Insperity Inc (NSP) 2024 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Good morning. My name is Jenny, and I will be your conference operator today. I would like to welcome everyone to the Insperity Third Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call [Operator Instructions]. At this time, I would like to introduce today's speakers. Joining us are Paul Sarvadi, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer; Douglas Sharp, Executive Vice President of Finance, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer; and Jim Allison, Executive Vice President, Comprehensive Benefits Solution and CPO.

早安.我叫珍妮，今天我將擔任你們的會議操作員。歡迎大家參加 Insperity 2024 年第三季財報電話會議[操作員說明]。在此，我想介紹一下今天的演講嘉賓。加入我們的還有董事會主席兼執行長 Paul Sarvadi； Douglas Sharp，財務執行副總裁、財務長兼財務主管； Jim Allison，綜合福利解決方案執行副總裁兼首席產品長。

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

此時，我想將電話轉給道格拉斯·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 behind our third quarter and '24 financial results. Paul will then comment on our recent accomplishments, including an update on the implementation of our Workday strategic partnership solution and on our outlook for the remainder of the year. Then Jim Allison, who succeeded me as upon my retirement, will return to provide our financial guidance for the fourth quarter and an update to the full year guidance. We will then end the call with a question-and-answer session. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that Mr. Sarvadi, Mr. Allison 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 Web site. Now before I discuss the third quarter results, I want to express my gratitude for the opportunity to serve as CFO of Insperity over the past 25 years. As we announced a couple of months ago, I will be retiring as CFO on November 15 and Jim Allison, the current Executive VP of Comprehensive Benefits Solutions and CPO, will be my successor. I'm grateful to have played a role in the significant growth of the company over the years and helping the company achieve its mission of providing premium HR services and products to the small and midsize business community. I'm retiring, knowing Insperity is in good hands with its current leadership team, including Jim, who brings significant experience in the company's operations and finances to the CFO role.

謝謝。我們感謝您加入我們。首先讓我概述一下我們今天早上電話會議的計劃。首先，我將討論我們第三季和 24 年財務表現背後的細節。然後，保羅將評論我們最近的成就，包括 Workday 策略合作夥伴解決方案實施的最新情況以及我們對今年剩餘時間的展望。然後，在我退休後接替我的吉姆·艾利森（Jim Allison）將回來提供我們第四季度的財務指導以及全年指導的更新。然後我們將以問答環節結束通話。在我們開始之前，我想提醒大家，薩爾瓦迪先生、艾利森先生或我可能會在今天的電話會議中發表前瞻性聲明，這些聲明受到風險、不確定性和假設的影響。此外，我們的一些討論可能包括非公認會計準則財務指標。有關可能導致實際結果與非公認會計準則財務指標的任何前瞻性陳述和調節表存在重大差異的風險和不確定性的更詳細討論，請參閱該公司的公開文件，包括今天提交的8-K 表格，其中可以在我們的網站上找到。現在，在討論第三季業績之前，我想對過去 25 年有機會擔任 Insperity 財務長表示感謝。正如我們幾個月前宣布的那樣，我將於 11 月 15 日辭去財務長職務，現任綜合福利解決方案執行副總裁兼首席產品長 Jim Allison 將成為我的繼任者。我很高興多年來在公司的顯著成長中發揮了作用，並幫助公司實現了向中小企業提供優質人力資源服務和產品的使命。我即將退休，因為我知道 Insperity 的現任領導團隊得到了良好的管理，其中包括吉姆，他為財務長職位帶來了公司營運和財務方面的豐富經驗。

So now let's discuss our solid third quarter results, in which we reported adjusted EPS of $0.39 and adjusted EBITDA of $39 million. As for our growth metric, the average number of paid worksite employees of just over 309,000 was at the midpoint of our forecasted range. As expected, the 2% decline from Q3 of 2023 was impacted by the continuing softness in hiring by our client base and the loss of several mid-market accounts at the beginning of the year. Client hiring continued to be weak during Q3 as slight net gains in the first two months of the quarter were offset by a net decline in the third month. We believe the current macroeconomic environment continues to weigh on our clients and prospects and contributed to slightly lower worksite employees paid for new sales. However, this was offset by strong client retention of 99% for the quarter. An 11% decrease in gross profit from Q3 2023 on the 2% decrease in paid worksite employees included a difficult comparison to the prior year's quarter, which was positively impacted by favorable healthcare claims development. Our Q3 2024 benefit cost trend was slightly above the high end of our forecasted range but below our initial budget. And when combined with our overall pricing strategy, we believe we have effectively managed to our long term goal of matching price and cost. In a few minutes, Jim will provide more color in this area, including our expectations over the remainder of 2024.

現在讓我們討論一下我們穩健的第三季業績，其中調整後每股收益為 0.39 美元，調整後 EBITDA 為 3900 萬美元。至於我們的成長指標，受薪工作場所員工的平均人數略高於 309,000 人，處於我們預測範圍的中點。正如預期的那樣，與 2023 年第三季相比下降了 2%，這是由於我們的客戶群招聘持續疲軟以及年初失去了幾個中端市場客戶的影響。第三季的客戶招聘繼續疲軟，因為該季度前兩個月的小幅淨增長被第三個月的淨下降所抵消。我們認為，當前的宏觀經濟環境持續給我們的客戶和前景帶來壓力，並導致工地員工的新銷售收入略有下降。然而，該季度 99% 的強勁客戶保留率抵消了這一影響。由於有薪工作場所員工減少 2%，毛利較 2023 年第三季下降了 11%，與上一年季度相比存在困難，這一季度受到有利的醫療保健索賠發展的積極影響。我們的 2024 年第三季福利成本趨勢略高於我們預測範圍的上限，但低於我們的初始預算。結合我們的整體定價策略，我們相信我們已經有效地實現了價格與成本相符的長期目標。幾分鐘後，Jim 將提供該領域的更多信息，包括我們對 2024 年剩餘時間的期望。

Q3 operating expenses were managed below plan with various savings in our G&A cost. Our year-to-date operating expenses now include approximately $40 million associated with our Workday strategic partnership. Now the third quarter of 2024’s effective tax rate was positively impacted by research and development credit, which contributed just $0.02 per share in earnings above our Q3 2024 forecast. And we continue to forecast the full year 2024 effective income tax rate of 28%. During the quarter, we continued to provide returns to our shareholders through our regular dividend program and the repurchase of our shares. We paid out $23 million in cash dividends and repurchased 167,000 shares of stock at a cost of $15 million in Q3. We ended the quarter with $212 million of adjusted cash, an increase of about $40 million over December 31, 2023 balance. And we had $280 million available under our credit facility. Now at this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Paul.

