Insperity Inc (NSP) 2022 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good morning. My name is Matthew, and I'll be your conference operator today. I would like to welcome everyone to the Insperity's Fourth Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) At this time, I'd like to introduce today's speakers. Joining us today are Paul Sarvadi, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer; and Douglas Sharp, Executive Vice President of Finance, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer.

早上好。我叫馬修，今天我將擔任你們的會議接線員。歡迎大家參加 Insperity 的 2022 年第四季度收益電話會議。 （操作員說明）在這個時候，我想介紹一下今天的演講者。今天加入我們的是董事會主席兼首席執行官 Paul Sarvadi；財務執行副總裁、首席財務官兼財務主管 Douglas Sharp。

At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Douglas Sharp. Mr. Sharp, please go ahead.

在這個時候，我想把電話轉給道格拉斯·夏普。夏普先生，請繼續。

Thank you. We appreciate you joining us. Let me begin by outlining our plan for this morning's call. First, I'm going to discuss the details of our fourth quarter and full year 2022 financial results. Paul will then recap the year and discuss our initiatives and outlook for 2023. I will return to provide our financial guidance. We will then end the call with a question-and-answer session.

謝謝。感謝您加入我們。首先讓我概述一下我們今天上午電話會議的計劃。首先，我將討論我們第四季度和 2022 年全年財務業績的細節。然後保羅將回顧這一年並討論我們的計劃和 2023 年的展望。我將回來提供我們的財務指導。然後，我們將以問答環節結束通話。

Now before we begin, I would like to remind you that Mr. Sarvadi or I may make forward-looking statements during today's call, which are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions. In addition, some of our discussion may include non-GAAP financial measures. For a more detailed discussion of the risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from any forward-looking statements and reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures, please see the company's public filings, including the Form 8-K filed today, which are available on our website.

在我們開始之前，我想提醒您，Sarvadi 先生或我可能會在今天的電話會議上做出前瞻性陳述，這些陳述受風險、不確定性和假設的影響。此外，我們的一些討論可能包括非 GAAP 財務措施。有關可能導致實際結果與非 GAAP 財務措施的任何前瞻性陳述和調節存在重大差異的風險和不確定性的更詳細討論，請參閱公司的公開文件，包括今天提交的 8-K 表格，其中可在我們的網站上找到。

Now let's discuss our fourth quarter results in which we achieved $1.21 in adjusted EPS and $79 million of adjusted EBITDA, significantly above both our expectations in Q4 of 2021, a quarter which was negatively impacted by higher COVID costs. Paid worksite employee growth of 14.3% in Q4, which is slightly below the low end of our forecasted range as we experienced a greater-than-expected slowdown in hiring by our client base. As for the other 2 growth drivers, worksite employees paid from new client sales and client retention came in near our Q4 forecasted levels.

現在讓我們討論一下我們第四季度的業績，我們實現了 1.21 美元的調整後每股收益和 7900 萬美元的調整後 EBITDA，大大高於我們對 2021 年第四季度的預期，該季度受到較高的 COVID 成本的負面影響。第四季度帶薪工地員工增長率為 14.3%，略低於我們預測範圍的低端，因為我們的客戶群招聘放緩幅度大於預期。至於其他 2 個增長動力，從新客戶銷售和客戶保留中支付的工作場所員工接近我們第四季度的預測水平。

In a few minutes, Paul and I will comment further on the outcome of our recent fall sales campaign and heavy client renewal period, leading to our 2023 outlook.

幾分鐘後，保羅和我將進一步評論我們最近的秋季銷售活動和大客戶續約期的結果，從而得出我們 2023 年的展望。

Fourth quarter gross profit increased 41% on the 14% growth in paid worksite employees and a 24% improvement in gross profit per worksite employee. This improvement was largely driven by lower benefit costs as COVID-related costs continue to decline without a notable increase in health care utilization from previously deferred care.

第四季度毛利增長 41%，原因是帶薪工地員工增長 14%，工地員工人均毛利增長 24%。這一改善主要是由較低的福利成本推動的，因為與 COVID 相關的成本繼續下降，而之前推遲的醫療保健利用率沒有顯著增加。

Other areas of gross profit, including pricing and contributions from our payroll tax and workers' compensation areas, also improved over Q4 of 2021.

其他毛利領域，包括我們的工資稅和工人賠償領域的定價和貢獻，也比 2021 年第四季度有所改善。

Operating expenses increased 22% over Q4 of the prior year, which was slightly above our forecast and included continued investment in our service personnel given our high worksite employee growth, a planned increase in Business Performance Advisors, higher sales commissions tied to programs surrounding our Q4 sales volume and pricing, increased costs related to recruiting, travel and training, and costs related to our ongoing implementation of Salesforce. Net interest income improved over the prior year on higher interest rates, and our Q4 effective income tax rate remained at 25%.

營業費用比去年第四季度增長 22%，略高於我們的預測，其中包括對我們服務人員的持續投資，因為我們的工作場所員工人數增長很快，計劃增加業務績效顧問，與第四季度相關的計劃增加了銷售佣金銷量和定價，與招聘、差旅和培訓相關的成本增加，以及與我們持續實施 Salesforce 相關的成本。由於利率上升，淨利息收入比上年有所改善，我們第四季度的實際所得稅率保持在 25%。

Now let me recap our full year 2022 results. We achieved a 38% increase in adjusted EBITDA to $352 million and a 42% increase in adjusted EPS to $5.59, significantly above both our initial budgets and our recent guidance. These higher-than-expected earnings were driven by the significant growth in the paid worksite employees, execution of our long-term pricing strategy, and effective management of our direct cost programs, while making the key investments tied to our long-term growth plans. Our full year worksite employee growth of 18% over 2021 included an increase in worksite employees paid from new sales driven by an improvement in the sales efficiency of our Business Performance Advisors.

現在讓我回顧一下我們 2022 年的全年業績。我們實現了調整後 EBITDA 增長 38% 至 3.52 億美元，調整後每股收益增長 42% 至 5.59 美元，顯著高於我們的初始預算和我們最近的指導。這些高於預期的收益是由帶薪工地員工的顯著增長、我們長期定價策略的執行以及我們直接成本計劃的有效管理推動的，同時將關鍵投資與我們的長期增長計劃掛鉤.與 2021 年相比，我們全年的工作場所員工增長了 18%，其中包括在我們的業務績效顧問的銷售效率提高的推動下，從新銷售中獲得報酬的工作場所員工有所增加。

Client retention also improved from 82% in the prior year to 85% in 2022.

客戶保留率也從上一年的 82% 提高到 2022 年的 85%。

And the third driver to our growth included robust hiring by our clients during the first half of the year, prior to the recent slowdown that I mentioned earlier.

我們增長的第三個驅動因素包括在我之前提到的近期放緩之前，今年上半年我們客戶的強勁招聘。

Gross profit per worksite employee per month or key pricing and direct cost metrics improved from $273 in 2021 to $286 in 2022. These results were above our expectations entering the year as we executed our pricing strategy while maintaining -- while managing the favorable results in each of our direct cost areas.

每名工作場所員工每月的毛利潤或關鍵定價和直接成本指標從 2021 年的 273 美元提高到 2022 年的 286 美元。這些結果超出了我們進入今年的預期，因為我們執行了我們的定價策略，同時保持 - 同時管理每個方面的有利結果我們的直接成本領域。

As mentioned earlier, our lower benefit cost trend resulted from a decline in COVID-related costs without being offset by increased utilization from previously deferred care.

