自動資料處理 (ADP) 2020 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Good morning. My name is Shannon, and I will be your conference operator. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to ADP's Third Quarter Fiscal 2020 Earnings Call. I would like to inform you that this conference is being recorded. (Operator Instructions)

早安.我叫香農，我將擔任你們的會議接線生。在此，我謹代表ADP公司歡迎各位參加2020財年第三季財報電話會議。我想告知各位，本次會議正在錄影。（操作說明）

Thank you. We will now turn the conference over to Mr. Danyal Hussain, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

謝謝。現在我們將把會議交給投資者關係副總裁丹尼爾·侯賽因先生。請繼續。

Thank you, Shannon. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining ADP's Third Quarter Fiscal 2020 Earnings Call and Webcast. Participating today are Carlos Rodriguez, our President and Chief Executive Officer; and Kathleen Winters, our Chief Financial Officer.

謝謝你，香農。各位早安，感謝各位參加ADP 2020財年第三季財報電話會議及網路直播。今天出席的有我們的總裁兼執行長卡洛斯·羅德里格斯，以及我們的財務長凱瑟琳·溫特斯。

Earlier this morning, we released our results for the third quarter of fiscal 2020. The earnings materials are available on the SEC's website and our Investor Relations website at investors.adp.com, where you will also find the investor presentation that accompanies today's call as well as our quarterly history of revenue and pretax earnings by reportable segment.

今天早些時候，我們發布了 2020 財年第三季的業績報告。收益資料可在 SEC 網站和我們的投資者關係網站 investors.adp.com 上查閱，您還可以在那裡找到今天電話會議的投資者演示文稿以及我們按報告分部劃分的季度收入和稅前收益歷史記錄。

During our call today, we will reference non-GAAP financial measures, which we believe to be useful to investors and that exclude the impact of certain items. A description and the timing of these items, along with a reconciliation of non-GAAP measures to their most comparable GAAP measures, can be found in our earnings release. Today's call will also contain forward-looking statements that refer to future events and involve some risks. We encourage you to review our filings with the SEC for additional information on factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from our current expectations. As always, please do not hesitate to reach out should you have any questions.

在今天的電話會議中，我們將提及非GAAP財務指標，我們認為這些指標對投資者有用，並且排除了某些項目的影響。有關這些項目的描述和時間安排，以及非GAAP指標與其最可比較GAAP指標的調節表，請參閱我們的獲利報告。今天的電話會議還將包含一些前瞻性陳述，這些陳述涉及未來事件和一些風險。我們建議您查閱我們向美國證券交易委員會提交的文件，以獲取有關可能導致實際結果與我們目前預期存在重大差異的因素的更多資​​訊。如有任何疑問，請隨時與我們聯繫。

And with that, let me now turn the call over to Carlos.

那麼，現在讓我把電話交給卡洛斯。

Thank you, Danny, and thank you, everyone, for joining our call. Before we begin, I want to first say that our thoughts and prayers are with those who have been or know someone who has been impacted by COVID-19. Everyday, we hear about how much of a challenge it has been for employers and workers alike, including our own. I'd like to recognize our associates for rising to the challenge and delivering exceptional service to our clients despite the extraordinary circumstances they've had to face. To them, I want to say thank you.

謝謝丹尼，也謝謝各位參加我們的電話會議。在開始之前，我想先表達我們對那些受到 COVID-19 影響的人以及認識受到 COVID-19 影響的人的慰問和祈禱。每天，我們都能聽到雇主和員工（包括我們自己的員工）都面臨著多大的挑戰。我要表揚我們的同事們，感謝他們勇於迎接挑戰，在如此特殊的情況下依然為客戶提供了卓越的服務。我想對他們說聲謝謝。

For our discussion today, we'll spend a little less time talking about the third quarter and more time on the current operating climate, and I'd like to offer a couple of upfront points.

今天的討論，我們將少花點時間談論第三季度，多花點時間討論當前的經營環境，我想先提出幾點看法。

First is that ADP is not immune to the global pandemic's impact on the labor markets. But while we may make tactical adjustments as we navigate through this crisis, we believe our long-term strategy is unaffected. And we remain optimistic about how we're positioned over the coming years once the business environment and our clients return to more normal operations.

首先，ADP 也無法免受全球疫情對勞動市場的影響。雖然我們在應對這場危機的過程中可能會做出一些戰術調整，但我們相信我們的長期策略不會受到影響。我們仍然對未來幾年商業環境和客戶恢復正常營運後的發展前景持樂觀態度。

The second point is that we will continue to serve our clients in the way we know best, by offering the tools, resources and support they need to manage their business and their workforce through all types of operating environments, including this challenging one.

第二點是，我們將繼續以我們最擅長的方式為客戶服務，提供他們管理業務和員工所需的工具、資源和支持，以應對各種營運環境，包括當前充滿挑戰的環境。

With that said, this morning, we reported our third quarter fiscal 2020 results with revenue of $4 billion, up 6% reported and organic constant currency and in line with our expectations. We expanded our adjusted EBIT margin by 60 basis points in the quarter, which was ahead of our expectations, even though it included an unplanned $50 million global associate assistance payment in response to COVID-19. And with the solid revenue and margin performance, we were pleased to deliver 8% adjusted diluted EPS growth, which was also slightly ahead of our expectations coming into the quarter.

儘管如此，今天上午我們公佈了 2020 財年第三季業績，營收達 40 億美元，按報告和自然成長率（以固定匯率計算）均成長 6%，符合我們的預期。本季我們調整後的息稅前利潤率提高了 60 個基點，超出預期，儘管其中包含了因應對 COVID-19 而意外支付的 5000 萬美元全球員工援助金。憑藉穩健的營收和利潤率表現，我們很高興地宣布調整後稀釋每股收益成長 8%，這也略高於我們本季初的預期。

Turning now to the current situation. I'd like to take a few minutes to go deeper on how COVID-19 has affected our operations and what we've done to respond. As the situation evolved over the past couple of months, we focused first on the safety of our associates. In March, we took steps to quickly shift over 50,000 of our associates to work from home and now have approximately 98% of our workforce working remotely in a secure manner. In doing so, we leveraged our previous investments in business resiliency. And in addition, we ordered thousands of laptops, expanded remote access capacity, provided at-home Internet, and for those critical personnel that needed to work on site, we took steps to ensure their safety while they performed at those essential on-site tasks. This was a huge undertaking by our global IT, security, legal and HR organizations, and I'm extremely proud of their execution.

現在來談談當前的情況。我想花幾分鐘時間深入探討 COVID-19 對我們的營運造成的影響以及我們採取的應對措施。過去幾個月來，隨著情勢的發展，我們首先關注的是員工的安全。3 月份，我們採取措施迅速將超過 5 萬名員工轉移到居家辦公，現在我們約有 98% 的員工以安全的方式遠距辦公。透過這種方式，我們充分利用了先前在業務韌性方面的投資。此外，我們還訂購了數千台筆記型電腦，擴大了遠端存取能力，提供了家庭互聯網，並且對於需要在現場工作的關鍵人員，我們採取了措施，以確保他們在執行這些重要的現場任務時的安全。這是我們全球 IT、安全、法律和人力資源部門共同完成的一項巨大工程，我為他們的執行成果感到無比自豪。

We also worked with our critical third-party service providers to ensure they were positioned to continue to support us. And in March, we also had our field sales force shift from in-person to a virtual sales model. And while that's not an ideal circumstance for some of our quota carriers, they're making the most of the situation.

我們也與重要的第三方服務提供者合作，確保他們能夠繼續為我們提供支援。3月份，我們的現場銷售團隊也從線下銷售模式轉變為線上銷售模式。雖然這對我們的一些配額承運商來說並非理想情況，但他們正在盡力利用這種情況。

While we were executing on these business resiliency plans, we also worked nonstop to address our clients' needs to ensure uninterrupted service across our HCM solutions. We provide a mission-critical service and process payroll for 1 in 6 Americans and over 40 million workers around the world. And to offer immediate support, we provided a number of online resources, including an employer preparedness toolkit and webinars attended by tens of thousands of clients. We also quickly made available for free the payroll cost and headcount reports necessary to apply for forgivable loans under the Paycheck Protection Program of the CARES Act. And these reports have been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times.

在執行這些業務彈性計劃的同時，我們也日以繼夜地工作，以滿足客戶的需求，確保我們的 HCM 解決方案能夠不間斷地提供服務。我們為六分之一的美國人和全球超過 4,000 萬名員工提供關鍵任務服務和薪資處理。為了提供即時支持，我們提供了一系列線上資源，包括雇主準備工具包和網路研討會，數萬名客戶參加了這些研討會。我們也迅速免費提供了根據《新冠病毒援助、救濟和經濟安全法案》(CARES Act) 的薪資保護計劃申請可豁免貸款所需的工資成本和員工人數報告。這些報告已被下載數十萬次。

Service is more important than ever in times like this. We saw call volumes increase significantly beginning in March and had nearly 2 million inbound requests across our service channels in a matter of weeks, with clients looking for help with a variety of issues, including adding custom paycodes related to COVID-19, redirecting checks to different locations and requesting new time-tracking hardware that doesn't require a physical contact. In many cases, they were simply seeking general guidance in understanding new legislation.

在這樣的時代，服務比以往任何時候都更重要。從 3 月開始，我們的呼叫量顯著增加，短短幾週內，我們的服務管道就收到了近 200 萬個來電請求，客戶尋求幫助解決各種問題，包括添加與 COVID-19 相關的自定義支付代碼、將支票重定向到不同的地點以及請求不需要物理接觸的新型時間跟踪硬體。在許多情況下，他們只是尋求對新法規的一般指導。

To meet our clients' needs, we retrained and quickly redeployed hundreds of associates to where they were needed most. And our service and IT teams worked quickly to digest and translate new legislation from the many jurisdictions around the world into our global payroll, time and attendance and other systems in a short period of time to allow our clients to comply with and benefit from these changes in legislation.

為了滿足客戶的需求，我們對數百名員工進行了再培訓，並迅速將他們重新部署到最需要的地方。我們的服務和 IT 團隊迅速採取行動，在短時間內消化和轉化世界各地許多司法管轄區的新法規，並將其應用到我們的全球工資、考勤和其他系統中，以便我們的客戶能夠遵守這些法規變化並從中受益。

As the environment for companies continues to evolve, whether due to legislative changes or operational realities, we at ADP are committed to supporting our clients to help them best navigate those changes. As we communicated in an open letter to U.S. policy leaders, ADP stands ready to facilitate current and future initiatives that provide support to our clients and their workers.

隨著企業環境的不斷變化，無論是由於立法變化還是營運現實，ADP 都致力於支持我們的客戶，幫助他們更好地應對這些變化。正如我們在緻美國政策領導人的公開信中所述，ADP 已做好準備，為當前和未來的各項舉措提供支持，以幫助我們的客戶及其員工。

And in support of our local communities, ADP has made over $2 million in donations to relief efforts, including a dedicated relief fund for ADP associates that needed assistance as well as donations of medical supplies for hospitals, food banks and their workers.

為了支持當地社區，ADP 已向救濟工作捐贈了超過 200 萬美元，其中包括為需要幫助的 ADP 員工設立的專門救濟基金，以及向醫院、食物銀行及其工作人員捐贈的醫療用品。

With all that said, the significant impact of COVID-19 is having on a broader economy is, in turn, having an effect on our reported metrics and in a much more abrupt fashion as compared to previous macroeconomic slowdowns. You can see this in our Employer Services New Business Bookings metric. This quarter, we reported a decrease of 9% as we saw bookings decline significantly and rapidly in mid-March, when we typically would have expected to close many deals for the quarter. These results were, of course, well below our expectations coming into the quarter. And while some of our businesses performed slightly better than others in March, the weakness was generally broad-based as the health crisis is affecting companies of all sizes and regions, including internationally.

綜上所述，COVID-19 對整體經濟的重大影響反過來也影響了我們報告的各項指標，而且與以往的宏觀經濟放緩相比，這種影響更加突然。您可以從我們的「雇主服務新業務預訂」指標中看到這一點。本季度，我們的業績下降了 9%，原因是 3 月中旬預訂量大幅且迅速下降，而我們通常預計在 3 月中旬會達成很多交易。當然，這些結果遠低於我們本季初的預期。雖然我們部分業務在 3 月的表現略好於其他業務，但整體疲軟的局面是普遍存在的，因為這場健康危機正在影響各種規模和地區的公司，包括國際公司。

We believe the impact to bookings stems from 2 factors: First is the buying behavior of our clients and prospects. As with prior uncertain economic environments, our clients and prospects have become time- and resource-constrained and are faced with reassessing their own operations to best ride out the impact of this health crisis. And although our products support mission-critical functions, making decisions about additional HCM services or making the decision to switch from another vendor to ADP can get put off to a later time. Even in circumstances where decisions have already been made, clients are understandably delaying implementation, which can also cause us to adjust down the bookings we record. The general change in behavior is common in recessionary periods, and we are certainly not surprised to see it this time. It's clearly happened in a more abrupt manner compared to what we've experienced in the past.

我們認為對預訂量的影響源自於兩個因素：首先是客戶和潛在客戶的購買行為。與以往不確定的經濟環境一樣，我們的客戶和潛在客戶都面臨著時間和資源的限制，他們不得不重新評估自己的運營，以更好地應對這場健康危機的影響。儘管我們的產品支援關鍵任務功能，但額外 HCM 服務或從其他供應商切換到 ADP 的決定可能會推遲到以後。即使在已經做出決定的情況下，客戶也會出於可以理解的原因推遲執行，這也會導致我們減少記錄的預訂量。在經濟衰退時期，人們的行為普遍改變，我們對此並不感到驚訝。顯然，與我們過去經歷的情況相比，這件事發生得更加突然。

Second, as I mentioned earlier, there have naturally been constraints that limited the activity of our sales force. While we have been able to lean more heavily on an inside sales strategy and virtual interactions by our field sales force, there has still been a reduction in our sales force productivity.

