Kelly Services, Inc. is a Fortune 500

Fortune 500

The Fortune 500 is an annual list compiled and published by Fortune magazine that ranks the top 500 U.S. closely held and public corporations as ranked by their gross revenue after adjustments made by Fortune to exclude the impact of excise taxes companies collect. The list includes publicly and...

 company headquartered in Troy, Michigan

Troy, Michigan

Troy is a city in Oakland County in the U.S. state of Michigan, and is a suburb of Detroit. The population was 80,980 at the 2010 census, making it the 11th-largest city in Michigan by population, and the largest city in Oakland County...

, offering services that include temporary staffing services, outsourcing

Outsourcing

Outsourcing is the process of contracting a business function to someone else.-Overview:The term outsourcing is used inconsistently but usually involves the contracting out of a business function - commonly one previously performed in-house - to an external provider...

, vendor on-site and full-time placement.Kelly operates in 37 countries and territories. Kelly employs more than 530,000 individuals annually, in areas including office services, accounting, engineering, information technology, law, science, marketing, creative services, light industrial, education, and health care. Revenue in 2010 was $5 billion.

History

William Russell Kelly founded Russell Kelly Office Service in 1946, initially providing office services performed at Kelly's offices, rather than providing temporary staffing at the client's location. However, customers asked for the work to be performed at their locations, and the temporary staffing concept was born out of responding to this type of request. It was in 1946 that the first 'Kelly Girls' came into scope and the first 'Kelly Girl' was Adelaide Hess Moran who was able to demonstrate that this new working sphere for women could be one to enjoy.

The temporary workers, who were usually female, became known as 'Kelly girls'. In recognition of this, the name of the company was changed to Kelly Girl Service, Inc. in 1957. The term 'Kelly girl' became a widely used term for a temporary worker, regardless of the worker's company affiliation or gender. In 1966 the name of the company was changed to Kelly Services, Inc., in order to reflect an expanding range of services.

The current Chairman of the Board of Directors is Terence E. Adderley, and the CEO is Carl T. Camden.