如前所述，我們較低的福利成本趨勢是由於與 COVID 相關的成本下降，而沒有被之前延期護理的利用率增加所抵消。

Effective safety and claims management, combined with the recent hybrid work environment, resulted in lower workers' compensation costs.

有效的安全和索賠管理，結合最近的混合工作環境，降低了工人的賠償成本。

Operating expenses increased 18% over 2021, consistent with our worksite employee growth as we made key investments in our long-term growth plan. In addition to an increase in our service capacity, given the recent high levels of worksite employee growth, we made targeted adjustments to compensation levels of our corporate staff, given the current labor market dynamics and the inflationary environment. Our 2022 compensation costs also included higher sales commissions and incentive compensation tied to our outperformance.

營業費用比 2021 年增長了 18%，這與我們在長期增長計劃中進行關鍵投資時的工作場所員工增長情況一致。除了提高我們的服務能力，鑑於近期工作場所員工的高增長，我們還針對當前的勞動力市場動態和通貨膨脹環境，對公司員工的薪酬水平進行了有針對性的調整。我們 2022 年的薪酬成本還包括更高的銷售佣金和與我們的優異表現相關的激勵薪酬。

We continue to invest in our technology, including the ongoing implementation of salesforce. And lastly, we experienced an increase in travel and event costs on higher prices and higher volume when compared to the unusually low levels during the pandemic in 2021.

我們繼續投資於我們的技術，包括持續實施的 salesforce。最後，與 2021 年大流行期間異常低的水平相比，我們的旅行和活動成本因更高的價格和更高的數量而增加。

Now we continue to produce strong cash flow and ended the year with a solid balance sheet, while investing in the business and providing strong return to our shareholders. We invested $30 million in capital expenditures in 2022 and returned $150 million to stockholders through our dividend and share repurchase programs. We repurchased a total of 770,000 shares at a cost of $73 million. We also paid out $77 million in cash dividends, which includes a 16% increase in our regular dividend rate in May of '22.

現在，我們繼續產生強勁的現金流，並以穩健的資產負債表結束了這一年，同時投資於業務並為我們的股東提供豐厚的回報。我們在 2022 年投入了 3000 萬美元的資本支出，並通過股息和股票回購計劃向股東返還了 1.5 億美元。我們以 7300 萬美元的價格回購了總計 770,000 股股票。我們還支付了 7700 萬美元的現金股息，其中包括我們在 2022 年 5 月將常規股息率提高了 16%。

Now we continue to produce strong cash flow and ended the year with $224 million of adjusted cash, up from $163 million at the end of 2021 and continued to have $280 million available under our credit facility.

現在，我們繼續產生強勁的現金流，到年底，調整後現金為 2.24 億美元，高於 2021 年底的 1.63 億美元，並且我們的信貸額度繼續提供 2.8 億美元。

Now at this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Paul.

現在這個時候，我想把電話轉給保羅。

Thank you, Doug, and thank you all for joining our call. Today, I'd like to start with comments on our excellent fourth quarter results and the dynamic we've seen in the marketplace as we entered the new year. Second, I'll discuss our record-setting full year 2022 results in the context of our internal 5-year plan and the key initiatives that are continuing our momentum. I'll follow this discussion with the key drivers of our outlook for continued success in 2023 and how this keeps us on track with our long-term goals.

謝謝你，道格，感謝大家加入我們的電話會議。今天，我想首先評論一下我們出色的第四季度業績以及我們在進入新的一年時在市場上看到的動態。其次，我將在我們的內部 5 年計劃和保持我們勢頭的關鍵舉措的背景下討論我們創紀錄的 2022 年全年業績。在討論之後，我將討論推動我們在 2023 年繼續取得成功的前景的主要驅動因素，以及這如何使我們保持在實現長期目標的軌道上。

Our fourth quarter results capped off an excellent year in both growth and profitability. In addition, we executed a strong selling and retention campaign to continue growth into 2023 despite a slowdown in client hiring. New booked workforce optimization sales came in at 96% of our aggressive fall campaign forecast. The highlight was continued success in our mid-market book sales, up substantially over the prior year and exceeding the budget.

我們第四季度的業績在增長和盈利方面都表現出色。此外，儘管客戶招聘放緩，我們仍開展了強有力的銷售和保留活動，以在 2023 年繼續增長。新預訂的勞動力優化銷售額達到了我們激進的秋季活動預測的 96%。亮點是我們的中端市場圖書銷售持續取得成功，比上一年大幅增長並超出了預算。

Another highlight was continued sales success in our traditional employment Workforce Acceleration book sales, which came in well over budget and well ahead of the same period last year.

另一個亮點是我們傳統的就業 Workforce Acceleration 圖書銷售繼續取得成功，遠遠超出預算，遠遠超過去年同期。

Q4 is also our heavy renewal period, with over 40% of our client base renewing around the year-end. These renewals flow into the starting point for paid worksite employees in January and this starting point is foundational for our unit growth expectations for the coming year in our recurring revenue business model. Our Q4 renewal results were strong and our expected attrition flowing into January and February is expected to be slightly better than the average of the last several years. Now this level was not as good as last year, but still solid results from a historical perspective.

第 4 季度也是我們的重度續訂期，超過 40% 的客戶群在年底左右續訂。這些續約在 1 月份流入帶薪工地員工的起點，這個起點是我們在經常性收入業務模型中對來年的單位增長預期的基礎。我們的第 4 季度續約結果強勁，預計 1 月和 2 月的預期流失率將略好於過去幾年的平均水平。現在這個水平不如去年，但從歷史的角度來看仍然是不錯的結果。

Another highlight of this heavy renewal period was continuing our strong pricing of our direct cost allocations and markup on our services. We were successful in achieving the targets, which we had set, to account for the higher inflation rates we are all seeing in the marketplace.

這個重度更新期的另一個亮點是繼續我們對直接成本分配和服務加價的強勢定價。我們成功地實現了我們設定的目標，以解釋我們在市場上看到的更高的通貨膨脹率。

So these key revenue drivers that we control, new sales, retention and pricing were very solid in the fourth quarter and rolling into the new year.

因此，我們控制的這些關鍵收入驅動因素、新銷售、保留率和定價在第四季度非常穩健，並進入新的一年。

Now 1 driver we have less control over is the net change in employment within our client base and this factor slowed more significantly than expected in Q4. To put this in perspective, this client growth factor was stronger than typical years in 2021 and the first half of 2022, as the post-pandemic economic rebound occurred.

現在，我們無法控制的一個驅動因素是我們客戶群中就業的淨變化，這一因素在第四季度的放緩幅度比預期的要大得多。從這個角度來看，隨著大流行後經濟反彈的發生，這一客戶增長因素在 2021 年和 2022 年上半年比典型年份更強。

The third quarter of last year slowed to a more normal rate and we forecasted for this slowdown in Q4 accordingly. Now keep in mind, we enroll every new hire and process every termination. So our net client growth numbers are actual, real-time net hiring results, not an estimate.

去年第三季度放緩至更正常的速度，我們相應地預測了第四季度的放緩。現在請記住，我們會招收每一位新員工並處理每一次離職。因此，我們的淨客戶增長數字是實際的、實時的淨招聘結果，而不是估計值。

In the fourth quarter, net hiring in the base was only a slight increase, which was considerably below the third quarter. This contrasted with the relatively positive hiring outlook reported in the client survey we conducted late in the third quarter. Now this dynamic has continued through January. We have conducted an additional client survey to assess the sentiment of our client base to help plan this year. Historically, we compare actual data from client hiring and compensation, and we check for alignment with the outlook of business leaders. Most of the time, these are in sync, but not always as in Q4.