第三季的營運費用管理低於計劃，我們的一般管理成本有所節省。我們年初至今的營運支出現在包括與 Workday 策略合作夥伴關係相關的約 4,000 萬美元。現在，2024 年第三季的有效稅率受到研發信貸的正面影響，研發信貸對每股盈餘的貢獻僅比我們 2024 年第三季的預測高出 0.02 美元。我們繼續預測2024年全年有效所得稅率為28%。本季度，我們繼續透過定期股利計畫和股票回購為股東提供回報。第三季度，我們支付了 2,300 萬美元的現金股息，並以 1,500 萬美元的成本回購了 167,000 股股票。截至本季末，我們的調整後現金為 2.12 億美元，比 2023 年 12 月 31 日的餘額增加了約 4,000 萬美元。我們的信貸額度下有 2.8 億美元可用。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'll begin with remarks on our third quarter financial results. I'll follow with commentary on our plans to take advantage of our market opportunity in Q4 to move towards growth acceleration in 2025. I'll finish with a discussion of sales and service initiatives we expect to implement over the course of the next year to drive long term growth and profitability, including AI and our Workday strategic partnership. Now in Q3, we weathered the continued heightened uncertainty in the small and medium sized business marketplace with solid financial performance in adjusted EBITDA and EPS. We achieved our worksite employee average target for the quarter with good client retention. However, worksite employees from net hiring versus layoffs was below expectations and even slightly negative for the full quarter. This factor included a net gain in the first two months, followed by a greater than expected reduction in September beyond what's typical from just summer help going away. We believe this reflects continued stress in the small business marketplace and possibly some preelection hesitancy. This pressure continued to be evident from our real time internal data beyond the normal hiring activity, including low levels of overtime pay and commissions paid to sales personnel at the client companies. Despite these difficult conditions, our booked sales were up 8% over the same period last year on a 2% increase in business performance advisers in the marketplace. In addition, pricing for our HR services was up 2%, reflecting continued adherence to our long-term pricing plan even in a competitive environment. Our pricing policy discipline also continued in our direct cost allocations, including payroll taxes, workers' compensation and employee benefits.

謝謝你，道格。感謝大家加入我們的電話會議。今天，我將首先評論我們第三季的財務業績。接下來，我將評論我們計劃利用第四季的市場機會，在 2025 年實現加速成長。最後，我將討論我們預計在明年實施的銷售和服務計劃，以推動長期成長和獲利，包括人工智慧和我們的 Workday 策略合作夥伴關係。現在進入第三季度，我們經受住了中小型企業市場持續加劇的不確定性，調整後的 EBITDA 和 EPS 財務表現穩健。我們實現了本季現場員工平均目標，並維持了良好的客戶保留率。然而，整個季度的現場員工淨招聘與裁員情況低於預期，甚至略有負值。這一因素包括前兩個月的淨增長，隨後 9 月的降幅超出預期，超出了夏季救助消失的典型情況。我們認為，這反映了小型企業市場的持續壓力以及可能存在的一些選前猶豫。從我們正常招募活動以外的即時內部數據來看，這種壓力仍然很明顯，包括支付給客戶公司銷售人員的低水準加班工資和佣金。儘管面臨這些困難，我們的預訂銷售額仍比去年同期成長了 8%，市場上的業務績效顧問數量增加了 2%。此外，我們的人力資源服務定價上漲了 2%，反映出即使在競爭激烈的環境中我們仍繼續堅持我們的長期定價計畫。我們的定價政策紀律也持續應用於直接成本分配，包括薪資稅、工人賠償和員工福利。

This is our standard mode of operation and it's important to highlight in this setting. For example, this quarter, our benefit claim cost was slightly higher than expected after our first half of the year with slightly favorable cost in this area. Our pricing allocation policy is not driven by these short term variances but rather by our conservative view of long term trends. Our pricing policy has continued our focus on trends that have been higher in the marketplace post COVID. This approach to match price and cost over the long term allows us to provide our small business clients with what we believe is a more stable employment cost structure than other firms, providing us with a significant competitive advantage. We are tweaking our guidance for the fourth quarter as you'll hear from Jim in a few minutes to factor in the slight increase in health came activity and the lower paid worksite employees, primarily from the lower net hiring in the client base. Now for the balance of the year, we believe we are well positioned to return to growth acceleration in 2025 with a successful fall selling and retention campaign. This would be achieved by reaching a starting point in paid worksite employees in Q1 that is even with the average worksite employees we expect to pay in Q4. Our fall selling and retention campaign is well underway and we have several reasons to be encouraged.

