I’m a photographer at a company that is national, but also regional (I think it might be a franchise?). Each region has a different Director of Operations and within each region there are also individual Area Managers. I can’t find very much information online on the official breakdown of operations.
Photographers are paid twice a month and solely on a commission basis (with supplemented wages if we aren’t making at least $15/hr). I’ve been working there for just over a year and a half. This year I’ve been averaging about $1500 every pay period but my first year I was averaging about $950. We don’t have guaranteed sales since the shoot is free and people later get the option to purchase their photos; also not everyone opts in to the photoshoot. My sales rate is around 40-50% which is comparable to the other photographers in my region.
In January they started offering high sales bonuses. Because the location I work is high volume I received a bonus every month. After 4 months they added the requirement the we also meet a shoot rate of 50%. Due to that same high volume it was physically impossible for me to meet that shoot rate, so I stopped getting the bonus. This month, they got rid of the bonus completely and are instead offering an additional 5% commission for all same day sales.
Recently they implemented a max time you’re allowed to spend photographing and editing, as well as a new policy that we finish editing before we go home. However, they have such specific standards (especially when it comes to editing) that, especially for new people, it’s hard to meet their levels of efficiency. I should also add that technically all employees are considered part time so no employee is allowed to work more than 35 hours a week (which I definitely exceed).
Finally to the gossip portion: According to one of the photographers who has been with the company for over a decade, our region’s Director of Operations makes over $1 million a year. She also said that the Area Manager from before the pandemic/shut down was paid $50,000. The manager who took over when we reopened was being paid $33,000 (this is the manager who hired me). The current manager (who is an amazing manager) is only paid $28,000.
Corporate says they can’t give her a raise because our stats and profits are so low – mostly due to high turnover, especially with new hires, and the fact that my location has been impossible to fully staff leading to lots of missed opportunities there. However my manager is required to be available for us to contact 7 days a week, does all of the hiring and scheduling, and is required to cover any locations that have photographers out that day. She’s been pregnant so she hasn’t been able to meet that requirement for the past few months, but she used to. She’s currently on leave to give birth and isn’t getting a paid maternity leave.
I would love to unionize (or you know, fully take down the company) but I’m not sure where to start. I know that a lot of the other photographers in my area are frustrated by a lot of this, so I can only imagine photographers in other areas are too. We also have a Facebook page where they’re constantly introducing new photographers, so I also imagine other locations also have high turnover.