第四季度，基地的淨招聘僅略有增長，遠低於第三季度。這與我們在第三季度末進行的客戶調查中報告的相對樂觀的招聘前景形成鮮明對比。現在，這種動態一直持續到一月份。我們進行了額外的客戶調查，以評估我們客戶群的情緒，以幫助制定今年的計劃。從歷史上看，我們比較來自客戶招聘和薪酬的實際數據，並檢查是否與業務領導者的前景一致。大多數時候，這些都是同步的，但並不總是像第四季度那樣。

Now the good news is our client sentiment was even more positive in the survey we conducted over the last couple of weeks as clients look ahead. More than half of the clients responding to the survey expect to increase staffing levels and more than 70% of those surveyed expect 2023 to be somewhat or significantly better than 2022. The top 3 HR concerns among survey respondents were building a strong culture, attracting talent and managing healthcare costs. Now these issues align with the key strengths of our service offering and reflect positively on the strong demand for our services.

現在好消息是，在我們過去幾週進行的調查中，隨著客戶展望未來，我們的客戶情緒更加積極。超過一半的受訪客戶希望增加人員配置水平，超過 70% 的受訪者預計 2023 年會比 2022 年有所改善或明顯好於 2022 年。調查受訪者最關心的 3 大人力資源問題是建立強大的文化、吸引人才和管理醫療費用。現在，這些問題與我們提供的服務的主要優勢相一致，並積極反映了對我們服務的強勁需求。

In a few minutes, I'll explain how we've integrated the recent slowdown in hiring and the positive survey results into our outlook, but first, the full year record-setting results reported today were an outstanding first year of our internal 5-year plan.

幾分鐘後，我將解釋我們如何將最近的招聘放緩和積極的調查結果納入我們的展望，但首先，今天報告的全年創紀錄的業績是我們內部 5-年計劃。

Our full year results were record-setting in both growth, in the number of worksite employees and profitability in adjusted EBITDA. This demonstrated our balanced approach and highlights the strength of our business model. In addition to the significant financial outperformance of our plan, several key accomplishments in 2022 are driving our confidence going forward. Our 5-year plan is driven by 10 key success factors and significant progress is happening across the board.

我們的全年業績在工作場所員工人數和調整後 EBITDA 的盈利能力方面均創下歷史新高。這證明了我們平衡的方法並突出了我們商業模式的優勢。除了我們計劃的顯著財務表現外，2022 年的幾項關鍵成就也推動了我們向前邁進的信心。我們的 5 年計劃由 10 個關鍵成功因素驅動，並且正在全面取得重大進展。

One of these success factors is improvement in sales efficiency, which we believe could add significant operating leverage to our financial model in the future. This year, we increased sales efficiency by 9% and incorporated changes designed to further this improvement. We aligned commission incentives at all levels in the organization in order to focus on achieving quarterly goals and moving BPAs up to performance tiers. This was successful in 2022, and we've made further revisions to optimize these incentives moving into 2023.

這些成功因素之一是銷售效率的提高，我們認為這可以在未來為我們的財務模型增加顯著的運營槓桿。今年，我們將銷售效率提高了 9%，並進行了旨在進一步提高這一改進的變革。我們調整了組織中各個層級的佣金激勵措施，以專注於實現季度目標並將 BPA 提升到績效層級。這在 2022 年取得了成功，我們已經進行了進一步的修訂，以優化這些進入 2023 年的激勵措施。

These incentives also incorporated changes to drive another key success factor in our 5-year plan, ramping up our Workforce Acceleration sales. Our 40% increase in these sales in 2022 validate we are on track with this initiative. Workforce Acceleration has the potential to further improve our sales efficiency, lower BPA turnover, and enhance our Customer for life strategy for long-term client retention. And we're still early in the ramp-up of this service and the contribution is relatively small. However, this business also adds to gross profit without related risks included in the co-employment Workforce optimization model.

這些激勵措施還包含一些變化，以推動我們 5 年計劃中的另一個關鍵成功因素，即提高我們的 Workforce Acceleration 銷售額。我們在 2022 年的銷售額增長了 40%，這證明我們正在按計劃推進這一舉措。 Workforce Acceleration 有可能進一步提高我們的銷售效率，降低 BPA 營業額，並增強我們的客戶終身戰略以長期保留客戶。而且我們還處於這項服務的早期階段，貢獻相對較小。然而，這項業務也增加了毛利潤，而沒有包含在共同就業勞動力優化模型中的相關風險。

Our successful sales effort in '22 was also supported by a 13% increase in marketing assisted sales, which was a new high watermark for marketing influence sales for a year. These results were related to another of our key success factors, which is extending our brand awareness and affinity and capitalizing on the increased demand for our services we've seen coming out of the pandemic.

我們在 22 年的成功銷售努力也得到了營銷輔助銷售增長 13% 的支持，這是一年來營銷影響力銷售的新高水位線。這些結果與我們的另一個關鍵成功因素有關，即擴大我們的品牌知名度和親和力，並利用我們從大流行中看到的對我們服務的增加需求。

Another highlight of the year was our internal hiring success in the face of a continuing tight labor market. This effort directly supports our highest priority success factor, which is continuing to attract and retain people with the heart and dedication of our current staff. This effort helped us catch up on hiring across the company to meet our growth-related service demand and bring on our targeted number of BPAs to drive future growth. This has allowed us to begin the year with over 700 BPAs, a 9% increase over last year, which is in line with our long-term plan.

今年的另一個亮點是，面對持續緊張的勞動力市場，我們的內部招聘取得了成功。這項努力直接支持我們最優先的成功因素，即繼續以我們現有員工的熱情和奉獻精神吸引和留住人才。這一努力幫助我們趕上了整個公司的招聘，以滿足我們與增長相關的服務需求，並實現了我們目標數量的 BPA 以推動未來增長。這使我們能夠在今年年初擁有 700 多個 BPA，比去年增加 9%，這符合我們的長期計劃。

The last key success factor to mention today is pricing and direct cost management, considering we've been in a higher inflation environment. Our discipline and consistency in this area has paid off considerably and we believe we're well positioned going forward.

考慮到我們一直處於高通脹環境中，今天要提到的最後一個關鍵成功因素是定價和直接成本管理。我們在這一領域的紀律和一致性已經取得了顯著的回報，我們相信我們已經做好了前進的準備。

So before I pass the call back to Doug, I'd like to provide some color around the approach we're taking in our plan for 2023 and how this fits in as year 2 of our 5-year plan. We're coming off a strong year with momentum in the primary growth drivers we control, sales and client retention. However, the recent slowdown in client hiring has modestly lowered the starting point of paid worksite employees, and that needs to be factored into this year's plan.

因此，在我將電話轉回給道格之前，我想介紹一下我們在 2023 年計劃中採用的方法，以及它如何適應我們 5 年計劃的第 2 年。我們在我們控制的主要增長動力、銷售和客戶保留方面取得了強勁的一年。然而，最近客戶招聘放緩已經適度降低了帶薪工作場所員工的起點，這需要納入今年的計劃。

Our recent survey of our client base implies solid hiring ahead in 2023, yet there's a level of economic uncertainty in the air that we believe justifies a level of prudence in forecasting this factor. Now this has produced a wider range for our unit growth rate projection than we typically begin with each year. Interestingly, this wider range for growth is somewhat offset by a narrower range for gross profit that we've had over the last few years due to our strong pricing performance and expected normalization of direct costs.

