In an era dominated by polished soundbites and highly curated brand messaging, the lived realities of working-class personnel are frequently absent from institutional stories. Understanding the true mechanics of retention, workplace stress, and community care requires stepping away from traditional surveys and leaning into the unhurried, rigorous practice of oral history.
Our latest featured project presents a deep-dive interview conducted for the Library of Congress’s COVID-19 American History Project. We sat down with Kami Onikosi—a multi-hyphenate actor, author, and professional mixologist—to document her firsthand experiences navigating impossible corporate brand standards, severe understaffing, and the changing landscape of service labor.
By preserving these raw memories exactly as they are recalled, we demonstrate how to look past surface-level employee data to capture the deep, human-centered insights that organizations need to truly understand the people who keep their communities moving.
Behind the Research: What This Demonstrates to Our Clients
This piece serves as a direct portfolio example of our elite fieldwork, archival research, and ethnographic inquiry capabilities. We know how to partner with premier national institutions, work closely with local communities, gain deep human trust, and surface the critical qualitative data that standard surveys can never reach. It also showcases our ability to translate complex corporate labor dynamics and institutional stress into deeply compelling, research-grounded narratives. We can help organizations, nonprofits, and advocacy groups examine frontline worker feedback to identify structural vulnerabilities, build ethical workplace messaging, and write impactful stories that connect with real readers.
Read the full feature, “Meet actor, author & mixologist Kami Onikosi,” on Substack.
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