The Kforce Story: 50 Plus Years of Great People Delivering Great Results

During 2002, Kforce undertook a complete restructuring of their organization. The process began by using a third-party organization to conduct exhaustive research through more than thirty client and candidate workshops over a nine-month period to fully understand the opportunities and challenges the customers, both candidate and client organizations, faced. What Kforce learned was the customer’s needs boiled down to one simple equation: they needed the right person at the right time at the right price. That simple but profound conclusion led to an all-out effort from the ground up to align the firm for the future with the customer at the forefront of all decisions. To echo that finding, Kforce modified its vision—“To be the firm most respected by those we serve,” and introduced a simplified message to the market—Great People = Great Results. To support the customer- centric focus, Kforce realigned the organization structuring their leadership according to geography instead of function to further improve the customer ’s experience. A tremendous amount of infrastructure alignment and improvement also began across virtually every system and process within the firm.

Ray Morganti (center) accepts the Professional Service Firm of the Year Award from the Tampa Bay Technology Forum on behalf of Kforce, 2002.

Acquisition and Integration as a Core Competency The primary lesson learned during the Romac/Source merger was that acquisition and integration are two very different processes. Determined not to duplicate those “hiccups” in future acquisitions, Bill Sanders called on Mike Ettore and Dustin Hicks to help him develop a disciplined and detailed process for integration. “Bill Sanders made integration the company’s top priority,” said David Kelly who is now chief financial officer. “The first thing we look at now in acquisitions is culture. If it’s not a cultural fit, I don’t care how good the numbers look, we’re not going to do it.” David recalled one visit to a company they were considering acquiring. “The guy kept looking at his blackberry and answering emails. He wasn’t fully engaged and if that’s who’s driving the firm, we know it’s not a good fit.” Once the acquisition is finalized, Mike Ettore’s Operations team is in charge of integrating the acquired entities’ systems and processes and formulating the plan for the most critical aspect—the integration of the people within Kforce. “Dustin and I put a plan together and brought in three consulting firms to evaluate it,” said Michael. With each subsequent acquisition, the plan was further honed. “The key to successful integration is communication,” he said. “We hold a ‘Welcome Aboard’ meeting and tell them everything they need to know to remove the anxiety and minimize the resistance. They leave after two days with a list of things that

The Most Memorable Day Throughout his career, Phil Bank has no doubt had numerous notable days. The one that shadows all others for him is September 11, 2001, the day that terrorists attacked the World Trade Center. “We were in New York in an office on 42nd Street and one side of the building faces Wall Street. All the employees saw the plane that crashed into the second tower of the World Trade Center. It was just one of those days that you’ll never forget. It was a terrible tragedy.” Fortunately no one from Kforce was injured or killed that day, but many of their clients, friends, and families were affected. “Some people left and went home,” Phil said, “and some people watched everything. It was surreal for weeks after that. It was probably the single most memorable day.”

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