這是我們的標準操作模式，在此設定中強調這一點很重要。例如，本季度，我們的福利索賠成本略高於上半年後的預期，這方面的成本略有有利。我們的定價分配政策不是由這些短期差異所驅動的，而是由我們對長期趨勢的保守觀點所驅動的。我們的定價政策持續關注新冠疫情后市場上更高的趨勢。這種長期匹配價格和成本的方法使我們能夠為小型企業客戶提供我們認為比其他公司更穩定的就業成本結構，為我們提供了顯著的競爭優勢。我們正在調整第四季度的指導，幾分鐘後您就會聽到吉姆的消息，以考慮到健康活動的略有增加和工作場所員工的工資較低（主要是由於客戶群淨招聘的較低） 。現在，在今年剩下的時間裡，我們相信，透過成功的秋季銷售和保留活動，我們將在 2025 年恢復成長加速。這可以透過在第一季達到受薪工作場所員工的起點來實現，該起點與我們預計在第四季度支付的平均工作場所員工持平。我們的秋季銷售和保留活動正在順利進行，我們有幾個值得鼓勵的理由。

We have over 700 trained business performance advisers in the field, a well trained -- well designed pricing and incentive strategy for each target market segment and a robust marketing campaign and in addition, a strong mid market pipeline. We also have reason to believe there may be post election relief of hesitation and uncertainty in the target market. The election’s over soon and both parties have highlighted support of the small to medium sized business community. Throughout our history, we have seen some level of rebound from periods of uncertainty. We have seen companies in our target markets of the best small and midsized businesses in the country typically have a growth mindset and can't be held back for long. As we focus on 2025, we believe we have an exceptional opportunity for growth acceleration as we also lay the groundwork for greater effectiveness and efficiency in both sales and service. We anticipate implementing a role based approach to optimize our sales organization with our offerings, including our long standing core PEO to the small business marketplace, our traditional employment business and our significant mid market opportunity. We also expect to focus on improving effectiveness and efficiency on the service side of the business. This is made possible by our dramatic progress leveraging our own vast HR content knowledge and data through AI after so many years delivering the most comprehensive HR service in the marketplace.

我們在該領域擁有 700 多名訓練有素的業務績效顧問、針對每個目標細分市場的訓練有素、精心設計的定價和激勵策略、強大的行銷活動以及強大的中端市場管道。我們也有理由相信，大選後目標市場的猶豫和不確定性可能會有所緩解。選舉很快結束，兩黨都強調了中小型企業界的支持。縱觀我們的歷史，我們已經看到了從不確定時期出現的某種程度的反彈。我們發現，在我們的目標市場中，國內最好的中小企業通常都具有成長心態，並且不會長期停滯。當我們著眼於 2025 年時，我們相信我們有一個加速成長的絕佳機會，因為我們也為提高銷售和服務的有效性和效率奠定了基礎。我們預計實施基於角色的方法，透過我們的產品來優化我們的銷售組織，包括我們長期面向小型企業市場的核心 PEO、我們的傳統就業業務和我們重要的中端市場機會。我們也希望專注於提高業務服務方面的有效性和效率。多年來，我們在市場上提供了最全面的人力資源服務，透過人工智慧利用我們自己豐富的人力資源內容知識和數據取得了巨大的進步，這使得這一目標成為可能。

Our AI strategy is centered on creating efficiencies, leveraging our deep embedded HR expertise and enhancing, not replacing, the best-in-class service that Insperity is known for. Our technology investments in recent years have focused on modernizing our data platform and elevating our capabilities of data strategy, governance, engineering and analytics. These initiatives laid the groundwork for our efforts to capitalize on AI investments. As examples, the implementation of Salesforce as our CRM and the creation of a modern data hub enable us to scale and be more nimble with business priorities like powering the marketing funnel and developing our own internal AI tool. We can also quickly ingest and transform new data sources as well as our own vast body of HR thought leadership content and knowledge. By leveraging enterprise AI solutions to process our proprietary information, we are building and testing an internal tool that we believe will drive both efficiencies and deeper knowledge for our service and sales teams to further enhance the client experience. Service areas like the contact center and payroll lend themselves naturally to AI support. We believe use of AI will increase the speed and proficiency of our service teams. As we design and test our AI solution, we're measuring the benefits in these areas and believe that it will help us with operational capacity management and optimization.

我們的人工智慧策略以提高效率為中心，利用我們深厚的人力資源專業知識，增強而不是取代 Insperity 聞名的一流服務。近年來，我們的技術投資主要集中在資料平台現代化以及提升資料策略、治理、工程和分析能力。這些舉措為我們利用人工智慧投資奠定了基礎。例如，將 Salesforce 實作為我們的 CRM 並建立現代資料中心，使我們能夠擴展並更靈活地處理業務優先事項，例如為行銷管道提供動力和開發我們自己的內部人工智慧工具。我們還可以快速吸收和轉換新的資料來源以及我們自己的大量人力資源思想領導內容和知識。透過利用企業人工智慧解決方案來處理我們的專有訊息，我們正在建立和測試一個內部工具，我們相信該工具將提高我們的服務和銷售團隊的效率和更深入的知識，從而進一步增強客戶體驗。聯絡中心和薪資等服務領域自然適合人工智慧支援。我們相信人工智慧的使用將提高我們服務團隊的速度和熟練程度。當我們設計和測試人工智慧解決方案時，我們正在衡量這些領域的優勢，並相信它將幫助我們進行營運能力管理和最佳化。

Longer term, we are targeting a client based conversion of our tool that would allow clients to get answers to common questions more easily. We're also expanding our use of machine learning and AI to drive predictive insights that we believe can directly impact growth in retention. Significant progress has also been made advancing our strategic partnership with Workday. I've spoken previously about the four defined pillars of work, including our Insperity corporate tenant, our exclusive client tenant, our deployment and enablement services and our joint go-to-market plan. I'd like to provide a brief update on the execution of each of those. And as a reminder, through this strategic partnership, Workday and Insperity are committed to jointly developing, marketing, selling and supporting the preeminent solution for targeted small and medium sized businesses that combines Workday's HR technology with Insperity's HR services. We expect to offer this unique PEO solution to the target market using Workday technology for less upfront capital cost, ongoing expense complexity and implementation time than currently available in the marketplace. Our go-to-market plan for this strategic partnership is centered on co-selling, co-branding and co-marketing to the target market of companies with fewer than 3,500 employees. We've established an incentive program in concert with Workday to increase opportunities for sales. We are currently focused on the integration of this go-to-market plan into the 2025 business plans for both firms. We are progressing well on our co-branding, co-marketing efforts as both Workday and Insperity's marketing teams are engaged in building out a mutual approach to generate awareness, excitement and interest for the new joint solution. We plan to deploy the Workday platform for Insperity's corporate use first to better understand the implementation process and how to configure and integrate the systems we will use across both tenants. We've made excellent progress and we believe we are now on track to deploy this solution in the first half of 2025.

