New Employee? Don’t Forget Their Professional Portrait.
Make professional portraits part of your employee onboarding process.
You hired someone new and marketing needs a photo for the announcement. What do you have?
Maybe it is a cropped wedding photo they give you, a headshot from their old job at your competitor or a tiny Facebook image that looked fine on a phone but was definitely not designed to be used on your website.
So you make one of those work for now, and 3 months later, that same photo is still there.
This happens all the time, but the good news is you already know exactly when you are going to need a new portrait: when you hire someone.
That is why we encourage our clients to make professional portraits part of the onboarding process. If you know someone is starting in 2 weeks, send us an email and we can get their portrait scheduled before their first day even arrives.
For several of our clients, this has become a pretty simple process.
Some companies schedule portrait days throughout the year. We might visit once a quarter and photograph everyone who has joined the company since our last visit. For companies with multiple offices, we can rotate locations so employees do not have to travel.
Other clients handle portraits one person at a time. We will get an email that says, “We have a new person starting in two weeks. Can we schedule their new portrait on their first day?”
Most of the time, we schedule it near the beginning or end of their day. They can come to our Grand Rapids studio, or depending on the company and situation, we can photograph them on location.
The nice part is that we already know what we are creating.
With clients like Hungerford, Structural Associates and Truism Center, we have photographed their teams before, so we already know the lighting, background, crop and overall style. Even if the original portraits were created years ago, we can create something that fits with the rest of the team.
That consistency matters because these are not ID badge photos. These are the images your clients and potential clients see on your website, in proposals, press releases, speaking announcements, LinkedIn profiles and other marketing materials.
They are outward facing images of the people representing your business, and you want the new person to look like they belong with the team.
Sometimes hiring someone new also starts another conversation.
“We need a portrait for Sarah, but looking at our website, everyone else's photos are getting pretty old too.”
That happens.
Maybe we photograph the new employee and update a few other people while we are there. Maybe it makes sense to schedule a larger portrait day. Or maybe everyone still looks great and we simply create one new portrait that matches what is already there.
The point is that you do not have to reinvent the process every time someone joins your company.
You already have plenty to do when someone new starts. There are computers to set up, paperwork to complete, introductions to make and meetings to schedule.
Their professional portrait does not need to become another project.
Instead, use the new hire as the trigger to engage us. Send us an email as part of the onboarding process and we will figure out the easiest way to get their portrait created.
Your new employee has enough to figure out during their first few weeks. Their professional portrait should be one of the easy things.