 | |
| Industry | Recruitment |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1946 |
| Founder | Leroy Dettman |
| Headquarters | Atlanta, Georgia, US |
Key people | Kathy George (President) |
| Owner | Randstad NV |
| Website | www.spherion.com |
Spherion [1] is a North American temporary work agency [2] [3] headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, that operates under a variety of brand names. [2]
Spherion was first known as City Car Unloaders, a Chicago [4] [5] [6] company created by Leroy Dettman and Joseph Perfetto in 1946. [2] [7] [8] They initially placed manual laborers in temporary jobs loading cargo. [4] Filling temporary clerk jobs was a service the company only later added. [4]
The company relocated from Chicago to Fort Lauderdale in 1969. [8]
By 1978, the firm was doing business as Personnel Pool of America, Inc, and was acquired by H&R Block. [8] In 1991, H&R Block acquired Interim Systems Corporation and combined it with Personnel Pool, creating a larger staffing services firm.
In 1992, the company changed its name to Interim Services Inc., and was spun off by H&R Block in 1994. [9] Interim [10] acquired a number of other companies over the next few years. [11]
The company, which changed its name to Spherion in 2000, [9] [11] was acquired by Randstad NV in July 2011. [12] [13]
Spherion has done business under a variety of brand names. The following brands are more or less current: Emerging Workforce, [2] The Mergis Group, [2] [3] [14] [15] SFN Group, [2] Sourceright Solutions, [2] [3] [16] Spherion, Spherion Recruitment Process Outsourcing, [2] [17] Spherion Staffing Services, [3] Tatum, [3] [18] Technisource [2] [3] [19] Victor Temporary Services, [8] Professional Nurses Bureau, [8] and Today's Office Professionals. [2] [3]
Cinda Hallman, a member of Spherion's board of directors beginning in early 1995, [20] replaced Raymond Marcy as Chief Executive Officer in 2001, a role that Marcy had held for over a decade. [11] Rebecca Rogers Tijerino became the CEO of Spherion in January 2019. Rogers Tijerino left the company and was replaced by Kathy George in February 2024. [21]
An "acquisition spree" that began in 1994 [22] led to Spherion's 1999 acquiring of an Atlanta-based rival. Norrell Corp. Part of Fort Lauderdale-based Spherion's board of directors wanted to move corporate headquarters to Atlanta, a conflict that ended when Marcy was replaced by Hallman in 2001. [11]
In 2001 Spherion made an initial public offering (IPO) of its London-based Michael Page Group, which it acquired in 1997. [23]
Spherion sold its Saratoga Institute to PricewaterhouseCoopers in 2003. [24]