其次，正如我之前提到的，我們的銷售團隊的活動自然會受到一些限制。雖然我們能夠更加依賴內部銷售策略和現場銷售人員的虛擬互動，但我們的銷售人員生產力仍然下降。

Our sales organization is experienced and resilient and will continue to work hard in the fourth quarter. Because of a variety of factors, which we believe will have an outside impact on the fourth quarter bookings, including the effectiveness of the Paycheck Protection Program in supporting small to midsized businesses and how quickly our clients can adapt to working in this new environment and resume more normal buying behavior, there is clearly a very wide range of outcomes.

我們的銷售團隊經驗豐富、韌性十足，將在第四季度繼續努力工作。由於各種因素（我們認為這些因素會對第四季度的預訂量產生外部影響），包括薪資保護計劃在支持中小企業方面的有效性，以及我們的客戶能夠多快適應在這種新環境下工作並恢復更正常的購買行為，因此結果顯然會非常多樣化。

But to calibrate your expectations, we are guiding for a full year ES New Business Bookings, our ES New Business Bookings to be down 20%, which implies our fourth quarter bookings will be down by more than 50%. But with all that said, we remain confident in our product portfolio and optimistic about our ability to drive sustained growth in ES bookings in a sounder economic environment.

但為了調整您的預期，我們預計全年 ES 新業務預訂量將下降 20%，這意味著我們第四季的預訂量將下降 50% 以上。儘管如此，我們仍然對我們的產品組合充滿信心，並對在更穩健的經濟環境下推動 ES 預訂量持續成長的能力持樂觀態度。

I'd now like to spend a minute or 2 on some of the other macro-driven trends we've observed in our client base. Our pays per control metric, which represents employee growth for a broad subset of our client base, was solid through February but decelerated to a slight negative growth by the end of March, averaging 1.9% growth for the quarter. Early in April, we saw it deteriorate further to a double-digit negative decline, with the steepest decline among smaller businesses. For context, this level of pace per control decline is significantly worse than even the worst quarter in the financial crisis, underscoring that it's hard to compare this environment even against past recessions. While we hope that legislation aimed at preserving employment will drive a recovery in pays per control, we had not seen it through mid-April.

現在我想花一兩分鐘時間談談我們在客戶群中觀察到的其他一些宏觀驅動趨勢。我們的「按控制付費」指標（代表我們客戶群中很大一部分員工的成長）在 2 月份表現穩健，但到 3 月底增速放緩至略微負增長，該季度平均增長率為 1.9%。4月初，我們看到情況進一步惡化，出現兩位數的負成長，其中小型企業的降幅最大。作為參考，這種控制措施的下降速度甚至比金融危機中最糟糕的季度還要糟糕得多，這凸顯出即使與過去的經濟衰退相比，也很難將當前的環境進行比較。雖然我們希望旨在保住就業的立法能夠推動人均薪資的復甦，但截至 4 月中旬，我們還沒有看到這種情況發生。

On retention, we were actually pleased with our performance in the third quarter, with both third quarter and year-to-date retention performance better than our expectations and ahead of pace for our previous annual guidance. We set all-time third quarter retention records in our downmarket and mid-market businesses as client satisfaction scores were at or near all-time highs and as the benefits of our technology and migration strategy over the past several years continue to bear fruit. But clearly, out-of-business losses are a concern for the fourth quarter and beyond. And although they have not yet meaningfully picked up by the end of March or even into April, early indicators of stress in our client base have shown up, and we expect deterioration in retention in May and June. Kathleen will share some of the assumptions for the fourth quarter when she goes through the outlook.

在客戶留存方面，我們對第三季的表現感到滿意，第三季和年初至今的客戶留存率均好於預期，並超越了我們先前的年度指導目標。由於客戶滿意度評分達到或接近歷史最高水平，並且過去幾年我們的技術和遷移策略帶來的好處繼續顯現，我們在低端市場和中端市場業務中創下了第三季度客戶留存率的歷史新高。但很顯然，企業倒閉造成的損失是第四季及以後需要關注的問題。儘管到 3 月底甚至 4 月份，情況還沒有明顯好轉，但我們的客戶群已經出現了壓力跡象，我們預計 5 月和 6 月的客戶留存率會進一步下降。凱瑟琳將在展望第四季時分享一些假設。

I'd like to pivot now from the current macro environment and focus on our strategy and what we're doing to drive longer-term value for our clients. At ADP, we remain steadfast in our commitment to lead in the HCM industry with best-in-class technology and service. At our February Innovation Day, we shared an update with many of you about the innovation we are driving across our key strategic and next-gen solutions. The HCM industry is an exciting place with constant change, and we will continue to invest to position ourselves to meet the evolving needs of our clients over not just the coming years but the coming decades.

現在我想把話題從當前的宏觀環境轉移到我們的策略以及我們正在採取哪些措施來為客戶創造長期價值。在 ADP，我們始終堅定不移地致力於以一流的技術和服務引領 HCM 產業。在二月的創新日上，我們與大家分享了我們在關鍵策略和下一代解決方案方面正在推進的創新進展。人力資本管理產業是一個充滿活力且不斷變化的領域，我們將繼續投資，以更好地滿足客戶在未來幾年乃至未來幾十年不斷變化的需求。

At Innovation Day, we covered several topics, and I'd like to reframe a few of our key products against today's backdrop. With ADP RUN, we help small businesses manage their essential HR tasks from basic payroll to a full HCM suite. We highlighted our push to drive digital sales and onboarding capabilities, which is especially relevant in today's environment. And we also highlighted innovations in automating service and implementation, which relieves pressure on our service organization.

在創新日上，我們討論了幾個主題，我想結合今天的背景，重新介紹我們的一些關鍵產品。借助 ADP RUN，我們幫助小型企業管理其重要的人力資源任務，從基本的薪資管理到完整的 HCM 套件。我們重點介紹了我們在推動數位化銷售和客戶導入能力方面的努力，這在當今環境下尤其重要。我們也重點介紹了服務和實施自動化的創新，這減輕了我們服務部門的壓力。

We discussed Workforce Now in our public cloud-native version that we are pairing with our next-gen payroll engine, which utilizes a fully transparent policy-based model for improved implementation, maintenance and self-service as well as continuous payroll calculations for clients looking for on-demand pay options. We also talked about Wisely and the ease of use and the financial tools that make it attractive -- an attractive way to get paid. And just this month, we made Wisely Direct available to our mid-market Workforce Now clients, which we believe will be beneficial to the many workers in our base that still get paid by a paper check. And of course, we discussed our next-gen HCM, which we believe represents a big step ahead of current offerings in the market and for which we remain excited about scaling and selling more broadly.

我們在公有雲原生版本中討論了 Workforce Now，我們將其與下一代薪資引擎相結合，該引擎採用完全透明的基於策略的模型，以改善實施、維護和自助服務，並為尋求按需支付選項的客戶提供持續的薪資運算。我們還討論了 Wisely 的易用性以及使其具有吸引力的金融工具——一種具有吸引力的收款方式。就在本月，我們向其中端市場的 Workforce Now 客戶推出了 Wisely Direct 服務，我們相信這將有利於我們客戶群中許多仍透過紙本支票領取薪水的員工。當然，我們也討論了我們的下一代 HCM，我們相信它比目前市場上的產品有了很大的進步，我們仍然對擴大規模和更廣泛地銷售它感到興奮。

Before I turn it over to Kathleen, I'd like to take a moment to once again thank our associates. This health crisis and the resulting economic fallout hasn't been easy on anyone, but our associates have really stepped up to ensure we continue to provide our clients with the support they need. And our clients and I appreciate it.

在把發言權交給凱瑟琳之前，我想再次感謝我們的同事們。這場健康危機及其帶來的經濟影響對每個人來說都不容易，但我們的員工真正挺身而出，確保我們繼續為客戶提供所需的支援。我和我的客戶都對此表示感謝。

Kathleen, I'll turn it over to you now.

凱瑟琳，現在交給你了。

Thank you, Carlos, and good morning, everyone. As Carlos mentioned, we were generally pleased with our execution in Q3. And our financial results were not significantly impacted by COVID-19, with the exception of new business bookings. We expect Q4, however, to be challenging on a few fronts. And I will cover this when I go through our guidance.

謝謝你，卡洛斯，大家早安。正如卡洛斯所提到的，我們對第三季的執行情況總體上感到滿意。除了新業務預訂外，我們的財務表現並未受到 COVID-19 的重大影響。不過，我們預計第四季在一些方面將面臨挑戰。我會在講解指導原則時詳細介紹這一點。

This quarter's revenue growth of 6% reported and organic constant currency was in line with our expectations. Our adjusted EBIT margin was up 60 basis points compared to the third quarter of fiscal 2019, even though it included a $50 million cost of a global associate assistance payment related to COVID-19, which we disclosed in an 8-K several weeks ago. Excluding this, our margin performance was even further ahead of our expectations and continued to benefit from a combination of cost savings related to our transformation initiatives and operating efficiencies as well as lower-than-expected incentive compensation expenses. These benefits were partially offset by growth in PEO zero-margin benefits pass-through expenses and amortization expense as well as certain other expenses related to COVID-19.

本季報告和有機成長（以固定匯率計算）為 6%，符合我們的預期。儘管我們已在幾週前提交的 8-K 文件中披露了與 COVID-19 相關的 5000 萬美元全球員工援助費用，但我們的調整後 EBIT 利潤率仍比 2019 財年第三季度提高了 60 個基點。排除這一因素，我們的利潤率表現甚至遠超預期，並繼續受益於轉型計劃和營運效率帶來的成本節約，以及低於預期的激勵性薪酬支出。這些收益部分被 PEO 零利潤福利轉嫁費用和攤銷費用的增長以及與 COVID-19 相關的某些其他費用所抵消。

Our adjusted effective tax rate increased 30 basis points to 23.8% compared to the third quarter of fiscal 2019. And adjusted diluted earnings per share increased 8% to $1.92, driven by revenue growth and margin expansion as well as fewer shares outstanding compared to a year ago.

與 2019 財年第三季相比，我們調整後的實際稅率上升了 30 個基點，達到 23.8%。經調整後的稀釋每股收益成長 8% 至 1.92 美元，這主要得益於收入成長、利潤率擴張以及與去年同期相比流通股數量的減少。

Moving on to segment results. In our Employer Services segment, revenues grew 3% reported and 4% organic constant currency, reflecting steady underlying performance with strong retention trends, offset by continued FX pressure and a growing headwind from interest income. Interest income on client funds declined 5%, and average yield on client funds declined 20 basis points to 2%, offsetting growth in average client funds balances of 4% to $31.3 billion. This growth in balances was driven by a combination of client growth, wage inflation and growth in our pays per control in the quarter, partially offset by lower SUI collections and the closure of our Netherlands money movement operation earlier this year.

接下來是細分市場的結果。在我們的雇主服務部門，按報告匯率計算的收入增長了 3%，以固定匯率計算的有機收入增長了 4%，這反映了穩定的基本面表現和強勁的客戶留存趨勢，但被持續的外匯壓力和利息收入不斷增長的不利因素所抵消。客戶資金利息收入下降 5%，客戶資金平均收益率下降 20 個基點至 2%，抵銷了客戶資金平均餘額增加 4% 至 313 億美元的影響。本季餘額成長主要得益於客戶成長、薪資上漲以及我們每筆交易收入的成長，但部分被 SUI 收款減少以及今年稍早關閉荷蘭資金轉移業務所抵銷。

Our Employer Services same-store pays per control metrics in the U.S. was 1.9% for the third quarter, and I'll talk a bit more about the trends we're seeing in a moment. Employer Services margins increased 100 basis points in the quarter, ahead of expectations and driven by many of the same factors I mentioned earlier when discussing our consolidated results.

我們在美國第三季的雇主服務同店支付控制指標為 1.9%，稍後我會再詳細談談我們看到的趨勢。本季雇主服務利潤率成長了 100 個基點，超出預期，其驅動因素與我之前在討論我們的合併業績時提到的許多因素相同。

Our PEO segment [revenues] (corrected by company after the call) grew 11% for the quarter to $1.2 billion and average worksite employees grew 7% to 595,000, ahead of our expectations and driven by strong year-to-date new business bookings. We were pleased with this reacceleration in our worksite employee growth in the third quarter and believe we would have been positioned for further acceleration exiting the year, if not for COVID-19. Revenues, excluding zero-margin benefits pass-throughs, grew 9% to $490 million and continued to include pressure from lower workers' compensation and SUI costs and related pricing. PEO margin expanded 10 basis points in the quarter, in line with our expectations.

我們的 PEO 業務部門（收入）（公司在電話會議後進行了更正）本季增長 11% 至 12 億美元，平均工作場所員工人數增長 7% 至 595,000 人，超出預期，這主要得益於今年迄今為止強勁的新業務預訂。我們對第三季工作場所員工成長的重新加速感到滿意，並且相信，如果不是因為 COVID-19，我們本可以在年底前進一步加速成長。不包括零利潤的福利轉嫁，營收成長 9% 至 4.9 億美元，並繼續受到工傷賠償和 SUI 成本及相關定價下降的壓力。本季 PEO 利潤率成長了 10 個基點，符合我們的預期。

Let me now turn to our outlook for the remainder of the year. I'll start by discussing some of the specific macro-driven factors that affect our financial performance. I'll caveat by saying that we're clearly operating in an evolving and uncertain situation, and we're using data currently available to us to make reasonable assumptions on which we are basing our guidance.