從長遠來看，我們的目標是基於客戶的工具轉換，使客戶能夠更輕鬆地獲得常見問題的答案。我們也擴大了機器學習和人工智慧的使用，以推動預測洞察，我們相信這些洞察可以直接影響保留率的成長。我們與 Workday 的策略合作夥伴關係也取得了重大進展。我之前曾談到四個明確的工作支柱，包括我們的 Insperity 企業租戶、我們的獨家客戶租戶、我們的部署和支援服務以及我們的共同上市計劃。我想簡要介紹一下每項措施的執行情況。需要提醒的是，透過此策略合作夥伴關係，Workday 和Insperity 致力於共同開發、行銷、銷售和支援目標中小型企業的卓越解決方案，該解決方案將Workday 的人力資源技術與Insperity 的人力資源服務相結合。我們希望利用 Workday 技術為目標市場提供這種獨特的 PEO 解決方案，與目前市場上的現有技術相比，前期資本成本、持續費用複雜性和實施時間更少。我們針對此策略合作夥伴關係的市場進入計劃以針對員工人數少於 3,500 人的公司的目標市場進行聯合銷售、聯合品牌和聯合行銷為中心。我們與 Workday 合作制定了激勵計劃，以增加銷售機會。我們目前的重點是將此上市計劃整合到兩家公司的 2025 年業務計劃中。我們在聯合品牌、聯合行銷方面進展順利，Workday 和 Insperity 的行銷團隊都致力於建立一種共同的方法，以提高人們對新聯合解決方案的認識、興奮和興趣。我們計劃首先部署 Workday 平台供 Insperity 企業使用，以便更好地了解實施流程以及如何配置和整合我們將在兩個租戶中使用的系統。我們已經取得了巨大進展，我們相信我們現在預計在 2025 年上半年部署此解決方案。

Our strategy to deploy the Workday solution for our own corporate use before taking our new joint solution to the market is proving out. Many of the nuances of integration and configuration that are part of the implementation are directly applicable to the development of the joint solution. Now we're also progressing well on the development of the joint solution client tenant. We have an agreed upon development plan well underway with Workday that we believe would make the technology platform fit our PEO business model. We continue to refine the definition of differentiation of the product offering. We remain focused on delivering a comprehensive HR and technology solution with speed to value and total cost of ownership as key drivers as well as the pricing methodology that will apply to the new joint solution. We're well underway establishing our deployment and enablement organization as well. This is not a new test since we already deploy and enable new clients onto our own premier HR technology platform in our current PEO offering and onto another HCM platform for our traditional employment clients. Throughout this year, our service operations group has been completing advanced training and certifications for specific roles while establishing our playbooks for customer support for the new joint solution. They've had the advantage of being able to use the corporate tenant deployment to provide the basis for much of this effort. These playbooks will include processes similar to the approach used in our current fast deployment onto our current system.

我們的策略是在將新的聯合解決方案推向市場之前部署 Workday 解決方案供我們自己的公司使用，而這項策略正在得到證明。作為實施一部分的整合和配置的許多細微差別直接適用於聯合解決方案的開發。現在，我們在聯合解決方案客戶端租戶的開發方面也進展順利。我們正在與 Workday 商定一項開發計劃，我們相信該計劃將使該技術平台適合我們的 PEO 業務模式。我們不斷完善產品差異化的定義。我們仍然專注於提供全面的人力資源和技術解決方案，以價值實現速度和整體擁有成本作為關鍵驅動因素，以及適用於新聯合解決方案的定價方法。我們也正在順利建立我們的部署和支援組織。這不是一個新的測試，因為我們已經在我們目前的 PEO 產品中部署並支援新客戶進入我們自己的首要人力資源技術平台，以及為我們傳統就業客戶提供的另一個 HCM 平台。今年以來，我們的服務營運團隊一直在完成針對特定角色的高級培訓和認證，同時為新的聯合解決方案的客戶支援制定手冊。他們的優勢在於能夠使用企業租戶部署為大部分工作提供基礎。這些劇本將包括與我們目前快速部署到目前系統中所使用的方法類似的流程。

We're also well along the path of identifying an initial group of clients that will be migrating to the new platform ahead of launching the joint solution to new clients. In summary, we're focused on a successful fall selling and retention season to achieve a solid starting point for 2025. We also see an opportunity for growth acceleration next year with sales and service improvements as we leverage our data infrastructure with AI and our Workday strategic partnership. Now before I pass the call on to Jim for our guidance discussion, I'd like to publicly thank Doug for his outstanding performance in his key role here at Insperity for so many years. Doug has had an excellent career demonstrating dedication, commitment and making a significant contribution to the success of Insperity. I'm also very excited to execute an effective succession plan having Jim Allison as our new CFO. Jim is uniquely qualified and experienced to immediately take over this role. We look forward to the opportunity for you to meet and work with Jim going forward. At this point, I'd like to pass the call on to Jim.