我們最近對我們的客戶群進行的調查表明，2023 年將有穩定的招聘，但我們認為空氣中存在一定程度的經濟不確定性，這證明在預測這一因素時要謹慎。現在，這為我們的單位增長率預測產生了比我們通常每年開始時更廣泛的範圍。有趣的是，由於我們強勁的定價表現和預期的直接成本正常化，過去幾年毛利潤的窄幅在一定程度上抵消了這種更廣泛的增長幅度。

We're also continuing investments to achieve the objectives of our 5-year plan with the goal of exceeding the strong 5-year run we experienced from 2015 to 2019. Our compound annual growth rate in paid worksite employees over that period was 12.5% and adjusted EBITDA was over 24%. Also, 1 of the charts in the earnings presentation we released today shows the compound annual growth rate over the most recent 5 years in paid worksite employees and adjusted EBITDA of 10% and 15%, respectively. This is a significant improvement, since it includes a negative growth year in 2020 due to the pandemic-related shutdowns.

我們還在繼續投資以實現我們 5 年計劃的目標，目標是超過我們從 2015 年到 2019 年經歷的強勁 5 年運行。我們在此期間的帶薪工作場所員工的複合年增長率為 12.5%，調整後的 EBITDA 超過 24%。此外，我們今天發布的收益報告中的圖表之一顯示了最近 5 年帶薪工作場所員工的複合年增長率和調整後的 EBITDA 分別為 10% 和 15%。這是一個顯著的改善，因為它包括 2020 年由於與大流行相關的停工而出現負增長的一年。

So when we add our 2023 expected performance to our recent record-setting year, we're still well ahead of our internal 5-year plan in growth and profitability, and we believe we're making the right investments to continue to achieve the goals of our plan. I believe this is very important for our shareholders to understand, because if we perform according to this plan, the return to shareholders could be similar or possibly even better than our previous 5-year run. Our total return to shareholders over that period was a remarkable 434%. Quarterly dividends increased an average of 27% each year, and the share price increased more than fivefold.

因此，當我們將 2023 年的預期業績添加到我們最近創紀錄的一年時，我們在增長和盈利方面仍然遠遠領先於我們內部的 5 年計劃，我們相信我們正在做出正確的投資以繼續實現目標我們的計劃。我相信這對我們的股東來說非常重要，因為如果我們按照這個計劃執行，股東回報可能與我們之前的 5 年運行相似，甚至可能更好。在此期間，我們對股東的總回報率達到了驚人的 434%。季度股息每年平均增長 27%，股價上漲超過五倍。

Now we are focused company-wide on the 10 key success factors we believe will capitalize on the strong demand for our services in the marketplace, achieve the goals of our internal 5-year plan, and produce compound annual growth rates that drive exceptional return to shareholders.

現在，我們在全公司範圍內專注於 10 個關鍵成功因素，我們認為這些因素將利用市場對我們服務的強勁需求，實現我們內部 5 年計劃的目標，並產生復合年增長率，從而推動卓越的回報股東。

At this point, I'd like to pass the call back to Doug to provide our specific guidance.

在這一點上，我想將電話轉回給道格，以提供我們的具體指導。

Thanks, Paul. As I'm sure you're aware by now, our worksite employee growth in 2022 was very strong and was significantly above our typical long-term targets. We are now entering a year with some economic uncertainty and a recent slowdown in the level of hiring by our clients. Therefore, we are beginning the year forecasting 2023's worksite employee growth in a wider range than normal, with the midpoint in the high single digits rather than our typical target of double-digit growth.

謝謝，保羅。我相信您現在已經知道，我們 2022 年的工作場所員工增長非常強勁，大大高於我們通常的長期目標。我們現在進入了一個經濟不確定的一年，最近我們客戶的招聘水平有所放緩。因此，我們在今年年初預測 2023 年的工作場所員工增長范圍將超過正常水平，中點為高個位數，而不是我們通常的兩位數增長目標。

Our outperformance in 2022 was even stronger at the earnings line. While this will create challenges with the comparisons, our 2023 earnings outlook remains strong, particularly given the current macro environment. Now let me provide some details behind our 2023 guidance.

我們在 2022 年的業績表現在收益線上更為強勁。儘管這會給比較帶來挑戰，但我們 2023 年的盈利前景依然強勁，尤其是考慮到當前的宏觀環境。現在讓我提供我們 2023 年指南背後的一些細節。

Beginning with the results of our recent sales campaign and heavy client renewal period, and the possibility of less hiring by our clients, we are forecasting 10% to 11% worksite employee growth for Q1 of 2023. Subsequent to Q1, our growth is projected to be driven by an anticipated increase in the number of Business Performance Advisors and their sales efficiency. We expect client retention to remain strong, although at a slightly lower level than last year. And when combined with the possibility of less hiring by our clients over the balance of the year, we have forecasted a range of 7.5% to 10.5% growth for the full year.

從我們最近的銷售活動和大客戶續約期的結果，以及我們客戶減少招聘的可能性開始，我們預測 2023 年第一季度的工作場所員工增長率為 10% 至 11%。第一季度之後，我們的增長預計為業務績效顧問數量及其銷售效率的預期增長推動了增長。我們預計客戶保留率將保持強勁，儘管水平略低於去年。再加上我們的客戶在今年餘下時間可能會減少招聘，我們預測全年的增長率將達到 7.5% 至 10.5%。

As for gross profit, we expect a strong performance last year to continue in 2023, although we are taking what we believe is a conservative approach to budgeting compared to our 2022 performance. We currently expect our direct cost programs to return to a more normalized environment in 2023 with less uncertainty in the benefits in payroll tax areas.

至於毛利，我們預計去年的強勁表現將在 2023 年繼續，儘管我們認為與 2022 年的表現相比，我們採取的是保守的預算編制方法。我們目前預計，我們的直接成本計劃將在 2023 年恢復到更加正常化的環境，工資稅領域的收益不確定性將減少。

In addition, we expect a benefit from growth-based administrative cost reductions in our UnitedHealthcare contract in 2023. So we are more comfortable with a tighter range of expectations in this area than the past couple of years.

此外，我們預計 2023 年我們的 UnitedHealthcare 合同中基於增長的行政成本削減會帶來好處。因此，與過去幾年相比，我們對這一領域更嚴格的預期範圍感到更加滿意。

Now as far as our operating costs, we remain focused on the long-term initiatives in our internal 5-year plan. Our 2023 operating costs include the impact of successfully hiring sales, service and support personnel in the second half of last year. We plan to continue to grow the number of BPAs, and we believe our restructured sales commission program will drive further improvements in sales efficiency over the long term. We also intend to continue investment in our marketing and technology to meet our planned objectives.

現在就我們的運營成本而言，我們仍然專注於我們內部 5 年計劃中的長期計劃。我們 2023 年的運營成本包括去年下半年成功聘用銷售、服務和支持人員的影響。我們計劃繼續增加 BPA 的數量，我們相信我們重組後的銷售佣金計劃將推動長期銷售效率的進一步提高。我們還打算繼續投資於我們的營銷和技術，以實現我們的計劃目標。

As for our interest income and expense, our 2023 budget assumes the current interest rates and a run rate consistent with Q4 of 2022. Recent rate increases have had a positive impact on our adjusted EBITDA, given the interest income we earn on our cash and investments, including the funds in our workers compensation program. This is a component of our business model that has been depressed over a considerable period during the extended low rate interest rate environment.

至於我們的利息收入和支出，我們的 2023 年預算假設當前利率和與 2022 年第四季度一致的運行率。考慮到我們從現金和投資中賺取的利息收入，最近的加息對我們調整後的 EBITDA 產生了積極影響，包括我們工人補償計劃中的資金。這是我們商業模式的一個組成部分，在長期的低利率環境中，該模式在相當長的一段時間內一直處於低迷狀態。

We are estimating a tax rate of 25% for Q1 and 26.5% for the full year 2023.