現在讓我來展望一下今年剩餘時間的情況。我將首先討論一些影響我們財務表現的具體宏觀因素。我要補充一點，我們顯然是在一個不斷變化且充滿不確定性的環境中運營，我們正在利用目前可獲得的數據做出合理的假設，並以此為基礎提供指導。

First, out-of-business losses. We expect our retention to be impacted by elevated out-of-business losses in Q4. And although the federal government is providing stimulus to help companies continue operating, we are seeing clear strain on our client base and have observed certain leading indicators, such as companies going inactive and no longer running payroll. Many of whom will restart their operations at some point, but some of whom we expect will not. Based on our experience with these leading indicators, we are building in an expectation for additional losses in our fourth quarter outlook. And as a result, we're lowering our full year retention guidance to be down 30 to 50 basis points despite running ahead of our expectations on a year-to-date basis.

首先是倒閉造成的損失。我們預計第四季因停業損失增加，客戶留存率將受到影響。儘管聯邦政府正在提供刺激措施以幫助企業繼續運營，但我們看到客戶群明顯面臨壓力，並且已經觀察到一些先行指標，例如公司停止營運和不再發放工資。其中許多企業會在某個時候重新開始運營，但我們預計有些企業不會。根據我們對這些領先指標的經驗，我們在第四季度展望中預計會出現更多虧損。因此，儘管年初至今的業績超出預期，我們仍將全年客戶留存率預期下調 30 至 50 個基點。

Next, pays per control. We exited March with negative pays per control growth. And in April, it deteriorated to a double-digit decline. We are assuming a 2% to 2.5% pays per control decline for the full year, which implies a mid-teens decline for Q4. As a reminder of how this affects us, we have varied contracts throughout our businesses that blend base fees and per employee fees. And we also often utilize tiered pricing and have certain annual revenues that are not as affected. As a result, with our current mix of business, the direct revenue impact we expect to see is about 25 basis points in ES revenue growth for every 1% change in PPC. Some of our businesses are more sensitive to pays per control than others. And so the precise mix that pays per control by business can drive the actual revenue impact higher or lower in any given period. This direct impact also doesn't include the impact from our volume-based businesses like recruiting or payment cards.

其次，按控制次數付費。3 月結束時，我們每股盈餘成長為負。4月份，降幅進一步擴大至兩位數。我們假設全年每控制權支付額下降 2% 至 2.5%，這意味著第四季將下降 15% 至 2.5%。為了提醒大家這會對我們產生什麼影響，我們公司各部門簽訂了不同的合同，其中既包含基本費用，也包含員工人數費用。而且我們經常採用分級定價，某些年度收入受到的影響較小。因此，根據我們目前的業務組合，我們預期 PPC 每變動 1%，ES 營收成長將直接帶來約 25 個基點的影響。我們有些業務對按控制付費的敏感度高於其他業務。因此，按業務付費的精確組合可能會在任何給定時期內對實際收入產生更高或更低的影響。這種直接影響還不包括我們以交易量為基礎的業務（如招聘或支付卡）的影響。

Finally, on client fund balances. Through the combination of a challenging sales environment, an anticipated increase in out-of-business losses, a decline in pays per control and potential decline in wages and hours worked, we expect to see pressure in our balances in the near term. Furthermore, the CARES Act has a provision that allows companies to defer the payment of the employer portion of payroll taxes, which represents less than 5% of our average client fund balance. But depending on the actual take rate of that provision, we could see further pressure on our balance growth.

最後，關於客戶資金餘額。由於銷售環境充滿挑戰，預計倒閉損失將增加，每筆交易的收益將下降，工資和工時可能會減少，我們預計短期內我們的資產負債表將面臨壓力。此外，《CARES 法案》中有一項條款允許公司延期繳納雇主部分的工資稅，這部分稅款占我們客戶平均資金餘額的不到 5%。但根據該撥備的實際使用率，我們的餘額成長可能會面臨進一步的壓力。

As a result of all these factors, we now expect 1% balance growth for the full year, which implies a low double-digit decline in the fourth quarter. To adjust the size of our client fund investments to match expected changes in average client payroll and tax volumes, beginning in March, we halted all new reinvestment of maturities in our client long and extended portfolios. And in April, we took the additional step of selling approximately $1.2 billion of previously purchased securities in the client long and extended portfolios. This decision to suspend new purchases means our Q4 interest income forecast reflects a slightly greater skew to overnight rates than previously forecasted. Both the suspension of new purchases and the completed sale of securities is contemplated in our guidance. To be clear, these decisions represent tactical adjustments and do not represent a change to our overall client fund strategy.

鑑於上述所有因素，我們現在預計全年餘額將成長1%，這意味著第四季將出現兩位數的低幅下降。為了調整客戶基金投資規模，以匹配預期客戶平均薪資和稅收額的變化，從 3 月開始，我們停止了對客戶長期和擴展投資組合中到期資產的所有新的再投資。4 月份，我們採取了進一步措施，出售了客戶長期和擴展投資組合中先前購買的價值約 12 億美元的證券。暫停新購債的這項決定意味著，我們第四季利息收入預測中隔夜利率的佔比將比先前預測的略高。我們的指導方針中既考慮了暫停新證券購買，也考慮了已完成證券出售。需要明確的是，這些決定代表的是戰術調整，並不代表我們整體客戶基金策略的改變。

Let's now turn to our revised outlook for the full year and start with the ES segment. We are lowering our guidance to 1% to 2% revenue growth versus our prior outlook of 4%, driven mainly by an expectation of lower pays per control, new business bookings, client fund interest and retention versus our prior outlook. Much of this lost revenue comes at high incremental margins. And as a result, and also due to additional costs related to COVID-19, we now expect our margin in the Employer Services segment to be down 25 to up 25 basis points.

現在讓我們來看看我們對全年的修訂展望，首先從ES板塊開始。我們將營收成長預期從先前的 4% 下調至 1% 至 2%，主要原因是預期每台控制設備的付費、新業務預訂、客戶資金興趣和留存率將低於先前的預期。這些損失的收入大多來自利潤率較高的增量收入。因此，加上與 COVID-19 相關的額外成本，我們現在預計雇主服務部門的利潤率將下降 25 至上升 25 個基點。

For our PEO, we saw good momentum up through the end of March. And as I mentioned earlier, we believe we are on track for continued acceleration exiting the year but are now layering in our expectation for layoffs and furloughs and additional out-of-business losses. As a reminder, in our PEO segment, we earn revenues as a percent of the gross payroll we process. And as a result, we are more directly tied to changes in our clients' headcount and hours worked as compared to our Employer Services segment.

對於我們的 PEO 而言，我們在 3 月底之前都看到了良好的發展勢頭。正如我之前提到的，我們相信公司將在年底前繼續加速發展，但現在我們也考慮到裁員、停薪留職以及更多企業倒閉造成的損失。再次提醒，在我們的 PEO 業務板塊，我們的收入是按我們處理的總工資額的百分比計算的。因此，與我們的雇主服務部門相比，我們與客戶的員工人數和工作時間的變化連結更為直接。

As a result of these assumptions and our expectations for lower Q4 PEO sales, we are lowering our average worksite employee growth expectation to 3% to 5% from 7% to 8% previously. We are likewise lowering our revenue guidance and now expect 5% to 7% PEO revenue growth in fiscal 2020 and 3% to 5% growth in PEO revenues, excluding zero-margin benefits pass-throughs.

基於這些假設以及我們對第四季度 PEO 銷售額下降的預期，我們將平均工作場所員工成長預期從先前的 7% 至 8% 下調至 3% 至 5%。我們同樣下調了營收預期，現在預計 2020 財年 PEO 營收成長 5% 至 7%，不包括零利潤福利轉嫁的 PEO 營收將成長 3% 至 5%。

As we also discussed throughout the year, we continue to expect lower workers' compensation and SUI costs and related pricing to pressure our total PEO revenue growth, though we could see those trends change in the coming years.

正如我們今年一直在討論的那樣，我們仍然預計較低的工傷賠償和 SUI 成本以及相關定價將對我們的 PEO 總收入增長構成壓力，儘管我們可能會看到這些趨勢在未來幾年發生變化。

For PEO margin, we now expect to be down 100 to 125 basis points in fiscal 2020. As we noted in previous calls, this outlook continues to include pressure from smaller favorable reserve adjustments at ADP Indemnity in fiscal 2020 compared to fiscal 2019. But we now expect about 75 basis points of pressure compared to our previous expectation of 50 basis points of pressure, but we still expect a slight benefit this year.

對於 PEO 利潤率，我們現在預計 2020 財年將下降 100 至 125 個基點。正如我們在先前的電話會議中所提到的，這項展望仍然受到 ADP Indemnity 在 2020 財年較 2019 財年較小的有利準備金調整所帶來的壓力。但我們現在預計壓力將達到約 75 個基點，而此前我們預計壓力為 50 個基點，但我們仍然預計今年會有輕微的利好。

With these changes to the segments, we now anticipate total revenue growth of about 3% in fiscal 2020 as compared to our previous outlook of 6%. This revenue outlook continues to assume slight FX unfavorability for fiscal 2020. As I mentioned, we anticipate our growth in average client fund balances to be about 1% compared to our previous outlook of 4%, and we expect the average yield earned on our client fund investments to be about 2.1% compared to our previous outlook of 2.2%. We expect interest income on client funds to be $540 million to $550 million and for interest income from our extended investment strategy to be $550 million to $560 million.

由於業務板塊的這些變化，我們現在預計 2020 財年總收入成長約為 3%，而我們先前的預期為 6%。此收入展望仍假設 2020 財年匯率將略為不利。正如我之前提到的，我們預期客戶平均資金餘額成長率約為 1%，低於我們先前預期的 4%；我們預期客戶資金投資的平均收益率約為 2.1%，低於我們先前預期的 2.2%。我們預期客戶資金的利息收入為 5.4 億美元至 5.5 億美元，而我們擴展投資策略的利息收入為 5.5 億美元至 5.6 億美元。

We anticipate our adjusted EBIT margin to be down 25 to up 25 basis points as the benefits from our workforce optimization and procurement transformation initiatives are now being offset by the impact of expected lost revenue due to COVID-19 as well as incremental expenses related to COVID-19, including the $50 million in global associate assistance payments. We now anticipate our adjusted effective tax rate to be 22.9%. The rate includes this quarter's unplanned tax benefit from stock-based compensation related to stock option exercises. It does not include any further estimated tax benefit related to potential future stock option exercises.

我們預計，由於員工隊伍優化和採購轉型舉措帶來的收益現在被 COVID-19 造成的預期收入損失以及與 COVID-19 相關的額外支出（包括 5000 萬美元的全球員工援助金）的影響所抵消，我們的調整後 EBIT 利潤率將下降 25 至上升 25 個基點。我們現在預計調整後的實際稅率為 22.9%。此稅率包含本季因股票選擇權行使而產生的非計劃性稅收優惠。它不包含與未來潛在股票選擇權行使相關的任何其他預期稅收優惠。

As a result of our lower revenue and margin outlook, we now expect adjusted diluted earnings per share to grow 4% to 7% in fiscal 2020. In light of this revised 2020 guidance, the multiple headwinds created by the global pandemic and the uncertain and evolving situation, we are withdrawing the fiscal 2021 targets that we set out at our 2018 Investor Day as they are no longer appropriate to the current circumstances. However, we continue to believe in our long-term strategy and are well positioned to continue to invest to execute this strategy.

由於我們對營收和利潤率的預期下調，我們現在預計 2020 財年調整後的稀釋每股收益將成長 4% 至 7%。鑑於 2020 年修訂後的業績指引、全球疫情帶來的多重不利因素以及情勢的不確定性和不斷變化，我們撤回在 2018 年投資者日上製定的 2021 財年目標，因為這些目標已不再適用於當前情況。然而，我們仍然對我們的長期策略充滿信心，並且我們已做好充分準備，繼續投資以執行該策略。

Finally, before I conclude, I'd like to talk about the strength of ADP's business model and balance sheet. We have a highly cash-generative business with low capital intensity, and the HCM solutions we provide give critical support to our clients' HR and management functions, especially at times like these. In addition to having a resilient product and business model, we also have a significant buffer between our free cash flow and our modest debt obligations and our cash dividend. This enables us to absorb the impact of downturns and continue to prioritize investments aligned with our longer-term strategy as well as our commitments to shareholder-friendly actions. So although our revenue growth can clearly be impacted by challenging macro conditions, our recurring revenue model and high retention rate positions us to continue the type of investments we highlighted at our Innovation Day even when times are tough.

最後，在結束之前，我想談談ADP的商業模式和資產負債表的優勢。我們是一家現金流充裕、資本密集度低的企業，我們提供的 HCM 解決方案能夠為客戶的人力資源和管理職能提供關鍵支持，尤其是在像當前這樣的時期。除了擁有具有韌性的產品和商業模式外，我們的自由現金流與適度的債務和現金股息之間也存在著相當大的緩衝空間。這使我們能夠承受經濟低迷的影響，並繼續優先考慮符合我們長期策略以及我們對股東友好行動承諾的投資。因此，儘管我們的收入成長顯然會受到充滿挑戰的宏觀環境的影響，但我們的經常性收入模式和高客戶留存率使我們能夠在經濟困難時期繼續進行我們在創新日上重點強調的那類投資。

We will, meanwhile, continue to manage our cost base prudently. We have instituted hiring containment and started to execute on our recession playbook with a preplanned set of areas where we will see some of our expenses self-adjust, such as management and sales incentives, and we will eliminate or defer nonessential spend. We are working through an evolving and uncertain situation and are formulating our approach for next year. And we will, of course, provide you with our expectations and outlook for fiscal 2021, when we report our fourth quarter results. As always, expect us to be balanced in our approach.

