Lifetouch reviews

3.1

50% would recommend to a friend

(2,228 total reviews)
avatar

Ken Murphy

59% approve of CEO

27% positive business outlook

Lifetouch has an employee rating of 3.1 out of 5 stars, based on 2,228 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Lifetouch employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Media & Communication industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

2K reviews
1.0
Jun 22, 2012

Land of the Lost

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Coming in from outside the company I was given a strategic role, but mostly, it was a job.

Cons

Within 3 weeks of starting I knew I had made a mistake by taking the job. The best definition I could give of the company would be, "out of touch, scatterbrained, old, technologically lost, and just a failure of ability overall". Based on what I saw in the company I commonly referred to the company as a place where careers go to die and/or a career speed bump. The company has no real direction, other than harvesting and heading for winter. They still use operational techniques from 3 decades ago, which is alarming at best. They will spend heavily on things to fix low priority needs, but they never look at the big picture (pun), they spend more time comparing themselves to sliced bread than what they should actually be comparing themselves to, newspapers. Finally, it is great that they promote from within, but they promote based on time in the company and little else. The leadership in the company is out of touch and out of date, constantly trying to go back to the "golden days" instead of looking ahead. Any mention of change to them, seems to cause them to shiver, because they quickly kill the idea and talk about going back to the "golden days".

2.0
Apr 19, 2012
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Getting to know the families is wonderful. The photography experience and education is great (if you take control of your own training), and the interaction with guests can be a lot of fun. You will meet great people, and the hours of operation during non-peak seasons are pretty great for a retail driven environment.

Cons

Where do I begin? This company would not know what morale was if they took a 4 year workshop on it. Most of the time you are working in a single coverage environment, and when you are lucky enough to have a second or third person come in for a shift with you, you are too busy with guests to spend any real time coaching, developing, or "managing" your team - yet you are held to coaching expectations that are physically impossible, because you never see your staff. The DM plays a lot of favoritism in the district - so much that her star Studio Manager met her fiance through her. They will technically be related, yet HR does not see this as a reason to reposition anyone. The turn over is laughable. They must terminate a Studio Manager 5 times a year (that is basically once every other month). The DM has no actual experience, offers the district no support, and barely bothers getting to know any members of non-management. You are penalized for working overtime, yet the way they manage their labor you are unable to call someone in for an entire shift if you do not have enough appointments on your book - because you are required to work 40 hours, this means it is you that needs to stay - and in extension run into overtime. You will get phone calls at home at 9,10pm at night from other managers in the district for coverage, yet those managers are somehow the ones that manage to keep their jobs. It's laughable. They project that they are a guest service minded company, yet they continue doing things that impairs great service. They open your appointment book every 10 minutes, which basically means if one guest comes in late, or has a difficult time in the camera room your entire day is destroyed - then you get the majority of the guest complaints about long wait times, and are held responsible for that. Guests have been asking to eliminate those 10 minute appointments for years. You are not permitted to actually put your team on the schedule. You place them on "on call" shifts and they are expected to make themselves available to you with as little notice as 2 hours if your appointment book fills up for them - yet, your DM will not let you be flexible with them in regards to availability for school schedules, other jobs, etc. We expect them to be completely available for us, but then are forced to terminate them if they can not give us a consistent availability. It's part time. That is the entire reason people take part time jobs, for the flexibility. It makes difficult to keep a great team, and even harder to staff the studio. They are expected to work like animals twice a year during peak seasons, and the rest of the year they are lucky to have one 4 hour shift every 2 weeks. I'd never advise anyone to work for this company - stay far away.

1.0
Feb 7, 2011
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

I can work in my field

Cons

Underpays employees for the hard work Employees are forced to work alone with appointments forty minutes apart Management focuses on weaknesses and rarely rewards strengths Employees are expected to have an $80 sales average but have coupons for $7.99 packages and $3.99 sheets. Thus making it extremely hard to attain the wanted sales average. Lots of turnover so many employees do not know what they are doing or ever care if they do a good job. Therefore my studio has many angry customers due to frequent laziness. We are expected to solicit guests in the mall to come into our studio which usually gets one walk in for every hour an employee is soliciting and makes many frequent mall goes hate the studio. We are required to make telemarketing calls to past customers which only results in one sit for every 50-75 calls in my studio. Employees must have "on call" days which can vary from once a week to seven days a week. We are not paid for these "on call" shift either and the manger can call employees at any time during that shift and make them come in. Overall this job is seriously not worth it. I am planning on finding another studio to work for that actually appreciates its employees.

Viewing 13 - 15 of 2,228 Reviews

Glassdoor has 2,391 Lifetouch reviews submitted anonymously by Lifetouch employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Lifetouch is right for you.