在向新客戶推出聯合解決方案之前，我們也正在確定將遷移到新平台的初始客戶群。總之，我們的重點是成功的秋季銷售和保留季節，以便在 2025 年實現堅實的起點。我們也看到了明年透過銷售和服務改善加速成長的機會，因為我們利用我們的資料基礎設施與人工智慧以及我們的 Workday 策略合作夥伴關係。現在，在我將電話轉給 Jim 進行指導討論之前，我要公開感謝 Doug 多年來在 Insperity 擔任關鍵角色時的出色表現。Doug 擁有出色的職業生涯，展現奉獻精神和奉獻精神，並為 Insperity 的成功做出了重大貢獻。我也很高興能夠執行有效的繼任計劃，吉姆·艾利森 (Jim Allison) 擔任我們的新任財務長。吉姆具有獨特的資格和經驗，可以立即接任這一職位。我們期待您今後有機會與吉姆見面並一起工作。現在，我想把電話轉給吉姆。

Thanks, Paul. Our outlook for full year 2024 earnings remains within the range of our prior guidance, albeit at the lower end of that range. As Doug and Paul have mentioned, the environment for worksite employee growth continues to be challenging due to the economic climate and labor market in our target customer segments. We are cautiously optimistic that recent and anticipated interest rate decline along with the completion of the current election cycle could provide improvement over time, but we have not incorporated a change in the short term. Given these factors, combined with the starting point going into the fourth quarter, we have adjusted our full year outlook to the lower end of our previous guidance and now expect average paid worksite employees in a range of 307,400 to 308,100, which is a decline of 1.3% to 1.5% compared to 2023. On a year-to-date basis, our pricing and benefit costs have been slightly favorable when compared to our initial budget. Our benefits cost in Q3 returned closer to our original budget due to a slight increase in utilization and we have assumed a similar level in our Q4 forecast. We expect that our full year benefit cost trend will remain near the low end of our initial 2024 expectations of 4.5% to 6%.

謝謝，保羅。我們對 2024 年全年盈利的展望仍然在我們先前指導的範圍內，儘管處於該範圍的下限。正如道格和保羅所提到的，由於我們目標客戶群的經濟環境和勞動力市場，工作場所員工成長的環境仍然充滿挑戰。我們謹慎樂觀地認為，近期和預期的利率下降以及當前選舉週期的完成可能會隨著時間的推移帶來改善，但我們短期內尚未做出改變。考慮到這些因素，再加上進入第四季度的起點，我們已將全年展望調整至先前指引的下限，目前預計平均受薪工作場所員工人數將在 307,400 人至 308,100 人之間，下降了與2023 年相比，成長1.3% 至1.5%。今年迄今為止，與我們的初始預算相比，我們的定價和福利成本略有優惠。由於利用率略有增加，我們在第三季的福利成本更接近我們最初的預算，並且我們在第四季度的預測中假設了類似的水平。我們預計全年福利成本趨勢將保持在 2024 年初始預期 4.5% 至 6% 的低端附近。

We expected somewhat elevated healthcare cost trends for both 2024 and 2025 and we did not adjust our pricing targets based on the favorability we experienced in the first half of the year. As a result, we believe that our pricing remains in a solid position at this point. We continue to closely monitor healthcare and other direct cost trends along with the competitive landscape. And if necessary, we would adjust our pricing targets next year consistent with our long term pricing strategy. Operating expense management remains a key focus due to the lower worksite employees. We forecasted and achieved savings in Q3 and we have refined our plan for Q4. That said, we continue to focus efforts and planned spending on the implementation of the Workday strategic partnership and we expect total spend on this initiative of around $60 million for the full year as originally estimated. Based on these factors, we are now forecasting full year 2024 adjusted EPS in a range of $3.42 to $3.66 per share within the range of our previous guidance of $3.33 to $3.88. We are now forecasting adjusted EBITDA in a range of $262 million to $274 million. As for Q4, we are forecasting paid worksite employees down 1% to 2% compared to Q4 of 2023. For Q4 earnings, we are forecasting adjusted EBITDA in a range of $15 million to $27 million and adjusted EPS from negative $0.10 to positive $0.12. Earnings comparisons to Q4 of 2023 will be significantly impacted primarily by the planned investments in the Workday strategic partnership in 2024. At this time, I'd like to open up the call for questions.

我們預計 2024 年和 2025 年的醫療保健成本趨勢將有所上升，並且我們沒有根據上半年的優惠調整我們的定價目標。因此，我們相信我們的定價目前仍處於穩固地位。我們繼續密切關注醫療保健和其他直接成本趨勢以及競爭格局。如有必要，我們將調整明年的定價目標，使其與我們的長期定價策略保持一致。由於現場員工數量較少，營運費用管理仍然是重點。我們預測並實現了第三季的節省，並完善了第四季度的計劃。也就是說，我們將繼續將工作重點和計畫支出集中在 Workday 策略夥伴關係的實施上，預計全年該計畫的總支出將達到最初估計的 6,000 萬美元左右。基於這些因素，我們目前預測 2024 年全年調整後每股收益在 3.42 美元至 3.66 美元之間，處於我們之前 3.33 美元至 3.88 美元指導範圍內。我們目前預測調整後 EBITDA 在 2.62 億美元至 2.74 億美元之間。至於第四季度，我們預計有薪工作場所員工人數將比 2023 年第四季下降 1% 至 2%。對於第四季度的收益，我們預計調整後的 EBITDA 將在 1500 萬美元至 2700 萬美元之間，調整後的每股收益將從負 0.10 美元調整為正 0.12 美元。與 2023 年第四季的獲利比較將主要受到 2024 年 Workday 策略合作夥伴計畫投資的重大影響。此時，我想開放提問。

[Operator Instructions] Your first question is coming from Andrew Nicholas of William Blair.

[操作員說明] 您的第一個問題來自威廉布萊爾的安德魯尼古拉斯。

I wanted to first ask on client retention and just maybe market competitiveness overall this fall season. I know you're still in the midst of it and the next couple of months won’t make a big difference, but I guess, two part question is, is the Workday partnership or the plans to launch that in the first half of next year having any noticeable impact on large client retention to this point? And then again, just on market competitiveness. It seems like you've priced your book very effectively relative to cost trends. Just wondering if that's giving you any sort of advantage in the market or if there's still quite a bit of aggressiveness from competitors in terms of undercutting on price?