同時，我們將繼續審慎地控製成本。我們已經實施了招募控制措施，並開始執行我們的經濟衰退應對方案，預先規劃了一些領域的支出將進行自我調整，例如管理和銷售激勵措施，我們將取消或推遲非必要的支出。我們正在應對不斷變化且充滿不確定性的局面，並正在製定明年的應對方案。當然，我們會在公佈 2021 財年第四季業績時，向您提供我們對 2021 財年的預期和展望。一如既往，我們將採取平衡的策略。

With that, I will pass it back to Carlos for some comments before we go to Q&A.

接下來，我將把問題交還給卡洛斯，請他發表一些看法，然後再進入問答環節。

Thanks, Kathleen. Before we move on to the Q&A, I just wanted to share with you an excerpt of one of the many notes we received from our clients that captures how we want to define ourselves. This one said, "We are a small business that has used ADP for quite a few years now. Every time we call, there has been a knowledgeable professional at ADP that immediately solves the problem and answers the question. We recently needed payroll data to apply for the COVID-19 Payroll Protection Program. I immediately went to ADP's website to see how I should go about selecting and downloading the required payroll data. Imagine the relief when opening the screen, there was a COVID-19 pop-up that proactively provided your clients with the payroll data needed. I was floored. This type of customer service is unheard of these days. We just want to tip our hats to everyone at ADP for a great job."

謝謝你，凱瑟琳。在進入問答環節之前，我想和大家分享我們從客戶那裡收到的眾多回饋意見中的一段摘錄，這段摘錄體現了我們希望如何定義自己。這位受訪者表示：“我們是一家小型企業，使用 ADP 系統已經好幾年了。”每次我們打電話諮詢，ADP 的專業人員都會立即解決問題並解答疑問。我們最近需要工資數據來申請新冠肺炎工資保障計劃。我立即造訪了 ADP 的網站，查看如何選擇和下載所需的薪資資料。想像一下，當你打開螢幕，看到一個 COVID-19 彈出窗口主動向客戶提供所需的工資數據時，你會多麼如釋重負。我驚呆了。如今這種客戶服務簡直是聞所未聞。我們只想對ADP的每一位員工表達由衷的敬意，他們做得非常出色。

As this client suggests, the value of a true HCM partner becomes even more critical at times like these. And it continues to be our goal to exceed the expectations of our clients. And with that, I'll turn it over to the operator for Q&A.

正如這位客戶所言，在這樣的時刻，真正的 HCM 合作夥伴的價值就顯得更加至關重要了。超越客戶的期望始終是我們的目標。接下來，我將把問答環節交給接線員。

(Operator Instructions) We will take our first question from the line of Ramsey El-Assal with Barclays.

（操作員說明）我們將接受來自巴克萊銀行的 Ramsey El-Assal 的第一個問題。

I hope you both are doing well. I wanted to ask about your visibility on the paycheck protection loan program in terms of, can you see that it's having the desired impact on businesses in the country? Are you seeing furloughed or terminated workers that are being brought back on book? And I guess just tying that back to your own performance or potential future performance, are you seeing these leading indicators of bankruptcy sort of staved off a little bit in your book?

希望你們一切都好。我想詢問您對薪資保障貸款計劃的看法，您是否認為該計劃對美國企業產生了預期的影響？您是否看到有被暫時解僱或終止僱傭關係的員工重新被聘用？我想，如果把這些與您自身的業績或未來的潛在業績聯繫起來，您是否認為這些破產的先行指標在您的書中有所緩解？

It's a great question. We're obviously keeping our eye on that. Unfortunately, what we have is really kind of limited anecdotal evidence that people are beginning to get money to be able to continue their payroll or continue to pay people. As an example, a few days ago, I was forwarded a letter that was sent to -- or an e-mail that was sent to one of our associates from a client that was grateful for kind of the help that we give them in applying for the loan. And they sent a kind of a screenshot of their bank account that had $10 the previous day and then now had $84,000, like indicating that they had gotten their money from the SBA deposited into their commercial bank account.

這是一個很好的問題。我們當然會密切關注此事。不幸的是，我們目前掌握的只是一些零星的、有限的證據，顯示人們開始獲得資金，以便能夠繼續發放薪水或繼續支付員工薪水。例如，幾天前，我收到一封轉發給我們一位同事的信（或電子郵件），是一位客戶寄來的，感謝我們在他們申請貸款時提供的幫助。他們還發送了一張銀行帳戶的截圖，顯示前一天帳戶裡還有 10 美元，而現在卻有 84,000 美元，這表明他們已經從美國小型企業管理局 (SBA) 收到了存入其商業銀行帳戶的資金。

But I think as you've heard, same as us, in the press, the process has been, given the magnitude of the -- and the scale of the challenge, it's been a difficult process both for the SBA, and I think for the banks. We've tried to do our part to help, and we're optimistic and we're hopeful that it will make a difference and that there will be rehiring and that it will at least, in some respects, stop the furloughing and the elimination of jobs going forward. But unfortunately, it's just a little too early for us to give you any kind of concrete evidence other than some anecdotal stories that money is making its way into the bank accounts of small businesses.

但我認為，正如你們和我們一樣在媒體上聽到的那樣，考慮到挑戰的規模和程度，這個過程對於美國小型企業管理局 (SBA) 和銀行來說都是一個艱難的過程。我們已經盡力提供協助，我們樂觀地認為，這將會帶來改變，會重新僱用員工，並且至少在某些方面，會阻止未來繼續裁員和解僱員工。但不幸的是，除了個別軼事之外，現在我們還無法提供任何確鑿的證據來證明資金正在流入小型企業的銀行帳戶。

Okay. That's helpful. And then just a follow-up. In terms of your overall product strategy in the context of this crisis, are there any kind of adjustments you're having to make in terms of how you're thinking of new challenges as employees work from home? I'm thinking like your time and attendance offering and also just on some of your major initiatives like Lifion. How is the time line to market been impacted? How are you thinking about the product set sort of evolving from here out?

好的。那很有幫助。然後還有一個後續問題。就您目前面臨的危機而言，在整體產品策略方面，您是否需要做出任何調整來應對員工在家工作帶來的新挑戰？我想到的是你們的考勤系統，以及你們的一些重大舉措，像是 Lifion。產品上市時間受到怎樣的影響？您認為產品組合從現在開始會如何發展？

I mean, clearly, we have to be nimble and, I think, remain open to making further adjustments. But I think it's safe to say that if you go back over the course of decades, the concept of "outsourcing" and now what some people would call the SaaS models, which I think ADP was kind of one of the pioneers of -- I think by definition, lend themselves to these kind of remote work environments, whether it's for the technology people because we generally obviously host and maintain and update the -- all of the systems for our clients. But also through the variety of portals we have for our clients and the employees of our clients, all of the information that anyone needs is available online through all the tools we have to access that information, whether it's for the payroll practitioners or for the employees of our clients, including when you think about the app that we have for the employees of our clients to be able to check whether they've gotten pay, they can check their hours, they can make changes to 401(k). There's no -- really no need to move paper or for anyone to be in the office to do that kind of work.

我的意思是，很顯然，我們必須靈活應變，而且我認為，要保持開放的態度，隨時準備做出進一步調整。但我認為可以肯定地說，回顧幾十年來，「外包」的概念，以及現在一些人所說的 SaaS 模式（我認為 ADP 算是 SaaS 模式的先驅之一），從定義上講，都非常適合這種遠端工作環境，無論是對於技術人員而言，因為我們通常顯然會為客戶託管、維護和更新所有系統。此外，透過我們為客戶和客戶員工提供的各種入口網站，任何人所需的所有資訊都可以透過我們擁有的所有工具在線獲取，無論是薪資從業人員還是客戶的員工，包括我們為客戶員工提供的應用程序，員工可以透過該應用程式查看自己是否已獲得工資、查看工時、更改 401(k) 計劃。其實完全沒有必要搬運紙本文件，也不需要任何人到辦公室來做這類工作。

So clearly, there will be things that we will learn, and we're probably here in the early innings of this kind of new challenge and how it might affect our products. But I think in general, as an industry -- it's not just for ADP. I think in general, for us as an industry, we're pretty well positioned, I think, for this kind of work environment.

顯然，我們會學到很多東西，我們可能還處於這種新挑戰及其對我們產品可能產生的影響的早期階段。但我認為，總的來說，作為一個行業——這不僅適用於 ADP。我認為總的來說，就我們這個行業而言，我們非常適應這種工作環境。

And I think we're -- if I could just -- yes. If I could just add to that. I think you had asked about -- I couldn't quite hear, but I think you had asked about Lifion and any updates to that and changes to our view on go-to market. I would say over the longer term -- while certainly this year looks like things have slowed down at least for a little bit, I would say over the long term, no change to how we're thinking about that. And we've got a handful of live clients. We're continuing to sell clients on and implement clients on Lifion, and we're encouraged about the long-term prospects there.

我想我們——如果我可以的話——是的。如果我能補充一點就好了。我想你問的是——我沒聽清，但我想你問的是 Lifion 以及它的任何更新和我們對市場推廣的看法的變化。從長遠來看——雖然今年情況似乎有所放緩，但從長遠來看，我們對這方面的看法不會改變。我們已經有一些活躍客戶了。我們正在繼續向客戶推銷 Lifion 並幫助客戶實施 Lifion，我們對它的長期前景感到鼓舞。

Yes. It's clear, like every time that we have, whether it's an economic downturn or -- now this is obviously a new challenge. There's always questions about will this drive greater adoption. I think intellectually, it makes sense that this would drive greater outsourcing and greater adoption of SaaS, but it's kind of hard to make that statement kind of where we are today. But theoretically and intellectually, 2 to 3 years from now, there should be more demand and more people using SaaS solutions than there are today.

是的。很明顯，就像我們以往經歷的那樣，無論是經濟衰退還是——現在這顯然是一個新的挑戰。人們總是會質疑這是否會促進更廣泛的應用。從理論上講，這應該會推動更多的外包和更廣泛的SaaS應用，但就我們目前的狀況而言，很難得出這樣的結論。但從理論和理論上講，未來 2 到 3 年內，對 SaaS 解決方案的需求和使用人數應該會比現在更多。

Our next question comes from the line of Tien-Tsin Huang with JPMorgan.

我們的下一個問題來自摩根大通的黃天進。

Appreciate the disclosure here. Just on the -- somewhat of a follow-up to Ramsey's question, just on the sales performance side. You mentioned productivity challenges in addition to the demand factors. So how quickly do you think you'll get your productivity back on track and align your sales to where you see the pub going next in terms of demand as it evolves?

感謝您在此披露資訊。就銷售業績方面而言，算是拉姆齊問題的補充。除了需求因素外，您還提到了生產力方面的挑戰。那麼，您認為您需要多久才能恢復正常的生產力，並使銷售業績與酒吧未來發展的需求趨勢保持一致？

So we're trying to actually keep an eye on it week-to-week to get some sense of what levers they are still there. We clearly still have -- our sales force is still selling, and they're selling a lot of business. But it's at lower levels than, obviously, we had expected and at lower levels than you compare it to the previous year. So unfortunately, given the nature of the situation, it's kind of difficult to give you a kind of scientific or a concrete answer.

所以我們正在努力每週密切關注此事，以了解他們還有哪些影響力可以發揮。我們顯然仍然擁有——我們的銷售團隊仍在銷售，而且他們創造了很多業務。但顯然，這個數字低於我們的預期，也低於前一年的水平。所以很遺憾，鑑於目前情況的特殊性，很難給你一個科學的或具體的答案。

I think as we generate more information, I think, probably for our guidance for next fiscal year, we'll be able to -- and I know that's not helpful to you today, but it's really a very difficult thing to talk about. We have a lot of -- our sales force was already what we call an inside sales force. And so we've proven that we can sell-through inside selling, but we have some products that are, what I would call, high involvement decision sales. And it doesn't mean that those can't be done remotely, but it hasn't been the norm. So when you sell a very large complicated multinational solution or, frankly, even when you sell the PEO, historically, there's been a relationship that's built there and a trust that gets built before that transaction gets consummated.

我認為，隨著我們獲得更多信息，或許在下一財年的指導意見中，我們將能夠——我知道這對你們今天沒有幫助，但這確實是一個非常難以啟齒的事情。我們有很多——我們的銷售團隊原本就是我們所謂的內部銷售團隊。因此，我們已經證明我們可以透過內部銷售進行銷售，但我們也有一些產品，我稱之為高參與度決策銷售。但這並不意味著這些事情不能遠端完成，只是這並不是很常態。所以，當你出售一個非常龐大、複雜的跨國解決方案，或者坦白說，即使你出售的是 PEO（專業雇主組織），從歷史上看，在交易完成之前，雙方都會建立起一種關係和信任。

So clearly, this is -- these are new and different times. So I don't think everyone is going to sit and wait around for everything to go back to normal before making decisions, but I think it's safe to assume -- I think common sense would tell us that it's safe to assume that there will be some level of hesitation and pullback in terms of decision-making, even though a good percentage of our sales force is still out selling as they have before, although they're doing it virtually now.

很明顯，這是一個全新的時代。所以我認為大家不會都坐等一切恢復正常才做決定，但我認為可以肯定的是——常識告訴我們，可以肯定的是，在決策方面會出現一定程度的猶豫和退縮，即使我們很大一部分銷售人員仍然像以前一樣外出銷售，儘管他們現在是在進行線上銷售。

Yes. Sure. So we'll check in with you on that, again, next quarter. So then my quick follow-up. Both of you have talked about cost initiatives. You guys did much better than we thought on the margin side, even with the $50 million. But you've also both hinted at a pipeline of more cost takeout, potentially pre- the pandemic.

