Who We Are

The Ōnin Group is a privately held multi-regional staffing agency serving the Southeast, Mid-south, Midwestern and Southwestern United States. We are among the top three percent of domestic staffing companies in sales volume and feature the most sophisticated staffing industry technology and hiring practices available today. In spite of our size, we have maintained the highly personalized service and partnership mindset indicative of a smaller, less bureaucratic company.

Founded in Dallas, Texas in 1994 by Managing Partner Keith Phillips in borrowed office space, armed with only folding furniture, a phone and a desire to provide for his young family; ours is a Cinderella story. Through the 90s the business grew under the name InStaff Personnel as Keith brought in other partners including The Onin Group’s Managing Partner Hugh Thomas. As InStaff grew from 1 to 35 offices in the 1990’s, Hugh drove growth in Alabama and Mississippi and Keith focused on Texas and Arizona. The relationship between Hugh and Keith flourished as Keith’s Texas partners began to move in other directions. In 1999 Keith sold his share of InStaff Texas and held on to 8 offices with Hugh in the South.  

As the now Alabama based company rounded the corner into the new millennium, we were running around $8 million in gross revenue. Between 2001 and 2007 we experienced exponential growth hitting $70 Million in sales in 2007. While many other staffing services have faltered in recent years, experiencing revenue and earnings losses, The Ōnin Group has enjoyed impressive yet responsible growth. We have built our business organically, by empowering our staff and developing strong long-term client relationships.

We are currently tracking for $125 Million in annual sales and are debt free. Although our growth to this point has been largely organic, we did make a very successful acquisition of Mulberry Personnel in North Carolina November of 2007. More recently in 2009 we executed two earn-out acquisitions in Dallas and then in 2011 we purchased Reliable Staffing on the Gulf Coast. Also in 2011 we stepped off into a joint venture with a boutique staffing firm, Moxy, out of Birmingham. Our lean, localized command structure made it very easy for these companies to fold into our organization. Because of tight credit market and our strong cash position we believe that acquisitions will be a major part of our future growth and expanded service capabilities.