Kelly Services, Inc. (formerly Russell Kelly Office Service and Kelly Girl Service, Inc.) is an American multinational office staffing company.
The company places employees at all levels in various sectors including
financial services
Financial services are service (economics), economic services tied to finance provided by financial institutions. Financial services encompass a broad range of tertiary sector of the economy, service sector activities, especially as concerns finan ...
,
information technology
Information technology (IT) is a set of related fields within information and communications technology (ICT), that encompass computer systems, software, programming languages, data processing, data and information processing, and storage. Inf ...
, and law.
Also, its
professional services Professional services are occupations in the service sector requiring special training in liberal arts and pure sciences education or professional development education. Some professional services, such as architects, accountants, engineers, d ...
include
human resource and
management consulting
Management consulting is the practice of providing consulting services to organizations to improve their performance or in any way to assist in achieving organizational objectives. Organizations may draw upon the services of management consultant ...
,
outsourcing
Outsourcing is a business practice in which companies use external providers to carry out business processes that would otherwise be handled internally. Outsourcing sometimes involves transferring employees and assets from one firm to another ...
,
recruitment
Recruitment is #Process, the overall process of identifying, sourcing, screening, shortlisting, and interviewing candidates for Job (role), jobs (either permanent or temporary) within an organization. Recruitment also is the process involved in ...
, career transition, and vendor management.
Kelly Services was founded by
William Russell Kelly in 1946 and is headquartered in
Troy, Michigan
Troy is a city in Oakland County, Michigan, Oakland County in the U.S. state of Michigan. A northern suburb of Metro Detroit, Detroit, Troy is located about north of downtown Detroit. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 87,294, ...
.
History
Founded in 1946 by
William Russell Kelly, the company was originally named Russell Kelly Office Service.
Services were provided in-house at the Kelly office. However, as customer offices grew and needed more resources, they began to ask for the Kelly employees to perform the work at their own offices. Temporary workers from Russell Kelly Office Service soon became known as ‘Kelly Girls’.
Adelaide Hess Moran, the first Kelly temporary employee to work at a customer’s office, was promptly dubbed the first ‘Kelly Girl’.
The temporary workers, usually female, became known as "Kelly girls",
and the company name was changed to Kelly Girl Service, Inc. in 1957.
Eventually "Kelly girl" became a widely used term for a temporary worker, regardless of company affiliation or gender. By 1966, the company had expanded to include industrial and technical services divisions and was renamed Kelly Services, Inc.
In 2008, Lynn Noyes was awarded $6.5million in damages from Kelly Services for failing to promote her because she was not part of the
Fellowship of Friends cult.
In 2015, the company reported 8,100 employees, $5.5billion in revenue,
making it one of the world's largest staffing firms.
In 2018, the company reported $5.5billion in revenue.
, the CEO is Peter Quigley.
In May 2024, Kelly Services acquired Motion Recruitment Partners for $425 million in cash.
See also
*
ManpowerGroup
References
External links
Official company website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kelly Services
Companies listed on the Nasdaq
Companies based in Troy, Michigan
Business services companies established in 1946
Management consulting firms of the United States
Human resource management consulting firms
Temporary employment agencies
Employment agencies of the United States
1946 establishments in Michigan