是的。當然。所以，下個季度我們會再次就此與您聯繫。那麼，接下來我要快速補充一下。你們兩位都談到了成本控制措施。即使投入了 5000 萬美元，你們在利潤率方面也做得比我們預想的要好得多。但你們兩位也都暗示過，未來可能會有更多降低成本的措施出台，甚至可能在疫情爆發前就實施。

So I'm curious, your willingness to pull incremental expense levers, maybe some chunkier stuff, is that available to you? And are you willing to do that at this stage?

所以我很好奇，您是否願意逐步增加支出，例如增加一些金額較大的支出？你願意在這個階段這樣做嗎？

So we did have a number of transformation initiatives underway. A lot of them were really around digital transformation efforts to kind of automate and improve the way our implementation and our services is delivered, which would create a better experience for our clients, the employees of our clients, frankly, also for our associates that we thought would result in lower cost going forward. Part of the challenge we have is as -- and again, every company may be different in terms of how they approach their level of support for their clients, but based on our model and the way we see ourselves playing a role in -- and, frankly, in society and with our clients, we've actually experienced quite an increase in volume and cost in the short term. And so as an example, as the government rolled out the Payroll Protection Program, we saw 40% to 50% spikes in inquiries right through, whether it's phone or chat or by e-mail. And so we had to work people over time. We had to work people on weekends, which we're very grateful that people were willing to do it because, as you can imagine, they've got lots of other concerns and distractions as this is all going on. And so we made a commitment that we're going to deliver to our clients through this and help them work through it, whether it's for themselves or for their employees. And unfortunately, I would say in the short term, we actually have an increase in cost. Now realistically, that's not going to continue indefinitely. But every week that we said we think our call volumes and our workloads are going to go down, there's a new government program or a change in the government program, which, by the way, we think, is great. I think that the efforts by the fed and by the policymakers, I think, to help clients and their employees, I think, is the right thing to do, and we're very supportive. But as an example, there was just -- as you know, there was an approval of an additional amount for the Payroll Protection Program, which generates additional volume for us. By the way, I think the banks are in the same -- probably in the same situation in terms of having to handle kind of increased volumes. And so we expect these levels to normalize and then to be in a position where we can reevaluate our cost structure. But again, given the timing of this call and where we are today, we really can't tell you that there's been a meaningful decline in our workloads. In fact, it's actually been an increase.

所以當時我們確實開展了多項轉型計畫。其中許多都與數位轉型工作有關，旨在自動化和改進我們的實施和服務交付方式，從而為我們的客戶、客戶的員工，坦白說，也為我們的合作夥伴創造更好的體驗，我們認為這將降低未來的成本。我們面臨的部分挑戰是——當然，每家公司在為客戶提供支援方面可能有所不同，但根據我們的模式以及我們對自身在社會和客戶中所扮演角色的理解，我們實際上在短期內經歷了業務量和成本的大幅增長。例如，隨著政府推出薪資保障計劃，我們看到諮詢量激增了 40% 到 50%，無論是透過電話、聊天或電子郵件。因此，我們只好讓員工加班。我們必須安排員工在週末加班，我們非常感謝他們願意這樣做，因為正如你所能想像的，在這一切發生的時候，他們還有很多其他的事情要操心和分心。因此，我們承諾將透過這種方式為我們的客戶提供服務，並幫助他們解決這個問題，無論是為了他們自己還是為了他們的員工。但不幸的是，我認為短期內成本實際上會增加。但現實情況是，這種情況不會無限期地持續下去。但是，每當我們說我們認為呼叫量和工作量將會下降時，就會有新的政府計劃或政府計劃的變更，順便說一句，我們認為這很好。我認為聯準會和政策制定者為幫助客戶及其員工所做的努力是正確的，我們非常支持。但舉例來說，正如您所知，工資保障計劃獲得了額外撥款，這為我們帶來了額外的業務量。順便說一句，我認為銀行的情況也差不多——可能情況相同，都需要處理日益增長的業務量。因此，我們預計這些水準會恢復正常，然後我們就可以重新評估我們的成本結構。但是，鑑於此通話的時機以及我們目前的處境，我們真的無法告訴您，我們的工作量已經出現了實質的下降。事實上，數量還有所增加。

Got it. I appreciate the work behind the...

知道了。我欣賞幕後付出的努力…

So Tien-Tsin, if I could just -- let me just add a little bit more to that because I made some comments on our transformation efforts and our transformation work, even with the significant increase in service demand. So even with this kind of very abrupt disruption and need to move our entire -- practically our entire workforce to work from home, we were able to do that almost seamlessly. I mean, that worked really well through the huge, huge efforts of many of the different parts of the organization, from our technology group to our HR to legal. I mean, it was a huge effort, but it worked really well. And so that said, we've been able to continue our normal processes, if you will, around the transformation work. There were certainly some projects that we had to look at and assess and say, "Okay, because of the big service demands, we may need to slow down these." But our process in terms of tracking progress, continuing to execute, adjusting as necessary based on service demand and, importantly, continuing to look at pipeline of projects, that continues. And I would just add one further comment that, in particular, in this environment, the ability to look at procurement and find procurement opportunity is potentially even greater today than it was, say, 3 or 4 months ago.

所以田進，如果我可以的話——讓我再補充一點，因為我已經就我們的轉型努力和轉型工作發表了一些評論，即使服務需求大幅增加。因此，即使面臨這種非常突然的干擾，需要將我們整個——幾乎整個員工隊伍轉移到家庭辦公，我們幾乎無縫地做到了這一點。我的意思是，這得益於公司各部門的巨大努力，從技術部門到人力資源部門再到法務部門，都做出了巨大的貢獻。我的意思是，這確實需要付出巨大的努力，但效果非常好。因此，我們得以繼續推動轉型工作，並進行正常的流程。當然，有些專案我們需要審視和評估，然後說：「好吧，由於服務需求龐大，我們可能需要放慢這些專案的進度。」但我們追蹤專案進度、繼續執行、根據服務需求進行必要調整，以及非常重要的，持續關注專案儲備等方面的流程仍在繼續。我還要補充一點，尤其是在當前環境下，如今審視採購並尋找採購機會的能力可能比三、四個月前還要強。

Yes. And I think if I can just -- one more just comment. I think that the part of the challenge here is that we are -- the nature of our company and our business and our Board is to not focus on 1 month or 1 quarter. And I think when you look at what we were able to deliver just in this quarter in terms of margin improvement, and we've been able to do in the last couple of years, I think, demonstrates very clearly our ability to, I think, achieve and take advantage of operating leverage and also to manage our cost very effectively. We've had a couple of years with a very modest, if any cost -- true cost increases, while revenues were growing at what, for us, is our very healthy rate. So I think we've demonstrated what we can do. But unfortunately, we've been handed a very abrupt change here in the environment. And we're going to handle it first to take care of our associates, next, to take care of our clients. And I think when we get through this transitory period, which we all know is transitory. Now what we don't know is a transitory for a month or 2 or is it transitory for 6 months. But either way, it's not multiple years. And we want to make sure that we continue to invest in our business, take care of our people and take care of our clients that when we come out of this, we come out of it as strong as we were before we went into it.

是的。我想如果我可以的話，再補充一句。我認為，這裡面臨的挑戰之一在於——我們公司、我們的業務以及我們的董事會的本質決定了我們不會只專注於一個月或一個季度。我認為，看看我們本季在利潤率提升方面取得的成就，以及過去幾年我們所取得的成就，就非常清楚地表明了我們能夠實現並利用營運槓桿，並且能夠非常有效地控製成本。過去幾年，我們的實際成本幾乎沒有成長，而收入卻以對我們來說非常健康的成長。所以我覺得我們已經證明了我們能做到什麼。但不幸的是，我們這裡的環境發生了非常突然的變化。首先，我們要照顧好我們的員工；其次，我們要照顧好我們的客戶。我認為，當我們度過這段過渡時期（我們都知道這只是過渡時期）之後，情況就會有所不同。現在我們不知道的是，這種情況會持續一兩個月，還是會持續六個月。但無論如何，這不是幾年時間。我們希望確保繼續投資我們的業務，照顧好我們的員工和客戶，這樣當我們走出困境時，我們就能像進入困境之前一樣強大。

Our next question comes from the line of Kevin McVeigh with Crédit Suisse.

我們的下一個問題來自瑞士信貸的 Kevin McVeigh。

Great. And obviously, a tough environment. Any thoughts on -- one of the question we get a lot is how much of the layoffs are going to be furlough versus structural? So just any sense within kind of the pays per control, how much of that would be potentially for load workers versus structural? Maybe start there.

偉大的。而且，顯然，環境也很艱苦。關於裁員中有多少是暫時停薪留職，又有多少是結構性裁員，大家有什麼看法？我們常被問到這個問題。所以，從某種意義上說，按控制付費，其中有多少可能用於負載工人，又有多少用於結構工人？或許可以從那裡開始。

It's a great question. So we have -- as you know, we operate in multiple countries and also multiple segments, small business, midsized, national accounts, but also in many countries and also with multinational companies. And the policies that companies have around how they treat employees is going to vary from company to company and generally also varies from segment to segment. But what we can tell you is that the way we count pays per control is very straightforward. It's whether or not someone got paid during that period of time that we're counting. And so we would not probably be able to give you a firm number of how many people are furloughed versus how many people are laid off because we don't control necessarily that coding in the system. And clients can exercise some discretion about how they, I guess, tag some of their employees. But what we do know is that if somebody doesn't get paid, they don't get counted in pays per control. And if they do get paid, even if it's at a reduced wage, that does count. And so that creates a number of challenges, obviously, because you could have reduced wage levels, which then doesn't negatively impact pays per control, but impacts the employees themselves, and may, in some cases, impact our fees, generally, wouldn't other than in the PEO, but could impact our fees as well. So I would say that the best thing to do is to stick to trying to use the pays per control metric as a way of building your models and using the guidance that we've provided around 25 basis points of revenue growth impact from each 1% change in pays per control. I think that gives you a very -- we spend a lot of time pressure testing that assumption. I think Danny did a lot of work on it. And I think it's a pretty solid way for you to look at things. So when you hear guidance from us about pays per control and you use that metric for your models, I think that's a much cleaner and easier way than to try to separate how many are furloughs versus how many are layoffs, et cetera, et cetera.

這是一個很好的問題。如您所知，我們的業務遍及多個國家和多個領域，包括小型企業、中型企業、全國性企業，以及許多國家的跨國公司。各公司對待員工的政策因公司而異，而且通常也會因行業細分而有所不同。但我們可以告訴大家的是，我們計算每次控制付費的方式非常簡單明了。我們統計的是在此期間是否有人獲得了報酬。因此，我們可能無法準確地告訴您有多少人被暫時停職，又有多少人被解僱，因為我們不一定能控制系統中的這種編碼。客戶可以自行決定如何為他們的一些員工貼標籤。但我們知道的是，如果有人沒有獲得報酬，他們就不會被計入每次控制的報酬中。即使他們拿到了工資，哪怕是減薪，那也算數。因此，這顯然會帶來許多挑戰，因為工資水平可能會降低，這雖然不會對每位員工的薪酬產生負面影響，但會影響員工本身，而且在某些情況下，可能會影響我們的費用，一般來說，除了在 PEO 中，其他情況下不會，但也可能會影響我們的費用。因此，我認為最好的做法是堅持使用「每控制付費」指標來建立模型，並遵循我們提供的指導，即「每控制付費每變化 1% 將對收入成長產生 25 個基點的影響」。我認為這給了你一個非常——我們花了很多時間來檢驗這個假設。我認為丹尼為此付出了很多心血。我認為這是一種相當合理的看待事物的方式。所以，當您聽到我們關於按控制人數付費的指導意見，並且您在模型中使用該指標時，我認為這比試圖區分有多少是臨時解僱，有多少是裁員等等要清晰和容易得多。

That's super helpful. And then I guess, just a quick follow-up would be kind of coming out of this, obviously, in this type of event, you really turn through in terms of the caliber of the organization. Do you see any change competitively, particularly as obviously coming out of the last cycle much more service-oriented as opposed to shift to the cloud in this one? But from a competitive perspective, any changes where you look to even build on that attrition number longer term in terms of improvement?

這太有幫助了。然後我想，接下來要簡單說說，顯然，在這種類型的活動中，組織的整體水準會真正體現出來。您認為競爭格局會有任何改變嗎？尤其是在上一輪週期中，市場明顯更加重視服務，而這一輪週期則更加重視向雲端遷移。但從競爭角度來看，您是否考慮在長期內降低人員流失率，從而進一步提升績效？

I think you do see some subtle differences in terms of company cultures and, I think, behavior. So as an example, one of the things that we have always, I think, proud to talk about is this willingness by us to really help our clients navigate these things, not just provide them the software solution. We actually take some responsibility for the outcomes of what they're trying to accomplish. And so the support we're providing around all these regulatory changes, I think, is an example of that. That doesn't mean that other competitors aren't doing similar things. But as an example, some competitors would be more along the lines of providing tools online and directing clients to third parties or directing them to resources where they can get help, versus, in our case, we actually take the work on, and we help our clients get to where they need to get in order to get their retention credit, tax credit, in order to get their payroll protection loan, in order to calculate. In a few weeks or, at least, in a couple of months, people are going to be needing help with calculating how to get forgiveness on those loans. I mean this is a complicated environment.

