Kelly Services history

In 1952 the rapidly growing Russell Kelly Office Services was reincorporated in Delaware as Personnel Service, Inc., and three years later, Richard Kelly opened the company's first branch office in Louisville, Kentucky.

1953 – Sales exceed $1 million.

By the end of 1955 Kelly boasted 35 offices in cities across the nation, and the company opened a new, larger national headquarters in Highland Park, Michigan.

The temporary workers, usually female, became known as "Kelly girls", and the company name was changed to Kelly Girl Service, Inc. in 1957.

In 1963 Kelly's New York office reported that 80 British women were employed there, up from 35 the year before.

By 1964 the company had expanded its operation to include 169 offices in 44 states.

In keeping with this goal, a survey in early 1965 indicated that more than one-third of Kelly's temporary employees had a college degree.

To reflect the broader scope of the company's offerings, Kelly Girl Service changed its corporate name to Kelly Services, Inc. in 1966, relegating the reference to "girls" to its office services sector, which became known as the Kelly Girl Division.

In 1968, Kelly Services opened its first international office in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Sales and revenues began to recover in 1972, however, as the economy on the whole picked up and acceptance of temporary workers increased.

Kelly still managed to notch records in sales and earnings for 1974.

The recession deepened in the first half of 1975, though, curtailing company growth more sharply and resulting in a decrease in sales and earnings for the year.

In 1977 Kelly again reported record growth, as its sales nearly doubled in just two years.

In 1978 Kelly revenues topped a quarter of a billion dollars for the first time, and the company moved into a new high-rise world headquarters in Troy, Michigan.

As a first step toward the extensive education and skills testing that would become necessary in the computer age, Kelly formed a professional training department and developed video training facilities in 1979.

Most of Kelly's healthcare offices obtained Medicare certification in 1982, qualifying them to provide services paid for by the federal healthcare program for the elderly.

Also during 1983, Kelly moved to install in all of its Kelly Girl offices a computer simulation program that could be used to test potential temps on word-processing programs produced by Wang, IBM, and Lanier.

As a follow-up to this effort, Kelly unveiled a new advertising campaign in business publications in January 1984, in an attempt to upgrade the image of temporary help.

By 1985 the Kelly network comprised 650 offices worldwide, filling jobs with 160 different service descriptions.

Throughout 1986 the company worked to install Kelly PC-Pro--the next generation of its clerical skills testing program, which covered the 11 leading word-processing packages--in its offices around the world.

The program was introduced to customers in early 1987.

Along with its steady expansion through the opening of new branch offices, whose numbers reached 800, Kelly embarked on a stint of acquisitions in 1988.

Foreign acquisitions continued in 1990, when Kelly Services purchased Competence ApS, a temporary agency in Denmark; Free-lance Uitzendburo in the Netherlands; and Adstaff Associates, Ltd. in New Zealand.

The downturn continued in 1992; sales rose to $1.7 billion, but earnings stayed flat at $39 million.

In 1995 Kelly expanded into the legal market with its purchase of the Wallace Law Registry, a temporary help service that provided clerks, paralegals, and even lawyers.

1996 – Establishes the industry’s first MSP program; now manages $7.2 billion in MSP spend.

By 1997 Adecco was the fourth largest temporary service in the United States, and its strong growth looked likely to push it past Kelly Services within a year.

2015 – One million workers are connected with employment opportunities through our staffing solutions and talent supply chain network of supplier partners.

2017 – Kelly acquires Teachers On Call®, expanding K-12 market presence.

2018 – Aligned with focusing on specialty solutions, Kelly Healthcare Resources is sold to InGenesis® and Kelly Legal Managed Services (KLMS) is sold to Trustpoint.One®.

2019 – Kelly expands engineering and telecom footprint with the acquisitions of Global Technology Associates, LLC and NextGen Global Resources, LLC.

2020 – CEO Peter Quigley works to end systemic barriers to employment by unveiling a new company initiative, Equity@Work.

2021 – Kelly celebrates its 75th anniversary as a global workforce solutions company.