Employee Spotlight: Holly Lin, Business Operations Manager

Our mission at Instawork is to create economic opportunities for local businesses and professionals, globally. In order to achieve that mission, we have built a team composed of talented and hard-working individuals who are passionate about connecting skilled hourly professionals with local businesses who need their services.

Our Employee Spotlight series takes the opportunity to highlight members of our team and to give a glimpse into our culture and what it’s like to work at Instawork. To highlight the diversity of our team, we’ve asked Holly Lin, Business Operations Manager, to share more about her experience working at Instawork.

What do you do at Instawork and how long have you been with the company?

I am a Business Operations Manager at Instawork and I have been with the company for two years. I originally joined Instawork to help launch our business in Canada. My first few months here involved posting flyers across the city, making TikToks to spread the word, and even driving our Professionals to their first Instawork shifts.

Once the company was up and running in Toronto and Vancouver, I diverted my efforts to launches in additional U.S. cities.

I’m now focused on strategic initiatives and thinking through how we can provide the most value to our Partners and Professionals. Every new day at Instawork presents itself with new challenges and learning opportunities. There is never a dull moment here and there is always something exciting to work on.

What initially attracted you to Instawork?

I was initially attracted to Instawork because my mentor, Alex, joined the company as the GM of Canada to spearhead the Canadian launch and I found out he was looking for his first Canadian employee. I knew Alex to be a great professional mentor and a successful leader in his previous company, so I was excited by the opportunity to follow him to his next adventure. I’ve also always wanted to join a mission-driven company where I could make an impact. Instawork’s values really resonated with my own.

While I originally joined Instawork because of my mentor, I stayed once I realized the impact we were making on real people’s lives locally. I first launched Instawork in Toronto, which is where I grew up after my family immigrated here in 2000. They are small business owners who still work in a hair salon to this day.

In Toronto, COVID lockdowns had storefront doors closed for over a year, which left a big financial and emotional toll on many local business owners and workers. I joined Instawork around the time that COVID restrictions started to ease, so I was excited to provide staff for the big backlog of events. I worked shifts at weddings that had been delayed two years because of lockdowns, met other hospitality workers who had been out of work for just as long, and provided local businesses with reliable staff to meet the sudden surge of demand. I never expected the impact I’d be making at Instawork to be so fulfilling and so close to home, but am incredibly grateful to be in a position to help others locally.

What's your favorite part of your job?

My favorite part of my job is meeting the Professionals and Partners who use Instawork every day. Our company’s Work-A-Shift initiative ensures that all of our employees also take time to remind themselves of how important our mission of providing economic opportunity truly is.

I am inspired by the grit and dedication of our Professionals who take pride in their quality of work and always put their best foot forward. I am overjoyed when a Partner goes out of their way to thank me for finding them a great worker who saved the day at their event or worked so hard that they finished their project early. I love that our marketplace facilitates these matches and hearing the great stories that result from them.