我認為在公司文化和行為方面確實存在一些細微的差異。舉例來說，我們一直以來都引以為傲的一點是，我們願意真正幫助客戶解決這些問題，而不僅僅是為他們提供軟體解決方案。我們實際上要對他們試圖達成的目標的後果承擔一些責任。因此，我認為，我們為所有這些監管變革提供的支持就是一個例證。但這並不意味著其他競爭對手沒有做類似的事情。但舉例來說，一些競爭對手的做法更像是提供線上工具，並將客戶引導至第三方或引導他們前往可以尋求幫助的資源，而我們則是實際承接這項工作，幫助客戶達到他們需要達到的目標，以便獲得留任抵免、稅收抵免、工資保障貸款以及進行計算。幾週後，或至少幾個月後，人們將需要幫助來計算如何獲得貸款豁免。我的意思是，這是一個複雜的環境。

By the way, employment, in general, is always complicated, but this is a very complicated environment. And having great tools and technology is incredibly important, and we're totally committed to that. But I think it's undeniable that you also need extra help in these situations to help with questions and to help you navigate through all the various regulatory hurdles. As an example, some of the legislation that was passed in the U.S., you have to really understand the interplay. Like as an example, you can't take advantage of the deferral Social Security taxes and the payroll protection loans, but if you -- you can take advantage of the Social Security deferrals up until -- so you can get a loan. But then once it's forgiven, you can no longer defer your Social Security taxes. I mean, those are things that are typically not well understood by our client base. And I think just directing them to a website or to a tool, we don't think it is really the -- is the best way to help them.

順便說一句，就業本身就很複雜，但這裡的環境尤其複雜。擁有優秀的工具和技術至關重要，我們對此也全力以赴。但我認為，在這些情況下，您也需要額外的幫助來解答疑問，並幫助您克服各種監管障礙，這是不可否認的。例如，美國通過的一些立法，你必須真正了解其中的相互作用。舉個例子，你不能同時享受社會安全稅延期繳納和工資保障貸款，但是如果你——你可以享受社會安全稅延期繳納，直到——這樣你就可以獲得貸款。但是一旦債務被豁免，你就不能再延期繳交社會安全稅了。我的意思是，這些都是我們的客戶群通常不太了解的事情。我認為僅僅引導他們訪問某個網站或使用某個工具，並不是真正幫助他們的最佳方式。

Our next question comes from the line of Bryan Bergin with Cowen.

我們的下一個問題來自 Bryan Bergin 與 Cowen 的對話。

Hope your families are all well. I wanted to try an outlook here. I'm just understanding the material uncertainty. Can you help us frame some initial fiscal '21 guideposts? I'm trying to think how we should be thinking about next year based on some of the implied 4Q run rates. Any sense of visibility you have across the businesses or maybe thinking across client size would be helpful.

希望你們家人一切安好。我想在這裡嘗試一下這種觀點。我只是想了解材料方面的不確定性。您能否幫助我們制定一些 2021 財政年度的初步指導方針？我正在根據一些隱含的第四季運行率來思考我們應該如何看待明年。如果您對各個業務部門的情況有所了解，或者能夠從客戶規模的角度進行思考，那將很有幫助。

First of all, thanks for asking about our families. I hope yours is well as -- also. Unfortunately, I mean, it's a very fair question, and I can understand why you're looking for any additional color. As you can imagine, we struggled with even providing kind of fourth quarter metrics because 2, 3, 4 weeks ago, we had -- or people had a certain view of "how long" the issue was going to continue and when things are going to open up again. And then it got more negative. Then now, it feels like it's gotten more positive. So I think that it's very difficult for us to go really beyond the fourth quarter in this environment. We have to remain optimistic that things are going to "improve". But I think that we all have to take advantage of the time we have to wait and see how things play out, whether it's with the clients or with GDP or with the economy or with these government programs, so that we can make more informed, I think, decisions about what 2021, I think, might look at. So I apologize for not being able to give you any additional color, but I think it would be a mistake to assume that the levels of activity that we've given you in the fourth quarter will continue into 2021. But it's also a mistake to assume that things are going to go back to normal at the beginning of 2021. And so we're going to kind of keep an eye on the data and the information and do our best as we gather more information to give you a good view of what's going to happen in '21 when we get there.

首先，感謝你們關心我們的家人。希望你也一切安好。很遺憾，我的意思是，這是一個非常合理的問題，我可以理解你為什麼想要添加其他顏色。可想而知，我們甚至很難提供第四季度的指標，因為在 2、3、4 週前，我們——或者說人們——對這個問題會持續多久以及何時才能重新開放抱持一定的看法。然後情況變得更加糟糕。現在感覺情況變得更積極了。所以我認為，在這種環境下，我們很難真正走到第四季之後。我們必須保持樂觀，相信情況會「好轉」。但我認為，我們都應該利用這段時間觀察事態發展，無論是客戶、GDP、經濟或這些政府項目，這樣我們才能對 2021 年的發展趨勢做出更明智的決定。因此，很抱歉我無法提供更多細節，但我認為假設我們在第四季度所展現的活動水平會延續到 2021 年是一個錯誤的想法。但認為一切都會在 2021 年初恢復正常也是錯誤的。因此，我們將密切關注數據和信息，並在收集更多信息的同時盡最大努力，以便在 2021 年到來時，為您提供一個清晰的展望。

Yes. Maybe I could just add a few comments around the process and what we're doing and the data that we're looking at. Since -- while, as Carlos said, we can't really give you the view right now or the exact guidepost, at least, if you understand and know the process we're doing, that might help a little bit. So look, things are, as Carlos said, it's extremely fluid right now. We're spending a lot of time studying and watching developments every single day and kind of looking at -- I think about it in 3 steps, if you will, in terms of, first, understanding what's happening from a pandemic standpoint in the epidemiology, then understanding how that impacts the economy broadly around the world and then understanding how that impacts each of the BUs. So as we do that, obviously, we're looking at numerous forecasts that I'm sure you all are looking at the same forecast that are being put out. But we're really spending a lot of time in parsing through those and kind of eliminating outliers and really utilizing the ones that we feel makes the most sense and then applying that to, as I said, the implications for our business units. And when you do that, as we've said, largely, PPC is going to be an extremely significant driver for us. And then, certainly, the shape of the recovery from a new business booking standpoint will be critically important. So we're watching that as well as we see different regions and states kind of formulating and attempting the return to work.

是的。或許我可以就這個過程、我們正在做的事情以及我們正在查看的數據補充一些評論。雖然——正如卡洛斯所說，我們現在無法給你確切的答案或指導方針，但至少，如果你理解並了解我們正在進行的過程，那可能會有所幫助。所以你看，正如卡洛斯所說，現在的情況瞬息萬變。我們每天都花費大量時間研究和觀察事態發展，並大致從三個步驟來思考——首先，從流行病學的角度了解疫情正在發生什麼；其次，了解疫情對世界各地經濟的廣泛影響；最後，了解疫情對每個業務單元的影響。所以，在進行這項工作時，顯然，我們正在查看大量的預測，我相信你們也都在查看同樣的預測。但我們確實花了很多時間來分析這些數據，剔除異常值，並真正利用我們認為最有意義的數據，然後正如我所說，將其應用於我們業務部門的影響。正如我們所說，這樣做的話，PPC 將在很大程度上成為我們極其重要的驅動力。當然，從新業務預訂的角度來看，復甦的形式將至關重要。所以我們也在關注這一點，因為我們看到不同的地區和州都在製定和嘗試復工復產方案。

Okay. I appreciate that. I wanted to ask on retention. The comments on the assumptions in 4Q, is the reduction wholly due to business closures? I'm curious if you're seeing any change in the competitive client loss.

好的。我很感激。我想問一下關於員工留存率的問題。關於第四季假設的評論，減少是否完全是由於企業倒閉造成的？我很想知道您是否觀察到競爭性客戶流失方面有任何變化。

Well, I mean, I think based on the comments we gave you about the third quarter and the year-to-date, I think we're doing pretty well competitively because our -- I think our retention was up. I mean, we don't talk about quarterly retention, but why not? Like everything's -- everything is out the window in this kind of environment. But I think we were over 50 basis points improvement in the third quarter. And through the year-to-date, I think we were well ahead of both the guidance we had provided in our own internal expectations. So it's pretty clear that we were doing something right competitively. Our NPS scores are at record levels across most of our businesses. So again, the problem is this is not the time to brag and talk about the third quarter, but we had -- we really had incredible momentum coming into the third quarter on a number of fronts. But that's that. And we're onto now figuring out how to deal with the future challenges. But I have no concerns about the solidity of our business on every front coming into the third quarter.

嗯，我的意思是，根據我們之前對第三季和年初至今的評價，我認為我們在競爭方面做得相當不錯，因為我們——我認為我們的客戶留存率提高了。我的意思是，我們不討論季度留存率，但為什麼不呢？在這種環境下，一切都——一切都變得無關緊要了。但我認為我們在第三季取得了超過 50 個基點的進步。截至目前，我認為我們遠遠超出了我們自己給出的內部預期。所以很明顯，我們在競爭方面做對了某些事情。我們大多數業務的淨推薦值 (NPS) 都達到了歷史新高。所以，問題在於現在不是吹噓和談論第三季度的時候，但是我們在進入第三季度時，在很多方面都取得了巨大的進步。事情就是這樣。我們現在正著手思考如何應對未來的挑戰。但我對公司業務在各方面的穩健性，尤其是在第三季即將到來之際，沒有任何擔憂。

Our next question comes from the line of Kartik Mehta with Northcoast Research.

我們的下一個問題來自 Northcoast Research 的 Kartik Mehta。

Carlos, I was wondering, based on the data you're seeing, and I realize this is so early in, but what kind of changes do you anticipate for the business, permanent changes or at least over the next 12 to 18 months because of this current crisis?

卡洛斯，我想問一下，根據你看到的數據，我知道現在還處於早期階段，但你預期這場危機將為企業帶來哪些改變？是永久性的變化，還是至少在未來 12 到 18 個月內會發生的變化？

Well, over the next 12 to 18 months is probably the right focus because, I mean, I think it would be naive to think there are some things that are going to change permanently, but I'm not sure I have that kind of crystal ball to be precise about that. But for the next 12 to 18 months, because of the focus we have on our associates, it's unlikely that we will be going back to business as usual here in the next few months. Now the good news is we've adapted to the current work environment. So -- but a kind of a concrete change in terms of the next 12 to 18 months is we don't anticipate having 100% of our workforce back working in these "win as one" locations and some of these other places where we have large populations of associates. And so that's a change that we have to make sure that we stay on top of, that we support our people and lead them remotely and virtually and help them kind of navigate through what's a very different way of working. Now obviously, we plan on -- as society kind of normalizes, we plan on coming along for the ride with that. So we do -- we are formulating plans, as we speak, very preliminary plans around how do we slowly get back into some of our offices with limited number of personnel. But that's a change that we're definitely going to have to continue to live with for the next 12 to 18 months. Now what that means is that impacts our sales force. And so the question is, if the demand equation improves significantly and our sales force is still working remotely, how can we make sure that they have the right tools and the right processes to continue to take advantage of the demand that's out there because we don't anticipate having large numbers of salespeople back in our offices. Our salespeople, by definition, many of them are inside sales, but many of them are out in face-to-face transactions, and that's not something that's going to normalize in the next 12 to 18 months. Sadly, I'm sad to report that of the number of associates that we had impacted by COVID-19, we were disproportionately impacted in our sales force. So as we go back to normalization, we're going to be exceptionally careful about protecting our sales force as well.

嗯，未來 12 到 18 個月可能是最合適的關注點，因為，我的意思是，認為有些事情會永久改變的想法未免太天真了，但我也不確定自己是否有那種能預知未來的能力來準確預測這一點。但在接下來的 12 到 18 個月裡，由於我們專注於員工發展，我們不太可能在未來幾個月內恢復到以往的經營模式。好消息是我們已經適應了目前的工作環境。所以——但未來 12 到 18 個月內的一個具體變化是，我們預計不會有 100% 的員工回到這些「團結一心」的地點以及其他一些我們員工人數眾多的地方工作。所以，我們必須確保密切關注這項變化，支持我們的員工，遠端和虛擬地領導他們，幫助他們適應這種截然不同的工作方式。很顯然，隨著社會逐漸恢復正常，我們也計劃順應這個趨勢。所以我們正在製定計劃——就在我們說話的時候，我們正在製定非常初步的計劃，圍繞著我們如何在人員有限的情況下逐步恢復一些辦公室的辦公室。但在接下來的 12 到 18 個月裡，我們肯定必須繼續適應這種變化。這意味著這將影響我們的銷售團隊。因此，問題是，如果需求情況顯著改善，而我們的銷售團隊仍然遠端辦公，我們如何確保他們擁有合適的工具和流程，以便繼續利用現有的需求，因為我們預計不會有大量的銷售人員回到辦公室。從定義上講，我們的銷售人員中有很多是內勤銷售，但也有很多是外出進行面對面交易，這種情況在未來 12 到 18 個月內不會恢復正常。遺憾的是，我必須遺憾地報告，在我們所有受 COVID-19 影響的員工中，銷售人員受到的影響尤其嚴重。因此，隨著我們逐步恢復正常，我們將格外謹慎地保護我們的銷售團隊。

And then just finally, Carlos, what do you think the recovery will look like? We've heard so much of V, a U, an L. I'm just interested in your perspective of what you're anticipating from a recovery.

最後，卡洛斯，你認為復甦會是什麼樣子？我們已經聽過太多關於V、U、L的說法了。我只是想聽聽你對復甦的預期。

Well, I think the -- again, we're looking at -- we get information from all of the usual places. Like Morgan Stanley is obviously our bank, So they're -- they've been very helpful in giving us their information. But we have access to information from a number of other sources. I don't want to say any other names, so I don't hurt anybody's feelings. But all the usual banks, we get the information from them. We have information from Moody's. By the way, we also work with the fed, we work with treasury. We have a lot of sources of information to give us some sense of kind of where things are headed. The challenge is that I don't think anyone has really -- well, not -- I don't think -- I know that no one has ever been through this. So there really aren't any great models, other than using inputs like PMIs or consumer confidence and other metrics that tend to be many of the metrics that people use in these models or lagging indicators, right? And you have regression that gives you some sense of where the economy is headed. But as I've seen myself in the last 4 to 5 weeks, you have to take any forecast with a large grain of salt. So the best approach we think we can have right now is to remain flexible and agile about how you're planning and what you're planning for.