我們估計第一季度的稅率為 25%，2023 年全年的稅率為 26.5%。

So let's now talk about the full year earnings expectations, which have a couple of comparison issues. We are forecasting 2023 adjusted EBITDA in a range of $353 million to $409 million, ranging from relatively flat to a 16% increase over 2022. We are forecasting full year adjusted EPS in the range of $5.24 to $6.30, ranging from a decrease of 6% to an increase of 13% compared to 2022.

那麼現在讓我們談談全年收益預期，其中有幾個比較問題。我們預測 2023 年調整後的 EBITDA 在 3.53 億美元至 4.09 億美元之間，從相對持平到比 2022 年增長 16%。我們預測全年調整後的每股收益在 5.24 美元至 6.30 美元之間，下降 6%與 2022 年相比增長 13%。

Now the disparity between the forecasted adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EPS year-over-year growth rates is primarily driven by increased interest, depreciation and amortization expense, which are excluded from adjusted EBITDA. As for Q1, we are forecasting adjusted EBITDA in a range of $143 million to $153 million, an increase of 21% to 29% over the prior year's quarter. We are forecasting adjusted EPS in the range of $2.40 to $2.60.

現在，預測調整後的 EBITDA 與調整後的每股收益同比增長率之間的差異主要是由利息、折舊和攤銷費用增加驅動的，這些費用不包括在調整後的 EBITDA 中。至於第一季度，我們預測調整後的 EBITDA 在 1.43 億美元至 1.53 億美元之間，比去年同期增長 21% 至 29%。我們預測調整後的每股收益在 2.40 美元至 2.60 美元之間。

The Q1 forecasted year-over-year earnings growth rates are higher than the full year 2023 rates due to quarterly comparisons to the prior year. Earnings in Q1 of the prior year were negatively impacted by higher benefit costs associated with COVID. These COVID-related costs declined over the balance of 2022, particularly in the latter half of the year.

由於與上一年的季度比較，第一季度預測的同比收益增長率高於 2023 年全年的增長率。上一年第一季度的收益受到與 COVID 相關的較高福利成本的負面影響。這些與 COVID 相關的成本在 2022 年餘下時間有所下降，尤其是在下半年。

Secondly, interest income started out low in Q1 of 2022 and increased over the course of last year. As a result, comparisons are more favorable in the first half of the year and more challenging in the second half.

其次，利息收入在 2022 年第一季度開始偏低，但在去年全年有所增加。因此，上半年比較有利，下半年比較困難。

Now at this time, I'd like to open up the call for questions.

現在這個時候，我想打開提問的電話。

(Operator Instructions) Your first question is coming from Andrew Nicholas from William Blair.

（操作員說明）您的第一個問題來自 William Blair 的 Andrew Nicholas。

This is Daniel Maxwell on for Andrew. Just to get started, wondering what is assumed in guidance in terms of gross profit per worksite employee per month and then any puts and takes relative to the $286 million number you did in the full year 2022?

這是安德魯的丹尼爾麥克斯韋。剛開始，想知道在每個工作場所員工每月的毛利潤方面，指導假設是什麼，然後是相對於您在 2022 年全年所做的 2.86 億美元的任何投入和投入？

Yes. I think as you're aware, we don't give that as a key metric in our guidance. We reported the $286 million last year. Obviously, that's a high mark for us, really contemplated the pricing strategy, long-term pricing strategy that we put in place from the outset of the pandemic through where we are today, and we've slightly exceeded those targets through that particular time period.

是的。我認為正如您所知，我們沒有將其作為我們指南中的關鍵指標。我們去年報告了 2.86 億美元。顯然，這對我們來說是一個很高的分數，我們真正考慮了定價策略，我們從大流行開始到今天所處的長期定價策略，並且我們在那個特定的時間段內略微超過了這些目標.

And as you expect, there were fluctuations in benefit costs during the pandemic, post pandemic, but we're exiting -- we exited 2022 in very good shape relative to our pricing in our benefit cost trend. We also obviously experienced some benefit from the remote work environment in our workers' comp and we managed the payroll taxes accordingly.

正如您所期望的那樣，在大流行期間、大流行之後，福利成本存在波動，但我們正在退出——相對於我們對福利成本趨勢的定價，我們以非常好的狀態退出了 2022 年。顯然，我們的工人薪酬也從遠程工作環境中受益，我們相應地管理了工資稅。

So all that said, $286 million, if you look at our history is a high watermark for gross profit per employee. We're not going to go into a year. We go through our regular typical process of budgeting gross profit going into a year with the intent of managing to the upside in each of the direct cost program areas. So, you wouldn't expect us to go into 2023 budgeting at that same level.

所以綜上所述，2.86 億美元，如果你看一下我們的歷史，這是每個員工毛利的高水位線。我們不會進入一年。我們通過常規的典型流程對進入一年的毛利潤進行預算，目的是在每個直接成本計劃領域實現上行。因此，您不會期望我們以相同的水平進入 2023 年的預算編制。

Now on the -- what we did mention in my prepared remarks was, we do expect to realize administrative cost savings in our UnitedHealthcare plan relative to the significant growth that we've experienced and that we're continuing to forecast. So that would be some upside in that particular area versus in previous years. So it gives you a little bit of a flavor there. So hopefully, that will help you some.

現在——我們在準備好的發言中確實提到的是，相對於我們已經經歷並繼續預測的顯著增長，我們確實希望在我們的 UnitedHealthcare 計劃中實現行政成本節約。因此，與前幾年相比，該特定領域會有一些優勢。所以它給你一點味道。希望這對您有所幫助。

Yes, that's helpful. And then as a follow-up, is there anything unique to call out from a healthcare activity or claims perspective? And in 2023, are you assuming any pent-up demand flushing through? Or is 2023 kind of looking like a more "normal" year?

是的，這很有幫助。然後作為後續行動，從醫療保健活動或索賠的角度來看，是否有什麼獨特的地方值得一提？到 2023 年，您是否假設有任何被壓抑的需求湧現？還是 2023 年看起來更像是一個“正常”的年份？

No, I think we're looking at '23 as more of a normal year as it relates to benefit and benefit utilization. Obviously, we went through 2022 with declining COVID cost, but we didn't see a notable increase in utilization from care that was previously deferred when the pandemic was at its height. All that has -- seems to have settled down through the latter half of 2022. So we do think barring any significant new variants that we're entering 2023 in a more normalized environment, both from a benefit perspective but also from the unemployment tax area where that was also -- had a little bit of volatility in it relative to the pandemic and its impact on unemployment and on state unemployment tax rates.

不，我認為我們正在將 23 年視為更正常的一年，因為它與福利和福利利用有關。顯然，我們經歷了 2022 年的 COVID 成本下降，但我們沒有看到以前在大流行最嚴重時推遲的護理的利用率顯著增加。所有這一切 - 似乎已經穩定到 2022 年下半年。因此，我們確實認為，除了從福利角度和失業稅領域來看，我們將在一個更加正常化的環境中進入 2023 年，除非有任何重大的新變化相對於大流行及其對失業率和州失業稅率的影響，它也有一點波動。

Great. And then maybe if I can just squeeze 1 more in on pricing. Are you seeing any noticeable change in the aggressiveness of competitors when it comes to price? And if so, is that something that's had any impact on new business generation or competitive win rates to this point?

