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Milestones: Kaiser Whitney Staffing
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Business New Haven
11/24/2003
By: Melissa Nicefaro
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Kaiser Whitney Staffing
59 Elm Street New Haven, CT 06510
Tel: 203-562-0511 Fax: 203-562-2637
Web: www.kaiserwhitney.com
Ownership: Don Kaiser and family
Milestone: 25 years
Timeline: With a bachelor's degree from the University of Bridgeport in hand and four years of military service behind him, Don Kaiser joined the corporate world. After 11 years in sales, marketing and recruiting, he decided it was time to take his own destiny by the hand and start his own business.
So in August 1978, Don Kaiser opened his new franchise, Dunhill Staffing Systems, with an office in New Haven. Founded in 1952, Dunhill was in the late 1970s considered North America's premier search and staffing franchiser with offices throughout the U.S. Dunhill has about 100 offices today.
Kaiser's office specialized in sales and marketing, accounting and finance, office support personnel, legal staffing personnel and international executives. Placements began throughout Connecticut, grew to nationwide and are now taking place internationally.
The first major change to Kaiser's business came in January 1981. Due to the changing nature of the staffing business and employment trends, a temporary placement division was opened to complement the permanent recruiting business.
Another change came in 1987, when Irene Kaiser, Don's wife, sold her women's clothing boutique and joined the staffing business. Today, she is vice president of operations, handling accounts payable and receivable and filling in for inside service coordinators who oversee interviewing and testing aspects of qualifying temp candidates. The family business grew again eight years later, when son James joined the permanent placement side of the business.
In December 2002, the firm left the franchise system and became Kaiser Whitney Staffing. Despite the troubled economy, the staffing company has grown dramatically since leaving the franchise system, according to Kaiser.
Achievements and Accomplishments: A former Marine lieutenant, Kaiser wanted his independence and a destiny that he, rather than a corporation, could control.
"The corporate world was good for me to start in, but the company I worked for wanted to send me to Detroit or Houston, and I didn't want to go to those places, so I lost my job," Kaiser recalls. "Now I have control over my destiny."
"This was out of 250 offices and quite an accomplishment since most of the other cities in the competition were large cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Dallas and Detroit," Kaiser says.
Kaiser Whitney is a finalist in this year's University of Connecticut Best Family Business in Connecticut award.
Kaiser says there are many advantages to being a professional family business: "We have four family members who each use particular skills - between the family, we speak French, Spanish, German and Japanese. One generation is skilled in computer software and the older generation is still learning. We have the best of both worlds and offer clients good old-fashioned customer service - the way it used to be."
Looking Back on a Changing Industry: When Kaiser started his business, fees were paid by job-seekers. Now employers pay most fees.
Kaiser believes the staffing industry's reputation has also changed.
"We used to be looked at like we're poor stockbrokers," he says. "People were leery of recruiters and thought they were just making fees and not having the individual or company at interest. The stature of the whole industry has changed because there are more professional people who have come into the business - more mature people, and it's become a very professional field."
Internet job databases are not solely to blame for the shrinking industry. The Internet hasn't changed the recruitment world, according to Kaiser.
"It's simply not true," he says. "Only about six to seven percent of jobs are found through the Internet. Classified advertisements bring about ten percent, so that leaves a big gap of people finding jobs in other ways. Many are referrals and probably about 15 or 16 percent now are finding jobs through recruiting firms. That's a big switch from 25 years ago."
He notes that the Internet can be a dangerous way to job-seek as there's not a lot of security and privacy.
"As people post their résumés, their bosses are finding them," Kaiser says. "People have lost their jobs or the boss wants to know why they're looking for a new job."
Kaiser won't be looking for a new job anytime soon - on the Internet or elsewhere.
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