嗯，我認為——再說一遍，我們正在研究——我們從所有通常的管道獲取資訊。摩根士丹利顯然是我們的銀行，所以他們——他們在提供資訊方面給予了我們很大的幫助。但我們也可以從其他一些管道獲取資訊。我不想說出其他人的名字，以免傷害任何人的感情。但是，所有常見的銀行，我們都會從它們那裡獲取資訊。我們從穆迪公司獲得了相關資訊。順便說一句，我們也與聯準會合作，與財政部合作。我們有很多資訊來源，可以讓我們大致了解事情的發展方向。問題在於，我認為沒有人真正經歷過這種情況——嗯，不——我認為——我知道從來沒有人經歷過這種情況。所以除了使用採購經理人指數 (PMI) 或消費者信心指數等輸入指標以及其他指標（這些指標往往是人們在這些模型中使用的許多指標或滯後指標）之外，實際上並沒有什麼很好的模型，對吧？迴歸分析可以讓你對經濟走向有所了解。但正如我過去 4 到 5 週的親身經歷，你必須對任何預測都持保留態度。因此，我們認為目前最好的方法是保持靈活敏捷，無論你的規劃方式和計畫內容是什麼。

If I were -- if we had to make a bet today, we would say that it's not going to be a V-shaped recovery, and it's probably not going to be U or an L, but it's going to be some other kind of shape where we obviously already had the precipitous decline. We're already seeing some signs of some stabilization. So we have metrics that we track like in our HR systems of our clients. For example, new job postings or number of screenings that are done, like background checks, and some of those metrics have actually begun to stabilize. So I think we -- we've had the abrupt drop. Another question is the recovery. It feels like that recovery will be not a V, but not an L. And so the difference between a V and an L is the checkmark, like I think some people are out there quoting. By the way, we have an economist on our Board, and he referred to it as the Nike swoosh, but that's probably a copyright or trademark violation, so I won't use the Nike swoosh. But you get the idea, abrupt drop and, hopefully, a climb back up over some period of time. Hopefully, that climb is over the course of 3 to 6 months and not over the course of 12 to 18 months.

如果讓我——如果今天我們必須打賭的話，我們會說這不會是 V 型復甦，可能也不會是 U 型或 L 型，而是某種其他形狀，顯然我們已經經歷了急劇下滑。我們已經看到一些趨於穩定的跡象。因此，我們在客戶的人力資源系統中會追蹤一些指標。例如，新發布的職位數量或進行的篩選次數（如背景調查）等指標實際上已經開始趨於穩定。所以我覺得我們——我們經歷了驟降。另一個問題是復甦。感覺這次復甦不會是V型，但也不會是L型。所以V型和L型的差別就在於那個勾號，就像有些人引用的那樣。順便說一下，我們董事會裡有一位經濟學家，他稱之為耐吉標誌，但這可能侵犯了版權或商標權，所以我不會使用耐吉標誌。但你應該要明白我的意思，突然下降，然後希望經過一段時間後能夠回升。希望這項攀升過程能在 3 到 6 個月內完成，而不是 12 到 18 個月。

Our next question comes from the line of David Grossman with Stifel.

我們的下一個問題來自 Stifel 的 David Grossman 的產品線。

Carlos, I think you've addressed this in a couple of previous questions, but based on how this may play out coming out of the crisis, and you talked just a moment ago about some possible structural changes, at least, in the intermediate term being work from home or virtual sales, how do you feel the way you're positioned coming out of that versus where you were going into it? And how do you view your ability really to leverage that to your advantage? Is it structural? Or is it based on execution? I'm sure it's a combination of both. But if you could just give us a little more insight into how you're feeling about what you can do with this crisis to really enhance your position, both competitively and operationally.

卡洛斯，我想你在之前的幾個問題中已經談到過這一點，但根據危機過後的發展情況，以及你剛才談到的一些可能的結構性變化，至少在中期內可能是在家工作或虛擬銷售，你覺得你現在的處境與危機前相比如何？那麼，你如何看待自己利用這一點為自己謀利的能力呢？是結構性問題嗎？還是說，評判標準取決於執行情況？我相信是兩者兼而有之。但如果您能更深入地談談您對如何利用這場危機來真正提升自身競爭力和營運水平的看法，那就太好了。

Well, look, I think that some of this is philosophical. I think that I, like everyone else, when we were entering this phase, I was scared, like everyone else's, not just personally for myself and my family, but also for the company and all of our associates and our clients that depend on us. And when you see the reaction and the ability of the organization to kind of get through it, and not just get through it, but actually deliver a higher level of service and help with very complicated questions in a very complicated situation, which was changing, in some cases, on a daily basis with the regulatory landscape, I think it tells you something about the strength of the culture and of the company. And so that gives me -- again, this is all intellectual philosophical, but I think gives me great hope about how we emerge from this competitively. We already had incredibly strong momentum going into the third quarter. As you saw from retention, we think we have a strong product lineup that was beginning to get traction. One of the things we didn't talk about when someone asked the question about our competitive situation, like we had really good growth in client counts, particularly in Workforce Now, and specifically in our mid-market business. So the combination of positive momentum in coming into this and then the reaction and the strength of the organization through this gives me great optimism and hope that we're going to come out of this stronger than any of our competitors.

嗯，你看，我認為這其中有些是哲學層面的問題。我想，就像所有人一樣，當我們進入這個階段時，我感到害怕，不僅為我自己和我的家人感到害怕，也為公司、我們所有的同事以及依賴我們的客戶感到害怕。當你看到組織的反應和應對能力，不僅能夠應對，而且能夠在非常複雜的情況下提供更高水準的服務和幫助，解決非常複雜的問題（在某些情況下，監管環境每天都在變化），我認為這體現了公司文化和公司的實力。所以這讓我——當然，這都是一些哲學上的思考，但我認為這讓我對我們如何從這場競爭中脫穎而出抱持著很大的希望。進入第三季時，我們已經擁有了非常強勁的勢頭。從用戶留存率來看，我們認為我們擁有強大的產品陣容，並且已經開始獲得市場認可。當有人問及我們的競爭狀況時，我們沒有談到的一件事是，我們的客戶數量成長非常強勁，尤其是在 Workforce Now 領域，特別是我們的中階市場業務。因此，積極的勢頭，以及組織在應對此次挑戰時展現出的反應和實力，讓我非常樂觀，並相信我們將比任何競爭對手都更加強大。

Yes. Let me just add to that. Yes, I would just add to that, in addition to the great service that we've been able to provide to our clients throughout this, which, theoretically, ideally, should sustain or drive even better retention going forward, I would say the strength of our balance sheet and the ability to continue to invest aligned with what we laid out at our Innovation Day, so investing in our strategic products, in Workforce Now, in RUN, in our Next Gen product, our ability to continue to do that throughout this should position us well.

是的。我再補充一點。是的，我還要補充一點，除了我們一直以來為客戶提供的優質服務（理論上，理想情況下，這應該能夠維持甚至進一步提高客戶留存率）之外，我認為我們穩健的資產負債表以及我們繼續按照創新日計劃進行投資的能力，例如投資我們的戰略產品，如 Workforce Now、RUN 和我們的下一代產品，我們能夠持續進行這些投資地位，這將使我們處於有利地位。

Our next question comes from the line of Steven Wald with Morgan Stanley.

我們的下一個問題來自摩根士丹利的史蒂文·沃爾德。

I hope you guys are safe and well, and thanks for the shoutout from Morgan Stanley (inaudible) on that subject. Maybe just starting off on some of the puts and takes of the segments. You've pointed to worksite employee growth still in PEO versus lower pays per control and Employer Services. Just maybe run us through again because this has come up a lot in recent conversations around why the PEO should still be thought of as, employment wise, a little bit more defensive and how you guys see that tracking this downturn versus prior ones.

希望你們平安健康，感謝摩根士丹利（聽不清楚）就此事對你們的聲援。或許可以先從一些片段的投注和投注開始。您指出，與薪資較低的雇主服務相比，PEO（專業雇主組織）的工作場所員工成長仍在繼續。請您再給我們詳細解釋一下，因為最近在討論為什麼 PEO 在就業方面仍然應該被視為更具防禦性時，經常會提到這個問題，以及你們如何看待這次經濟衰退與以往的衰退相比。

I think the #1 reason is really just structural in the sense that when you look at overall ADP, we have clients all the way from a single employee, all the way to very large national accounts. And so as we've said -- we said this obviously over multiple decades. Our downmarket business tends to be the most sensitive to out of business, but also to decreases in pays per control. And so as we track this pays per control data, I think we've probably given you some of the color that the pays per control numbers are down more in the downmarket than they are in the mid- and the up market. The PEO -- at least in our case, the PEO tends to -- the averaged-size client just, from a practical standpoint, is 45. And we tend -- we try to stay away from clients that are under 10 employees. We have some clients, obviously, that are between 5 and 10 employees. But in general, the sweet spot of the PEO is kind of around 45, that's the average. And so it's just the nature of the structural difference of that business versus the others that the pays per control is not going to decline as much as the overall average, if you will, where you have some of that average being in a small business market.

我認為首要原因其實是結構性的，因為當你縱觀整個 ADP 公司時，我們的客戶涵蓋了從單一員工到非常大的全國性客戶。正如我們過去幾十年來一直強調的那樣。我們的低端市場業務往往對倒閉最為敏感，而且對每次控制付費的減少也最為敏感。因此，當我們追蹤這些按控制付費的數據時，我認為我們已經向你們展示了一些信息，即下行市場的按控制付費數字比中行市場和上行市場下降得更多。PEO－至少在我們這裡，PEO往往－從實際角度來看，平均規模的客戶只有45。而且我們傾向於—我們盡量避免與員工人數少於 10 人的客戶合作。當然，我們也有一些客戶，他們的員工人數在 5 到 10 人之間。但總的來說，PEO 的最佳人數大約在 45 人左右，這是平均值。因此，正是由於該企業與其他企業的結構性差異，其每控制權的支付額不會像整體平均水平那樣下降，因為部分平均水平是在小型企業市場中下降的。

And then the second more anecdotal comment would be the PEO clients, our PEO clients, not every PEO's clients, our PEO clients tend to provide health benefits, a retirement plan. They tend to be kind of higher average wage than the average U.S. worker, and that makes sense because you're paying for the help that you get with maximizing and managing that sales force. So it tends to be attractive to a higher-average wage employer that is very concerned with attracting the right people and retaining the right people. So that also tends to lead you in the direction of clients that are a little bit larger, maybe a little bit more financially capable of paying those fees, et cetera. So that -- but that -- not sure that we can have a scientific way of proving that one. But for sure, the average-sized client of a PEO -- of our PEO is larger than in our SBS business. And hence, the pays per control drop would logically be smaller.

其次，第二個比較軼事性的評論是，我們的 PEO 客戶（並非所有 PEO 客戶）往往會提供醫療福利和退休計劃。他們的平均薪資往往比美國普通工人高一些，這是有道理的，因為你付錢是為了獲得在最大化和管理銷售團隊方面所獲得的幫助。因此，對於平均薪資較高、非常重視吸引和留住合適人才的雇主來說，這往往很有吸引力。所以，這也往往會引導你走向規模稍大的客戶，他們可能也更有能力支付這些費用等等。所以——但是——我不確定我們能否用科學的方法來證明這一點。但可以肯定的是，我們 PEO 的平均客戶規模比我們 SBS 業務的客戶規模更大。因此，以控制權計算，收益下降幅度自然會更小。

Got it. That's very helpful color. In terms of just a quick follow-up on capital management dividend. I know both of you have mentioned the strength of the balance sheet, continued ongoing investment and cost cutting. But in terms of how we should think about things like the dividend and the safety there or your willingness to raise that given the current environment or buybacks and other forms, like the acquisition to lower valuations, how are you guys thinking about that from a financial, but also a strategic and sort of, I guess, sensitivity to the times type of perspective?

知道了。那是一個非常有用的顏色。僅就資本管理分紅情況做一個簡要跟進。我知道你們兩位都提到了資產負債表的穩健性、持續的投資和成本削減。但是，就我們應該如何看待股息及其安全性，或者鑑於當前環境你們是否願意提高股息，以及回購和其他形式（如收購）來降低估值而言，你們從財務角度、戰略角度以及對時代敏感性的角度是如何看待這些問題的呢？

So I'm glad you asked that question because I happen to talk to our Chairman yesterday before this call because I figured somebody might ask that question. It's a tricky question because, as you know, it's up to the Board to decide on our dividend. But I can tell you this that we had a Board meeting on April 8, and the Board [approved payment of our dividend] (corrected by company after the call). And they wouldn't have done that if they had concerns in the short or medium term about our capital position or about our dividend. So again, without speaking for the Board, I think we have a very long 45-year track record of paying and increasing our dividend. We have a strong balance sheet. We are a capital-light business with strong cash generation. Our payout ratio is 55% to 60%, which, I think, gives us some room to be able to continue even with increases without running into any major capital constraints or restrictions on our investing. And so I would feel optimistic that our Board would be supportive of continuing the long track record the ADP has of 45 years as it stands. And I'll let Kathleen maybe make a comment or 2 about that as well.