我想先詢問客戶保留率以及今年秋季的整體市場競爭力。我知道您仍處於其中，接下來的幾個月不會產生太大的影響，但我想，有兩個部分的問題是，是 Workday 合作夥伴關係還是計劃在上半年推出該合作夥伴關係明年到目前為止，對大客戶保留有任何明顯影響嗎？再說一遍，只是市場競爭力。相對於成本趨勢，您似乎非常有效地為您的書定價。只是想知道這是否會為您在市場上帶來任何優勢，或者競爭對手在降低價格方面是否仍然有相當大的侵略性？

Certainly, there has been a competitive environment that we've talked for many quarters. We've responded to that in a very exceptional way, I believe, in that we have created incentives for our potential clients, our prospects, different incentives in each segment knowing what each segment really highlights as their incentive for coming on. But what we've done is we've created these incentives that are shorter term, they don't affect the long term pricing of the client. And that has worked and has been favorable because we believe some of the pricing that's going on in the marketplace has been more desperation and we believe that our long term pricing policy really is the better answer, especially for the clients because it allows us to give them a more stable cost structure into the future. So we've been successful on that front. Now relative to client retention these incentives that we've created also have been applied in our renewal process with clients. And so yes, we're well under way of having some success there. But you are also correct in your question it’s kind of in the middle. So all the balls are in the air. So we still got to do a really effective job for the next couple of months. And the fact that we have a Workday relationship, we know has certainly created a different perception within our client base, especially in that mid-market space. It's kind of hard to tell at this stage, which type of factors are making the difference, these new incentives or the Workday relationship. But hey, all of it is helping and we're looking forward to doing our very best over these next couple of months.

當然，我們已經討論了很多季度的競爭環境。我相信，我們以一種非常特殊的方式對此做出了回應，因為我們為我們的潛在客戶、我們的前景創造了激勵措施，在每個細分市場中提供不同的激勵措施，了解每個細分市場真正強調的是什麼作為他們繼續前進的激勵因素。但我們所做的是，我們創建了這些短期激勵措施，它們不會影響客戶的長期定價。這已經奏效並且一直是有利的，因為我們相信市場上正在發生的一些定價更加令人絕望，而且我們相信我們的長期定價政策確實是更好的答案，特別是對於客戶而言，因為它使我們能夠給予為未來提供更穩定的成本結構。所以我們在這方面取得了成功。現在，相對於客戶保留，我們創建的這些激勵措施也已應用於我們與客戶的續約過程中。是的，我們正在那裡取得一些成功。但你的問題也是正確的——它是在中間。所以所有的球都在空中。因此，在接下來的幾個月裡，我們仍然必須做真正有效的工作。我們知道，我們與 Workday 的關係無疑在我們的客戶群中產生了不同的看法，尤其是在中端市場領域。現階段很難判斷是哪些類型的因素產生了影響，是這些新的激勵措施還是 Workday 關係。但是，嘿，所有這些都是有幫助的，我們期待在接下來的幾個月裡盡力而為。

And then for my follow-up, switching gears a little bit. I just wanted to talk about expenses. It looks like really nice job managing the G&A line this quarter. Can you talk a little bit about where those savings are coming from? And then you talked about your AI investments and some of the opportunities to drive efficiency there. Is that -- are the efficiencies there enough to kind of offset the cost of implementing them in the near term? Just trying to understand if that is incremental to the cost structure looking ahead to '25.

然後對於我的後續行動，稍微改變一下方式。我只是想談談費用。本季管理一般行政費用線的工作看起來非常好。您能談談這些節省的資金來自哪裡嗎？然後您談到了您的人工智慧投資以及一些提高效率的機會。那是——那裡的效率足以抵消短期內實施它們的成本嗎？只是想了解這是否會增加 25 年的成本結構。

I'd say for the recent quarter to say it’s in the G&A area, really just focusing in a period of slower worksite employee growth on where we can get most efficiency out of certain areas. In this past quarter, they primarily were in the G&A area. As we mentioned, we are investing in the Workday partnership that obviously adds -- needing to add some personnel and redeploy personnel. And so we are making those investments. But yes, at the same time, we're looking at other areas of the business where we can create more efficiencies, I would say -- and you refer to Paul on this, fairly early on in getting any efficiencies out of AI. We see a lot of potential there in both the sales and the service organization. And we think that, that can create operating leverage going forward. But I would say we're still at the fairly early stages of that.

我想說的是，最近一個季度是在一般管理費用領域，實際上只是專注於工作場所員工成長放緩的時期，我們可以從某些領域獲得最大的效率。在過去的這個季度，他們主要集中在一般管理費用領域。正如我們所提到的，我們正在投資 Workday 合作夥伴關係，這顯然會增加 - 需要增加一些人員並重新部署人員。所以我們正在進行這些投資。但是，是的，同時，我們正在研究可以提高效率的其他業務領域，我想說——你在這一點上提到了保羅，很早就從人工智慧中獲得了效率。我們在銷售和服務組織中看到了巨大的潛力。我們認為，這可以創造未來的營運槓桿。但我想說我們仍處於相當早期的階段。

Let me just add to that on the AI front. It is very exciting. And what is exciting to me is that the thought leadership that we've had for so many years as the most comprehensive service in the marketplace, we have incredible knowledge based data information that is going to be highly leverageable that will help us be more efficient and more effective. And what we look forward to that is that our ability to grow the client base and not have to add as many people, because people will be able to do their jobs more efficiently, more effectively. There are great examples we're seeing already. But this is all still in this careful development and then we will spend more time talking about it specifically what will be -- I don't want to really say piloting, because it's -- maybe it's beyond piloting but it will be testing and making sure things are working properly because we believe we can elevate the client experience in our own corporate staff experience and be more consistent and more accurate in our communication. So that's going to be a significant emphasis for 2025. Now how quickly that turns into benefit at the bottom line that's -- it's too early to tell that but we definitely see that, that's part of the picture for a company like ours going forward.

