CEO of The Household

The past year has shown us a lot of things. About ourselves, about each other, but mostly about our priorities and how our lives need to shift to align with what we feel is most important to us. Feelings surely aren’t paying the bills, but between the shift to home offices and having an in-our-face example that life is alarmingly short, we’re learning that business decisions need to also support an ethos conducive to feeling actual happiness in our lives. Additionally, while Moms and Dads are both critical to the wholeness of the home overall, we’ve also seen the impact that a present Mom can provide to the household. Moms with kids, Moms who can’t swing paying for daycare with their paycheck, Moms with extenuating circumstances, Moms with kids who have special needs, caretaking necessities of family members, being a “stay-at-home Mom” is being redefined, is so important, and only just now the corporate world is acknowledging that either decision (working or stay at home) shouldn’t be a luxury or a sacrifice of a full-time job.

 

Companies are making a collective movement towards supporting an at-home approach to work, promoting life/work balance, but when does it become something that just looks good on paper? Let’s be honest, we’ve seen initiatives from corporations that look a lot like correcting the scales for the job and home (especially since COVID-19), but we don’t see much staying power. However, there is hope with the social and personal side of work in some companies, one being the tech company Bite Ninja. Bite Ninja’s goal is to take employment and turn it into a work experience that provides the time flexibility, at-home opportunity, and the support system to help you deliver to each aspect of your life without sacrificing another.

 

The Restaurant Tech, Customer Experience focused company, is changing the face of employer and employee relationships for the better. The company itself provides online order-taking through video conference, allowing the in-person employees to focus on making the food and getting it swiftly to the customers. During the pandemic, as we know, many restaurants had to close their lobbies due to staffing issues and would have signing bonuses or any incentive available just to get bodies in there to help. Now, restaurants that use Bite Ninja can reopen their lobbies and cut their staffing bills almost in half. In speaking to founder Orin Wilson, you quickly realize that while they are a tech company by trade, they are a people company by their long-term goals and merit. When I spoke to Orin, one of my biggest goals was to understand whether the company's end goal was to replace people with technology, but to my surprise, his answer was the opposite. Bite Ninja is going to be customer service, job creation and employment opportunity focused for the foreseeable future.

 

Before the pandemic, Bite Ninja employee Ostyn Abshere was a nurse specifically for mothers, mothers-to-be, and a mother of three herself. As a huge proponent and advocate for mothers and a very nurturing person by her nature, Ostyn was in her dream job. Through the pandemic, however, as departments of hospitals flipped from supportive specialty programs to COVID wards, Ostyn found herself in a position where she wanted to work in the same nurturing space she used to while also getting to be with her family and have schedule flexibility between being a mom, a wife, and having an incredibly meaningful career. Enter Bite Ninja. Ostyn saw an article about the company and what they were about and decided she needed to call them up and be a part of it. She started out as an order-taking Ninja, working around her kid’s school schedule, her newborn baby’s feeding schedule, and not having to sacrifice anything in between. Shortly after that, she moved into a leadership role as the Client Success Manager, getting to nurture others and even tell other moms her story, allowing others to have the same great experience she’s had with the company. She says that being a full-time mom and having a full-time career is entirely possible and compels other moms to understand this is a way for them to get to do it all, explaining; “I know what I needed, I know what they need, and I know I can help them.”

 

Her main message to Moms: You can do it all.

 

As the great departure from the typical employment structure continues and the freelance format becomes increasingly popular, companies like Bite Ninja will retain their employees. Not just because the schedule works, their family gets a full-time parent they wouldn’t have had, the pay is good, the opportunity is even better, but because these people who work for them are happy. Being a full-time employee no longer means sacrificing a piece of who you are, and Bite Ninja is a shining example of that.