所以我很高興你問了這個問題，因為我昨天在這次通話之前正好和我們的董事長談過，因為我覺得可能會有人問這個問題。這是一個棘手的問題，因為如您所知，股息由董事會決定。但我可以告訴你們，我們在 4 月 8 日召開了董事會會議，董事會批准了支付股息（公司在電話會議後進行了更正）。如果他們對我們的短期或中期資本狀況或股利有疑慮，他們就不會這樣做。所以，我再次聲明，我並不代表董事會發言，但我認為我們有著長達 45 年的派息和提高股息的良好記錄。我們擁有穩健的資產負債表。我們是一家資本密集型企業，擁有強大的現金流。我們的派息率為 55% 至 60%，我認為這給了我們一定的空間，即使增加派息，我們也能繼續發展，而不會遇到任何重大的資本限製或投資限制。因此，我樂觀地認為，我們的董事會將支持ADP繼續保持其45年來的良好發展勢頭。我也會讓凱瑟琳就此發表一兩句評論。

Yes. Thanks. Yes, you covered it really well, Carlos. I would just say, in support of enabling the Board to make dividend decisions, we, on a normal basis, do ongoing analysis and stress testing and have been continuing to do that through this environment. So we've been doing -- looking really closely at that stress testing. So I really don't have anything to add there on what Carlos -- the points Carlos commented.

是的。謝謝。是的，卡洛斯，你報道得非常出色。我想說的是，為了支持董事會做出分紅決定，我們通常會進行持續的分析和壓力測試，並且在這種環境下也一直在繼續這樣做。所以我們一直在進行——非常仔細地研究壓力測試。所以，對於卡洛斯所評論的觀點，我真的沒有什麼要補充的。

We have time for one more question, and that's from the line of Lisa Ellis with MoffettNathanson.

我們還有時間回答最後一個問題，這個問題來自 Lisa Ellis 和 MoffettNathanson。

Glad to hear you're well. You -- just a little bit of a follow-up on the PEO question. I mean, as you just highlighted, the worksite employees in PEO are a bit more resilient because of the larger size of the company, but the revenue guidance there is down more significantly in Q4. Maybe like a tactical question just around what drives that in the short term, but maybe a broader question, Carlos, for you, coming from originally, the PEO business. How should we think about how the PEO will act through a recession period? Do you expect increased demand for the PEO or some clients dropping out of the PEO? How do you think about that dynamic?

很高興聽到你一切都好。您——關於 PEO 問題，我還有一點後續問題。我的意思是，正如你剛才強調的那樣，由於公司規模較大，PEO 的現場員工的適應能力更強一些，但該公司第四季度的收入預期下降幅度更大。也許這是一個關於短期內什麼因素驅動的戰術性問題，但卡洛斯，對於你這個最初來自 PEO 行業的人來說，也許這是一個更廣泛的問題。我們該如何看待專業雇主組織（PEO）在經濟衰退時期會採取的行動？您預計對 PEO 的需求會增加，還是會有一些客戶退出 PEO？你如何看待這種動態？

It's a great question. I'll let Danny pull up the calculator to -- because I'm sure you're right about dropping greater. There's no intention -- there's no signaling or anything intended there, maybe rounding or the math or something, but there's no magic formula there that we're trying to send some kind of message. I mean we think the PEO business is solid and strong and, I think, tends to weather recessions better. Again, every time you have a recession, it's a different kind of recession. So we had a financial crisis last time. This time, it's a health crisis. So I'm always cautious to -- of making kind of bold definitive statements. But historically, we've always worried about the PEO going into a recession or into a crisis being challenged because it does tend to be a -- kind of a more expensive, if you will, solution, if you will. But it also provides an enormously higher amount of value, right? And during these types of situations, like, for example, our PEO handles the questions not just of our clients, but of the employees of our clients. That's not what we generally do for our typical payroll requirements. That helps our clients a lot and release them of a big burden, provides those employees a lot of comforts. There's a lot of real positives and good reason why people want to stay on a PEO or why they want to be on a PEO, even in a recessionary environment. So I would say that in the prior recessions, the PEO was not immune, just like it's not this time, from pays per control decreases and from some short-term disruption to new bookings. But we've been impressed. I've been through now, I guess, this is my third recession at ADP. And at least prior to -- the PEO performed on a relative basis, as well, if not better, than the rest of our business. And we would expect no different on a go-forward basis.

這是一個很好的問題。我讓丹尼拿出計算器來算算——因為我確信你說的「去掉更大的」是對的。這裡沒有任何意圖——沒有任何訊號傳遞或其他意圖，也許只是四捨五入或數學運算之類的，但並沒有什麼神奇的公式是我們試圖傳遞某種訊息。我的意思是，我們認為 PEO 業務穩健強勁，而且我認為，它往往更能經得起經濟衰退的考驗。再說一遍，每次經濟衰退都是不同類型的衰退。上次我們遭遇了金融危機。這一次，是一場健康危機。所以我總是很謹慎，不會輕易發表過於武斷的言論。但從歷史上看，我們一直擔心 PEO 在經濟衰退或危機中會受到挑戰，因為它往往是一種——如果你願意的話，更昂貴的解決方案。但它也提供了更高的價值，對吧？例如，在這些情況下，我們的 PEO 不僅要處理客戶的問題，還要處理客戶員工的問題。這並非我們通常處理日常工資發放的方式。這大大幫助了我們的客戶，減輕了他們的負擔，也為這些員工提供了極大的便利。即使在經濟衰退的環境下，人們仍然有很多真正的好處和充分的理由選擇留在 PEO 或加入 PEO。所以我認為，在先前的經濟衰退中，PEO 也未能倖免，就像這次一樣，會受到按控制付費減少和新訂單短期中斷的影響。但我們印象深刻。我想，這應該是我在ADP經歷的第三次經濟衰退了。至少在此之前，PEO 的表現即便不是比我們公司的其他部門更好，也至少與它們相當。我們預計未來情況也不會有所不同。

And Lisa, this is Danny. Just to add, because it's fairly in the weeds, which I love, of course. But in addition to the impact from worksite employees in the PEO, we charge as a percent of payroll. And so wages themselves, to the extent we have some workers working fewer hours within the PEO base, that can have an impact. And then even further in the weeds is you can have a slight mix impact with respect to workers' comp to the extent that certain industries, you have greater impact from pays per control, and those had higher workers' comp rate. So these are very subtle impacts. But together, they kind of inform that guidance.

麗莎，這位是丹尼。補充一點，因為它相當注重細節，當然，我很喜歡這一點。除了 PEO 中工作場所員工的影響外，我們還會以總薪資的百分比收費。因此，工資本身，如果 PEO 基地內的一些工人工作時間減少，可能會產生影響。更深入地來看，在工傷賠償方面，你可能會受到一些混合因素的影響，因為某些行業的按控制支付的工資影響更大，而這些行業的工傷賠償率也更高。所以這些影響非常細微。但它們共同構成了指導原則。

Wonderful. And then maybe my last one. And Carlos, if you want to end on -- just as you're watching and maybe help us a little bit, what are the top, like, literally, 1 or 2 things that you are watching that you think are really going to impact as you're looking at your client base, the shape of the swoosh or the checkmark or -- over these next couple of months?

精彩的。然後，也許是我最後一個。卡洛斯，如果你想在最後——就在你觀看的時候，也想幫我們一點忙——你認為在接下來的幾個月裡，在你觀察你的客戶群、勾形標誌或對勾形狀時，真正會產生影響的最重要的一兩件事是什麼？

I think the first one that we're keeping our eye on is really these kind of leading indicators, if you will. So this would be job postings and background checks. And so that, I think, is -- those are, I think -- the job postings is obvious in the sense that people aren't really going to post new positions if they think that things are not going to, at some point, improve. So to me, that's a sign that people are doing the same thing we're doing, which is we're conservative and we're cautious, but we have to be prepared for every eventuality, including the optimistic one. And so this increase in postings and job postings, to me, means that people are starting to think of, "Well, if in 2, 3, 4 weeks, this state or this industry has some kind of opening, I need to make sure that I have the people available to handle that work," because these are business owners that obviously have to run their businesses.

我認為我們首先要關注的就是這類先行指標。所以這包括招聘資訊發布和背景調查。所以，我認為，招聘廣告的現像很明顯，因為如果人們認為情況不會在某個時候有所改善，他們就不會發布新的職缺。所以在我看來，這表明人們正在做我們正在做的事情，那就是我們保守謹慎，但我們必須為每一種可能的情況做好準備，包括樂觀的情況。因此，在我看來，招聘資訊和職位發布的增加意味著人們開始考慮，“如果在 2、3、4 週內，這個州或這個行業出現了一些空缺，我需要確保我有足夠的人手來處理這項工作”，因為這些企業主顯然需要經營他們的企業。

And then secondly, when they actually do that, then they actually have to put that person through the new hiring process, which is the screening and selection. So we're going to keep an eye on those 2 figures.

其次，當他們真的這麼做的時候，他們實際上必須讓這個人經歷新的招募流程，也就是篩選和甄選。所以我們會密切注意這兩個數字。

Then closely behind that, I think, is we have a very large workforce management business or what some people would call time and attendance. And so that is also data that is very helpful in terms of seeing number of hours worked. It doesn't always help you a lot with an exempt workforce. But for people who are paid hourly, it's a very good indicator that kind of cuts through the noise of furloughs and layoffs and so forth and so on, and just kind of gives you some sense of "hours worked" and whether that is increasing or not increasing. So that should show an upturn before we show -- we see upturns on other things because people will take the existing people they have now and just have them work longer hours rather than adding additional people. So the addition of people will probably be the final, I think, sign of recovery. But we have a number of other indicators that we can look at that gives us an earlier view of where we're headed.

緊隨其後的，我認為是我們擁有非常龐大的勞動力管理業務，或者有些人稱之為考勤業務。因此，從查看工作小時數的角度來看，這也是非常有幫助的數據。對於豁免員工隊伍來說，這並不總是能幫上大忙。但對於按小時計薪的人來說，這是一個非常好的指標，可以排除停薪留職、裁員等等的干擾，讓你對「工作時長」有所了解，以及工作時長是否在增加。所以，這應該會在我們看到其他事物好轉之前就顯示出好轉的跡象——我們看到其他事物出現好轉，是因為人們會讓他們現有的員工延長工作時間，而不是增加人手。所以，我認為，人口的增加可能是復甦的最終跡象。但我們還有許多其他指標可以參考，這些指標可以讓我們更早了解未來的發展方向。

This concludes our question-and-answer portion for today. I am pleased to hand the program over to Carlos Rodriguez for closing remarks.

今天的問答環節到此結束。我很高興將節目交給卡洛斯·羅德里格斯，請他致閉幕詞。

So it's hard to kind of find the words to close the call and describe the situation that we're in, but I'm trying to end on an optimistic note here. I've been now with ADP 20 years, and I've been through, I just mentioned, 2 recessions. This is my third. Been through Y2K, which most of the people on the call don't even remember. Danny certainly doesn't remember Y2K. He was too young. Through 9/11, we've been through wars, we've been through multiple changes in technology. Nobody was even talking about SaaS when I joined ADP. And every time we had a challenge, it looked like that was the challenge that we couldn't overcome. But every time, ADP overcame that challenge. And it's no different, I think, for the rest of, in this case, humanity because this is affecting not just the U.S., but it's affecting the entire world. People and ADP find a way to evolve and to adapt. So I have to be optimistic. We have a propensity to overcome. If not, we wouldn't be here talking to you today, whether it's us as human beings or us as a company. By the way, as I've said multiple times in other calls, we're 70 years old, and I think, as a company, and I think that tells you something, that we're a part of a very long history of overcoming challenges, and this one is going to be no different.

所以很難找到合適的字眼來結束這通通話，並描述我們所處的情況，但我盡量以樂觀的態度來結束。我在 ADP 工作了 20 年，經歷了剛才提到的兩次經濟衰退。這是我的第三個。經歷過千年蟲問題，而電話會議上的大多數人甚至都不記得了。丹尼肯定不記得千年蟲問題了。他太年輕了。從9/11事件到如今，我們經歷了戰爭，也經歷了許多技術變革。我加入 ADP 的時候，根本沒人談論 SaaS。每次遇到挑戰時，看起來都是我們無法克服的挑戰。但每一次，ADP 都克服了這個挑戰。我認為，對於其他所有人，就此而言，情況並無不同，因為這不僅影響美國，也影響全世界。人和ADP總是能找到發展和適應的方法。所以我必須保持樂觀。我們天生具有克服困難的能力。否則，無論是作為個人還是作為公司，我們今天都不會在這裡與你們交談。順便說一句，正如我在其他電話會議中多次提到的，我們已經成立70年了，我認為，作為一個公司，這說明了一些問題，我們擁有悠久的克服挑戰的歷史，而這一次挑戰也不會例外。

And I'll leave you with something that I shared with our associates at the beginning of the crisis, which is something that our founder, Henry Taub, I think, established as a culture for the company that, I think, is appropriate. And he always told us, and he told me because I knew him personally, he told me, always take care of your associates and they will take care of your clients, and everything else will take care of itself. So I really appreciate the support of all of you for ADP. Thank you for calling in and asking your questions. And my best wishes to all of you for health and safety for you and your families. Thank you.

最後，我想和大家分享一些我在危機初期與同事們交流的內容，我認為，這是我們的創辦人亨利·陶佈為公司建立的一種文化，我認為這是恰當的。他總是告訴我們，也告訴我，因為我認識他，他告訴我，一定要照顧好你的同事，他們就會照顧好你的客戶，其他一切都會迎刃而解。所以我非常感謝大家對ADP的支持。感謝您來電諮詢並提出問題。祝福您和您的家人健康平安。謝謝。

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

女士們、先生們，今天的電話會議到此結束。感謝您的參與。您現在可以斷開連線了。