讓我補充一下人工智慧方面的內容。這是非常令人興奮的。令我興奮的是，我們多年來作為市場上最全面的服務所擁有的思想領導力，我們擁有令人難以置信的基於知識的數據信息，這些信息將具有高度的槓桿作用，這將幫助我們提高效率並且更有效。我們期待的是，我們能夠擴大客戶群，而不必增加那麼多人，因為人們將能夠更有效率、更有效地完成工作。我們已經看到了很多很好的例子。但這一切仍在仔細的開發中，然後我們將花更多時間具體討論它會是什麼 - 我不想真正說試點，因為它 - 也許它超出了試點範圍，但它將進行測試和製作確保一切正常，因為我們相信我們可以在我們自己的公司員工體驗中提升客戶體驗，並在我們的溝通中更加一致和準確。因此，這將成為 2025 年的重點。現在說這一點還為時過早，但我們肯定看到了這一點，這是像我們這樣的公司未來發展的一部分。

Your next question is coming from Tobey Sommer of Truist.

您的下一個問題來自 Truist 的 Tobey Sommer。

I wanted to start out on corporate instance of Workday as well as the client facing. Has the time line shifted at all, is it pushed out to the right? And if so, what might be the driver of that?

我想從 Workday 的企業實例以及面向客戶的實例開始。時間線有沒有改變，是否被推到了右邊？如果是這樣，其驅動因素可能是什麼？

So what we've done, we had never put and even to this day, I'm not ready to pinpoint a date. Because when you're developing like we are together on this project, I don't want to pinpoint a date too early that moves out or pinpoint a date too far out that relaxes people. So we are progressing very well, very diligently at a very detailed specific level but we also, relative to the corporate instance and the client instance, as I mentioned in my script, our work to go live on the corporate in sense is part of a process that is -- it's almost like the beta for going on to the client side. There's a lot of integrations and things of that nature on the compliance front that also are part of what goes into the client side. Now it's not exactly the same as the client site, obviously, and there are -- there's other significant development to do. But it is foundational to where we're going. So the timing of those two being relatively close together is important as well. So it's been planned for the corporate side for that first half of the year, could have been earlier, could be a little later, but that's -- it needs to be timed just right with the whole process. I hope that helps you.

所以我們所做的事情，我們從來沒有說過，甚至到今天，我還沒有準備好確定一個日期。因為當你像我們一起開發這個專案時，我不想太早確定一個日期，以免人們放鬆，或確定一個太遠的日期，讓人們放鬆。因此，我們在非常詳細的特定層級上進展得非常好，非常努力，但我們也相對於企業實例和客戶端實例，正如我在腳本中提到的，我們在企業上運行的工作在某種意義上是這個過程幾乎就像是進入客戶端的測試版。在合規性方面有很多整合和類似性質的東西，這些也是客戶端的一部分。顯然，現在它與客戶端網站不完全相同，而且還有其他重要的開發要做。但這是我們前進方向的基礎。因此，兩者相對接近的時機也很重要。因此，公司方面已經計劃了今年上半年，可能會更早，也可能會稍晚一些，但那就是——它需要與整個過程恰到好處地結合在一起。我希望這對你有幫助。

And how do you think about, in this selling season, the puts and takes as far as sort of prospective customers maybe looking at transitioning to your existing HR platform and then eventually to a Workday platform as maybe more than maybe want to bite off in a relatively compressed amount of time versus the -- probably upside of the benefit to retention of existing customers who maybe were looking for some more features see on the horizon you're going to be able to offer them.

您如何看待在這個銷售季節，潛在客戶可能會考慮過渡到您現有的人力資源平台，然後最終過渡到 Workday 平台，因為他們可能不想在相對壓縮的時間與保留現有客戶的好處可能是有利的，這些客戶可能正在尋找您即將能夠為他們提供的更多功能。

I'll tell you the understanding and expectation that has created that we are going to have this solution coming has actually been really good in both prospects and clients. On the prospect side, we've spent some time really thinking to, hey, would this be an issue about customers say, hey, I'll just hold off. But the reality is that there's a lot of other things that happen when a customer comes on and it makes a big difference in that client's business, and they're able to see that. And coming on to our system, which takes a short period of time, we have not seen that be an issue for companies, they might be -- they might come on our system and then be in the second wave on the new one for their own timing reasons, that's perfectly fine. But we haven't had anybody that I'm aware of that just said, hey, we're going to wait. And in fact, I actually think we're getting closer and closer to the point at which a prospect who goes through the normal process, it's going to take 18 months, hey, they're about to get in a situation where within the same time frame here and less, they're going to be -- they can be on this system. So the decision that we want prospects to make is to look at their whole business and see if they need a technology and service solution if they want to completely deal with their scalability issues and -- because we're going to be that answer. So I'm excited about our go-to-market strategy in next year because we literally will be together talking to prospective clients and helping them navigate their best path forward, whether it's a Workday solution apart from us, which, like I said, takes a considerable length of time or coming on to our joint solution, which gives them a broader set of solutions to really help their business grow and develop.