偉大的。然後也許如果我能在定價上多擠 1 個。在價格方面，您是否看到競爭對手的攻擊性有任何明顯變化？如果是這樣，到目前為止，這對新業務的產生或有競爭力的獲勝率是否有任何影響？

No, we really haven't seen any of that. Our pricing strategy is really specific, and relative to every client's specific information throughout their organization and then how we're trending things for going forward and building in increases is based on all the underlying trends that we're seeing plus, like I mentioned, 1 of our key success factors in our 5-year plan was to also build in a reasonable level to deal with inflation that's going on in the marketplace.

不，我們真的沒有看到任何這些。我們的定價策略非常具體，並且相對於每個客戶在其整個組織中的特定信息，然後我們如何根據我們看到的所有潛在趨勢以及我們所看到的所有潛在趨勢來推動未來發展和增加增長，就像我提到的那樣，在我們的 5 年計劃中，我們的關鍵成功因素之一是還建立了一個合理的水平來應對市場上正在發生的通貨膨脹。

Obviously, wage inflation is significant and 60% of our operating costs are in personnel cost as a service company. So we've been really -- our team has done a really great job at meeting those targets, and so we're in good shape on that front, and it really hasn't affected us on the competitive landscape.

顯然，工資漲幅很大，作為一家服務公司，我們 60% 的運營成本是人員成本。所以我們真的 - 我們的團隊在實現這些目標方面做得非常出色，所以我們在這方面處於良好狀態，而且它確實沒有影響我們在競爭格局中的地位。

Your next question is coming from Tobey Sommer from Truist Securities.

你的下一個問題來自 Truist Securities 的 Tobey Sommer。

I was wondering if you could give us some color on trends in the Workforce Acceleration area, sort of any kind of color about growth, et cetera? And where do you want to go in terms of the transition and the ability to shift customers from Optimization to Acceleration and back and forth? And how long might it take to get to sort of an end state where that's a relatively smooth and sort of automated process?

我想知道你是否可以給我們一些關於勞動力加速領域趨勢的顏色，關於增長的任何顏色等等？在過渡和將客戶從優化轉移到加速來迴轉移的能力方面，你想去哪裡？需要多長時間才能達到相對平穩且自動化流程的最終狀態？

That's a very good question, Tobey. And we're really all over that front. I mentioned that last year, we had a 40% increase in our Workforce Acceleration growth. We also, over this year, made some of these incentive changes, commission changes in our organization that really have aligned everybody in the organization. With this other key success factor that we believe, which is really growing this Workforce Acceleration business, because of the benefits that I listed in my prepared remarks.

這是一個很好的問題，托比。我們真的在那個前線。我提到去年，我們的 Workforce Acceleration 增長了 40%。今年，我們還對我們的組織進行了一些激勵措施和佣金改革，真正讓組織中的每個人都保持一致。由於我在準備好的發言中列出的好處，我們相信這是另一個關鍵的成功因素，它真正推動了 Workforce Acceleration 業務的發展。

So we see that where this is going for us, now that we've synced things up. I wanted to be really careful about that because we wanted to make sure that we weren't pulling away any from our Workforce Optimization sales through how we went about this. And we have done a beautiful job of that. But now we're ready to really see that all synced up, see that continue to grow faster. And we believe that there'll be a significant effort now.

所以我們看到了這對我們的影響，現在我們已經同步了。我想對此非常小心，因為我們想確保我們不會通過我們的處理方式從我們的勞動力優化銷售中抽身。我們在這方面做得很好。但現在我們已經準備好真正看到所有同步，看到它繼續更快地增長。我們相信現在會有很大的努力。

We've already had customers go both directions from WX to WO from WO to WX. We had more this past year than we did the year before that. But what our effort will be going forward is to now make sure our customer base knows about these options earlier, so we don't have to have this discussion after a customer's thought about making a move or maybe like toward our year-end transition. The numbers that we have in attrition every year, we want to see if we can address that.

我們已經有客戶從 WX 到 WO 從 WO 到 WX 雙向。我們去年比前一年有更多。但是我們現在要做的是確保我們的客戶群更早地了解這些選項，這樣我們就不必在客戶考慮採取行動或可能喜歡我們的年底過渡後進行討論。我們每年都有減員的數字，我們想看看我們是否可以解決這個問題。

So we're going to go after that more aggressively this year on how we do that. And your question about how long you think it will take, I think it'll get a lot better this year, but it will take a couple of years before we really see that really happen. So that's -- hopefully, that helps you.

所以今年我們將更積極地追求我們如何做到這一點。關於你認為需要多長時間的問題，我認為今年會好很多，但我們還需要幾年時間才能真正看到這一切發生。這就是 - 希望對您有所幫助。

It does. You talked about BPAs and some pretty good high single-digit growth. Could you refresh us and put that into context relative to the last couple of years, where you're able to hit pretty good rates of WSE growth with more flattish BPAs by optimizing marketing and some other things? Maybe just give us some color on the go-forward strategy and the interplay between BPA growth and WSEE target growth?

確實如此。你談到了 BPA 和一些相當不錯的高個位數增長。你能否讓我們耳目一新，並把它放在過去幾年的背景下，通過優化營銷和其他一些事情，你能夠以更平坦的 BPA 達到相當不錯的 WSE 增長率？也許只是給我們一些關於前進戰略和 BPA 增長與 WSEE 目標增長之間的相互作用的顏色？

Absolutely. In our big picture plan, our 5-year plan, what is a key differentiator from previous years is that we believe that this sales efficiency improvement allows us to grow our units, our worksite employee growth at a rate faster than our growth in BPAs. Historically, over the 37 years I've been at this, most of the time, it was when we grew the BPAs at 12%, within 18 months, you'd be growing worksite employees at 12%. That's kind of the way things work.

絕對地。在我們的總體計劃、我們的 5 年計劃中，與往年的一個關鍵區別在於，我們相信這種銷售效率的提高使我們能夠擴大我們的單位，我們的工作場所員工增長速度快於我們的 BPA 增長速度。從歷史上看，在我從事這項工作的 37 年裡，大多數時候，當我們的 BPA 增長到 12% 時，在 18 個月內，你將以 12% 的速度增長工作場所員工。這就是事情的運作方式。

But we believe we're really at a different -- the biggest difference in this 5-year plan is we're very confident about sales efficiency improvement. We're confident about the demand in the marketplace. We're doing things in a way that are optimizing. You also have the big change in being able to do discovery calls on Zoom calls instead of the whole -- how people use their time. There's so many things that can contribute towards sales efficiency.

但我們相信我們確實處於不同的狀態——這個 5 年計劃的最大不同是我們對提高銷售效率非常有信心。我們對市場需求充滿信心。我們正在以優化的方式做事。您還可以在 Zoom 電話而不是整個電話上進行發現電話——人們如何使用他們的時間。有很多因素可以提高銷售效率。

So in our 5-year plan, we talked about, hey, we believe now we can actually look at a program where we're growing the BPAs in the high single digits and growing the worksite employees in double digits between that 10% to 15% range. So that's the objective, and that's what we're targeting. And the beauty of that is how that adds to our operating leverage. We've had excellent operating leverage in our business on the service side, because we haven't had to grow the service organization as fast as the unit growth.

