidelity appears to have made a business decision long ago in response to shrinking margins, automation, fee compression, and a more self-directed investor base. The problem isn’t the decision itself. It’s how that decision has been operationalized.
When a firm replaces professional judgment with opaque performance systems, “standards of care” stops being a value and starts being a slogan. The micro-management intensifies by design. Weekly one-on-ones. Additional check-ins. Maybe a "visit" from a market leader. More oversight framed as “support.” More and more metrics, but less trust.
I experienced this firsthand. It became a slow, unsettling realization that doing the right thing for clients and doing the right thing for the system were no longer the same thing. That tension doesn’t resolve, it accumulates. Over time, it wears you down. (Which I gather is the objective of a constructive discharge.)
Some people resign. Others try to hang on, only to find their work increasingly scrutinized, their judgment second-guessed, and their margin for error shrinking to zero.
It can be soul-crushing. (Which I think is the idea.) For those living it, the cost isn’t just professional, it’s personal.
Best wishes to everyone currently navigating that reality. If its any consolation, what that environment erodes isn’t talent, it’s morale and morale can be rebuilt quickly once you’re no longer inside a system designed to grind it down.
Bumped from @cf+1kh0ce72y, an on-point post.