Charleston hiring platform startup focuses on hospitality shift workers

In an effort to bounce back from economic and employment struggles through COVID-19, a Charleston native saw a gap in hiring in the hospitality industry and made an impact of his own. 

Earning a business degree from The Citadel, David Wise began his career path for a startup communications company in Atlanta. Soon after, he launched AVOXI, a communication platform to help businesses communicate globally, which he owned for 22 years. 

With a team of about 150 people working for AVOXI, Wise said he spent a lot of time learning the ins-and-outs of hiring people and working with recruiters. After selling AVOXI in 2022, Wise saw an opportunity in the hospitality industry to help revive the jobs lost during the pandemic.  

“In my experience running AVOXI over the years, a resume is a resume,” Wise said. “I got better at skills testing people over the years, but in an interview, everybody’s on their best behavior, and how do you really know if it’s a good fit?” 

In August 2022, Wise began putting together his second startup company and by the end of that year, he launched ShiftNow, a hiring platform for shift workers in hospitality. 

ShiftNow helps servers, hosts, cooks, and other shift workers to create a profile for employers who can hire them to work individual shifts when needed, as well as get a feel for the environment they want to work in. 

Restaurants such as the Charleston Crab House will direct new employees to work through ShiftNow before officially hiring them onto the team. Wise said this helps create a probationary period often seen in professional settings and through the ShiftNow app, they can see ratings from previous employers. 

“In the restaurant world, it can become a toxic cycle if you don’t really do that [probationary period], and I think a lot of restaurants see that happen primarily in back-of-house roles,” Wise said. 

Of every 1,000 applicants, 100 qualify to be on the app since a good bit of people drop out during the detailed onboarding process. The concept began exclusively hiring shift workers, but Wise said they have now expanded to include managerial roles and chef positions. 

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The app primarily serves local and independently owned restaurants through South Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee. Today, Wise said ShiftNow has seen about 1,000 businesses create an account on the platform. 

Wise said “gig-worker” companies like Instacart, Uber and DoorDash are popular in Atlanta, so ShiftNow has also shown success in the city.  

“It quickly distills down the essence of a good fit. And we’re placing people all over the place with our clients, we have a lot of really good success with our clients,” Wise said. “We’re not necessarily solving any kind of turnover issues, we’re just making it easier for people to connect and find that next place of employment.” 

Next for ShiftNow is going deeper into the markets it is currently in. Wise said the concept can appeal to areas across the U.S. but he hopes to grow where he is before further expansion.