所以在我們的 5 年計劃中，我們談到，嘿，我們相信現在我們實際上可以看看我們正在以高個位數增長 BPA 並將工作場所員工以 10% 到 15% 之間的兩位數增長的計劃％ 範圍。這就是目標，這就是我們的目標。這樣做的好處在於它如何增加我們的經營槓桿。我們在服務方面的業務中擁有出色的運營槓桿，因為我們不必像單位增長一樣快地發展服務組織。

We also have, obviously, our other areas of the business, G&A, other areas that don't have to grow as fast as the number of clients, et cetera. But we've always had to grow the Business Performance Advisors and invest ahead of the growth. And this is going to change the calculation and allow more to drop to the bottom line, provided we're successful at this.

顯然，我們還有其他業務領域，G&A，其他不需要像客戶數量那樣快速增長的領域，等等。但我們始終必須培養 Business Performance Advisors，並在增長之前進行投資。如果我們在這方面取得成功，這將改變計算並允許更多的人下降到底線。

Perfect. My last question is, could you remind us what normative historical fee and healthcare benefit expense growth is and juxtapose that with what you're seeing or are able to achieve for this year?

完美的。我的最後一個問題是，您能否提醒我們規範的歷史費用和醫療福利支出增長是多少，並將其與您今年看到或能夠實現的目標並列？

Well, I think if you look, 1 of the slides we put out there on the benefit cost trend, you looked at it over a 5-year period and look at a CAGR of less than 3.5% on our benefit cost per employee. So that's sort of the cost side of the picture over the past 3 years, which included the pandemic. If you remember, going into the pandemic, we made the decision to price -- to stick with our long-term pricing strategy and not swing it back and forth from year to year, but with the intent of matching price and cost. If we fell behind a little in 1 year, I think maybe in 2021, we added a percentage or two on the pricing side to accommodate that.

好吧，我想如果你看一下我們放在那裡的關於福利成本趨勢的幻燈片之一，你會在 5 年的時間裡看它，看看我們每名員工的福利成本的複合年增長率不到 3.5%。所以這就是過去 3 年的成本方面，其中包括大流行病。如果你還記得，在大流行期間，我們做出了定價決定——堅持我們的長期定價策略，而不是年復一年地來回搖擺，但目的是使價格和成本相匹配。如果我們在 1 年內落後一點，我想也許在 2021 年，我們會在定價方面增加一兩個百分比來適應這一點。

But at the end, we're exiting -- we feel very comfortable with the exit that we are properly matching price and costs going forward.

但最後，我們正在退出——我們對退出感到非常滿意，因為我們正在適當地匹配未來的價格和成本。

Your next question is coming from Mark Marcon from Robert Baird & Company.

您的下一個問題來自 Robert Baird & Company 的 Mark Marcon。

Paul and Doug, great results here for the full year. I'm wondering, can you talk a little bit about just the benefit cost increase that you ended up seeing this quarter? And in terms of enrollment, when we listen to ADP or Paychex, they basically ended up saying that fewer of their clients were signing up for the full benefit package on a go-forward basis. Are you seeing anything similar to that just in terms of the number of eligible WSEs taking on health benefits on a go-forward basis?

Paul 和 Doug，在這裡全年都取得了不錯的成績。我想知道，您能否談談本季度您最終看到的福利成本增長？在註冊方面，當我們聽取 ADP 或 Paychex 的意見時，他們基本上最後說，他們的客戶中越來越少的人在前進的基礎上註冊了完整的福利包。就符合條件的 WSE 的數量而言，您是否看到類似的東西在前進的基礎上獲得健康福利？

No, Mark, we really haven't seen any of that. And I'll tell you the reason I would suggest that, that wouldn't be happening in our case, is our target customer base, of course, we call the best small and medium-sized businesses in the country, and they're a lot of times fast growing and a lot of times, just they're really after an environment that really are they people-centric and how they think about their business. And so benefits is really important there and they're -- they want to make sure what we're able to do it.

不，馬克，我們真的沒有看到這些。我會告訴你我建議的原因，這不會發生在我們的案例中，是我們的目標客戶群，當然，我們稱該國最好的中小型企業，他們是很多時候快速增長，很多時候，他們真的在追求一個真正以人為本的環境以及他們如何看待自己的業務。因此，福利在那裡非常重要，他們是——他們想確保我們能夠做到這一點。

So we've always had kind of in the industry, the highest percentage participation and highest kind of percentage rates of what customers are contributing toward the cost. So we don't really see that. Now we do have sometimes mix changes that affect the overall numbers that you see because sometimes mid-market customers or customers that have more part-timers, of course, those people aren't eligible for the coverage.

因此，我們一直在行業中擁有最高的參與百分比和最高的客戶貢獻成本百分比。所以我們並沒有真正看到這一點。現在我們確實有時會混合變化，影響您看到的總體數字，因為有時中端市場客戶或擁有更多兼職人員的客戶，當然，這些人沒有資格獲得保險。

So we have some moving around on that number to some degree, but it's not reflecting any change in what people are signing up for.

因此，我們在某種程度上對這個數字進行了調整，但這並沒有反映出人們註冊的內容有任何變化。

Great. And the benefit cost expectation for this year and what it was actually in the fourth quarter in terms of year-over-year increase?

偉大的。今年的福利成本預期以及第四季度同比增長的實際情況是什麼？

So for this year -- every year when we look ahead, we trend every component of the cost, and we compare, obviously, to our pricing. Good news, we feel super strong about how effective we were on the pricing front. When we look at trends going forward, you have years that offset certain parts of the trend. In the marketplace, you're seeing 7% to 8% trend in cost and then we have things that offset, and that's why you look at our history, as Doug just mentioned, 3.5%.

因此，對於今年 - 每年當我們展望未來時，我們都會對成本的每個組成部分進行趨勢分析，並且顯然會與我們的定價進行比較。好消息，我們對我們在定價方面的有效性感到非常強烈。當我們審視未來的趨勢時，您會發現這些年抵消了趨勢的某些部分。在市場上，你會看到 7% 到 8% 的成本趨勢，然後我們有抵消的東西，這就是為什麼你看看我們的歷史，正如道格剛才提到的，3.5%。

This year, we would expect more like 4% to 5% because you've got demographic changes, things of that nature that play in. This particularly, we don't have -- we do -- we did introduce a couple of new benefit plans that will lower cost when people choose those new options, but we didn't make any planned design changes that would offset the cost of this particular year. And we knew that, of course, last year, and that's why our pricing was done in a way to make sure that, that all matched up. So that's kind of what we're looking at for this year. I hope that helps you.

今年，我們預計會有 4% 到 5% 的增長，因為人口結構發生了變化，這種性質的因素正在發揮作用。特別是，我們沒有——我們有——我們確實引入了一些新的當人們選擇這些新選項時，福利計劃將降低成本，但我們沒有進行任何計劃的設計更改來抵消這一特定年份的成本。當然，我們去年就知道了，這就是為什麼我們的定價是以確保所有匹配的方式進行的。所以這就是我們今年要尋找的東西。我希望這對你有幫助。

It does. And then you mentioned, I didn't catch the retention for the full year. So I'm wondering what that is. And then also, in terms of the slower hiring among the client base, to what extent did you see variances? Were there any clients that were actually reducing headcount? Or are there any regional differences or industry vertical differences that are discernible?

確實如此。然後你提到，我沒有抓住全年的保留率。所以我想知道那是什麼。然後，就客戶群中的招聘速度較慢而言，您在多大程度上看到了差異？是否有任何客戶實際上在裁員？或者是否存在明顯的區域差異或行業垂直差異？

Thank you for the question. So our retention last year was exceptional. It actually went up from 82% in the prior year in 2021 to 85% last year. And of course, that's benefited by a really strong year-end transition last year where we had kind of record low attrition. This year was a little bit higher than that, but even better than our average over the last few years. So we expect a good year on the retention front for this year.

感謝你的提問。所以我們去年的保留率非常高。它實際上從 2021 年的前一年的 82% 上升到去年的 85%。當然，這得益於去年非常強勁的年終過渡，我們的人員流失率創歷史新低。今年比那個高一點，但比我們過去幾年的平均水平還要好。因此，我們預計今年在保留方面會是一個好年景。

But the issue about net hiring in the client base, it's interesting, we obviously have dug in very deeply on this and then did our survey to try to understand what's happening out there with our customer base specifically. And I will say that in the fourth quarter, the slight increase in net hiring really was an issue kind of across the board. It wasn't like we could pinpoint 1 area, 1 group. Previous in the year, we did have customers by industry category, the mortgage business, some other companies that were hitting more obstacles and lowering staff.

但是關於客戶群中淨招聘的問題很有趣，我們顯然已經對此進行了非常深入的研究，然後進行了調查以試圖了解我們的客戶群具體發生了什麼。我要說的是，在第四季度，淨招聘人數的小幅增長確實是一個全面的問題。我們無法精確定位 1 個區域、1 個組。今年早些時候，我們確實有按行業分類的客戶，抵押貸款業務，以及其他一些遇到更多障礙和裁員的公司。

But in the fourth quarter, it was more kind of across the board. Some of that is a seasonality effect. You don't have as much hiring typically in the holiday season. But as we look forward, we see the optimism there. And as far as customers expecting staff reductions, it's interesting because 54% are expected to add employees and then only 4% expected staff reduction. So that's the sentiment and their plan. We're in a situation, we thought it was prudent for us to weigh what happened last quarter with that optimism and with the potential for a tougher economic environment. And so we're just being prudent to start the year, and we think that's the right thing to do.

但在第四季度，它更像是全面的。其中一些是季節性影響。通常在假期期間，您沒有那麼多的招聘。但當我們展望未來時，我們看到了樂觀情緒。至於客戶期望裁員，這很有趣，因為 54% 的客戶預計會增加員工，而只有 4% 的客戶預計會裁員。這就是情緒和他們的計劃。我們處於一種情況，我們認為謹慎地權衡上個季度發生的事情與樂觀情緒和更艱難的經濟環境的可能性。所以我們只是謹慎地開始新的一年，我們認為這是正確的做法。

That's really helpful. Congrats again on a great year.

這真的很有幫助。再次祝賀偉大的一年。

Your next question is coming from Jeff Martin from ROTH Capital Partners.

您的下一個問題來自 ROTH Capital Partners 的 Jeff Martin。

Paul, I wanted to get a sense of the renewals. January is a big month for renewals, but also there's some into February. Can you characterize renewals on the traditional Workforce Optimization versus Workforce Acceleration and then also on the mid-market and wanted to dig in a little deeper in terms of where you're seeing the biggest growth potential in the business? Is it mid-market? Is it Workforce Acceleration or the traditional offering?

保羅，我想了解一下更新。一月是續訂的重要月份，但二月也有一些。您能否描述傳統勞動力優化與勞動力加速的更新以及中端市場的更新，並希望在您看到業務最大增長潛力的方面進行更深入的挖掘？是中端市場嗎？是 Workforce Acceleration 還是傳統產品？

Yes, that's a great question. We always talk internally about a 3-pronged growth effort. So it is our core Workforce Optimization, sales and retention, our mid-market efforts and then also our Workforce Acceleration. And we, man, we had all 3 gen in beautifully last year. We have optimized, like I mentioned, about the commission to make all that work together. We've really tweaked it to where we believe, we really have a great focus on the quarterly production with quarterly bonuses, people are for hitting their objectives on both sides whether it's on all 3 of those actually, whether it's mid-market core or Workforce Acceleration.

是的，這是一個很好的問題。我們總是在內部談論三管齊下的增長努力。因此，這是我們的核心勞動力優化、銷售和保留、我們的中端市場努力以及我們的勞動力加速。而我們，伙計，去年我們擁有了所有 3 代。就像我提到的那樣，我們已經優化了使所有這些協同工作的佣金。我們真的把它調整到我們相信的地方，我們真的非常關注季度生產和季度獎金，人們希望實現雙方的目標，無論是在所有這三個方面，無論是中端市場核心還是勞動力加速。

So we're really excited about where that's going, and we think we're in great shape on that front.

所以我們對它的發展方向感到非常興奮，我們認為我們在這方面處於良好狀態。

Great. And then other question was in terms of lead flow, maybe segment how you're -- how strategically you're doing things differently now versus several years ago? I know digital marketing has been a key component in conversion of those leads. Maybe give us some color on the sales and marketing initiatives?

偉大的。然後另一個問題是關於潛在客戶流量，也許可以細分您的情況——與幾年前相比，您現在在戰略上做事的方式有何不同？我知道數字營銷一直是這些潛在客戶轉化的關鍵組成部分。也許給我們一些關於銷售和營銷計劃的顏色？

Yes. What we've done, the marketing efforts really been effective because we continue to localize what we're doing. So different markets you're able to reach our target customer base with different approaches. And that takes a lot of work to go market by market and figure it out and work with our local folks. But when you have a good overarching marketing program, including the digital and everything from radio or TV to billboards, different markets have different ways that it works best to hit our target market.

是的。我們所做的營銷工作真的很有效，因為我們繼續本地化我們正在做的事情。因此，不同的市場您可以通過不同的方法接觸我們的目標客戶群。這需要大量的工作來逐個市場地研究並弄清楚並與我們當地的人合作。但是當你有一個很好的總體營銷計劃時，包括數字和從廣播或電視到廣告牌的一切，不同的市場有不同的方式來達到我們的目標市場。

So having localized campaigns has really helped a lot, having them multiple times within a year, timing it right to boost activity. And then coupling that with our 2 other things that have really made a huge difference, and that is our partnering programs that we have with different folks who refer people to us. And that's been very effective. And what we call our loyalty events.

因此，開展本地化活動確實起到了很大作用，一年內多次舉辦，恰到好處地促進了活動。然後將其與我們真正產生巨大影響的其他兩件事結合起來，那就是我們與不同的人合作的項目，他們將人們推薦給我們。這非常有效。我們稱之為忠誠度活動。

Even through the COVID period, we did them online and all kinds of people got very creative this past year, everybody wanted to see each other again and get back in person. So we did a lot of that. That's been very effective. So we have -- the marketing effort hit its all-time high in how it supported the organization, and we intend to continue to do that.

即使在 COVID 期間，我們也是在網上進行的，在過去的一年裡，各種各樣的人都變得非常有創意，每個人都想再次見面並親自回來。所以我們做了很多。這非常有效。所以我們 - 營銷工作在它如何支持組織方面達到了歷史最高水平，我們打算繼續這樣做。

That concludes our Q&A session. I will now hand the conference back to Paul Sarvadi for closing remarks. Please go ahead.

我們的問答環節到此結束。我現在將會議交還給 Paul Sarvadi 作閉幕詞。請繼續。

Once again, we want to thank everybody for participating with us today. We're excited about having a record year last year and very excited about this year too, and our 5-year plan and the return to shareholders we intend to produce. So thank you for participating, and we look forward to discussing these things with you more.

我們要再次感謝大家今天參加我們的活動。我們很高興去年創紀錄，今年也很興奮，我們的 5 年計劃和我們打算產生的股東回報。所以感謝您的參與，我們期待與您更多地討論這些事情。

Thank you. This concludes today's event. You may disconnect at this time, and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.

謝謝。今天的活動到此結束。此時您可能會斷開連接，並度過美好的一天。感謝您的參與。