我將告訴您，我們將推出此解決方案所產生的理解和期望實際上對潛在客戶和客戶來說都非常好。在前景方面，我們花了一些時間認真思考，嘿，這是否是一個關於客戶說的問題，嘿，我會推遲。但現實情況是，當客戶出現時，會發生很多其他事情，這會對客戶的業務產生很大的影響，而且他們能夠看到這一點。進入我們的系統需要很短的時間，我們還沒有看到這對公司來說是一個問題，他們可能會進入我們的系統，然後進入新系統的第二波浪潮。問題。但據我所知，沒有人說過，嘿，我們要等待。事實上，我實際上認為我們越來越接近這樣一個時刻，潛在客戶完成正常流程將需要 18 個月，嘿，他們即將陷入這樣一種情況：在相同的時間內這裡的時間框架和更少，他們將--他們可以在這個系統上。因此，我們希望潛在客戶做出的決定是審視他們的整個業務，看看他們是否需要技術和服務解決方案，如果他們想徹底解決可擴展性問題，因為我們將成為答案。因此，我對明年的市場進入策略感到興奮，因為我們實際上將與潛在客戶一起交談，幫助他們找到最佳的前進道路，無論是我們之外的 Workday 解決方案，就像我說的，需要相當長的時間或採用我們的共同解決方案，這為他們提供了更廣泛的解決方案，以真正幫助他們的業務成長和發展。

Your next question is coming from Mark Marcon of Baird.

您的下一個問題來自貝爾德 (Baird) 的馬克馬孔 (Mark Marcon)。

First of all, Doug, it's been a pleasure working with you for 20 years. So really appreciate all of the help over the years and look forward to working with Jim. With regards to the quarter and the guide for the fourth quarter, can you talk just a little bit more about what you're seeing with regards to healthcare trends, obviously, TriNet ended up reporting that severity was up. When you take a look at your gross profit per worksite employee, are you seeing an increase in terms of number of claims, is it severity, is it general inflation? How are you thinking about that with regards to the fourth quarter? And then for next year and how we should think about pricing and what sort of impact could that end up having with regards to retention as well as new bookings in the core selling season?

首先，Doug，很高興與您共事 20 年。非常感謝多年來所有的幫助，並期待與吉姆合作。關於本季和第四季的指南，您能多談談您所看到的醫療保健趨勢嗎？當您查看每個工作場所員工的毛利時，您是否發現索賠數量增加，是否嚴重，是否普遍通貨膨脹？您如何看待第四季度的情況？那麼明年我們應該如何考慮定價以及這最終會對核心銷售季節的保留和新預訂產生什麼樣的影響？

I think the first thing I would say is there is a normal range of benefits trend that kind of exists in history. Right now, we're probably seeing the trend is running a little bit towards the higher end of that historical range. Probably the biggest driver [Technical Difficulty] there are a lot of the specialty drugs that are out on the marketplace now. The GLP-1s being that the most recent example of that. But there are also a fair number of new high cost treatments, different kinds of cancer treatments and things like that, that continue to come to market. So those are the things that are kind of driving a little towards the top end of the range. From our perspective, we went into '24 and also '25, expecting that we're going to have some level of elevated healthcare cost trends and put in a pricing strategy for that. I would say that things have come in a little bit better than our expectations, particularly in the first half of this year. And from a severity standpoint, things are pretty much in line with where we expected them to be. We did see just a little bit more utilization in the third quarter of '24 than we had seen in the first half. So it's a little bit more utilization, not a significant change in severity at this point.

我想我首先要說的是，歷史上存在著正常範圍的福利趨勢。現在，我們可能會看到趨勢正在朝著歷史範圍的高端移動。可能最大的驅動因素是[技術難度]，現在市面上有許多特殊藥物。GLP-1 就是最新的例子。但也有相當數量的新的高成本治療方法、不同類型的癌症治療方法以及類似的東西不斷進入市場。所以這些都是有點推動範圍高端的事情。從我們的角度來看，我們進入了 24 年和 25 年，預計我們將出現一定程度的醫療保健成本上升趨勢，並為此制定了定價策略。我想說，情況比我們的預期好一些，特別是今年上半年。從嚴重性的角度來看，事情與我們的預期非常一致。我們確實看到 24 年第三季的使用率比上半年有所提高。因此，此時利用率有所提高，但嚴重性並未發生重大變化。

And then with regards to the Workday partnership. And at what point -- and I know it's still early, but do you feel like by the time we get to the selling season for end of '25 going into '26 that everything will be fully in place? Just trying to get a sense for when -- and I fully appreciate that sometimes Workday implementations can take a while. But just wondering, do you think it will be all set up so that you feel like it will be really smooth by the time we get out to '25, '26. And also any sort of indications with regards to what you're seeing in terms of referrals from the Workday pipeline?

然後是關於 Workday 合作夥伴關係。我知道現在還為時過早，但您是否覺得當我們進入 25 年底進入 26 年的銷售季節時，一切都會完全到位？只是想了解何時實現 - 我完全理解有時 Workday 實施可能需要一段時間。但只是想知道，你認為一切都會準備好，這樣當我們到 25 年、26 年時，你會覺得一切都會非常順利嗎？還有關於您在 Workday 管道的推薦方面看到的情況的任何跡象嗎？

So let's talk about the big picture of as we go into the next year. Obviously, the development is the key things and tracking towards a launch of the joint solution but the other thing, though, to remember is that the go-to-market effort will be ongoing. So when you first started asking the question, it's about that fall period in '25, I'm seeing us be absolutely ready and out there literally being able to fully inform the prospect about what's coming, demo, what's out there, what we have coming and customers being able to make that decision to come on board. So I'm not ready to pin down a launch date of actual product but I know we're going to be on the track and it's going to be within such a time frame that selling will be happening, that I'm confident. So hopefully, that helps with that question. I know there was a second part to that question but I can't remember what that was. No, yes, about the also the -- you're really talking about the go-to-market effort of passing leads back and forth and things of that nature, that has begun. The keys to making that work, I mentioned in my script is that having a go-to-market plan that is in both companies' business plans, so it's not off to the side. But just the timing this year when we put all this in place, it was beyond the point to really have it as an essential element to people's incentives, et cetera. We have worked through all that. We have a significant go-to-market strategy team meeting to lock everything down about what's in the 2025 business plans for both companies. And so I anticipate some real acceleration over time on that level.

那麼就讓我們來談談明年的大局吧。顯然，開發是關鍵，並追蹤聯合解決方案的推出，但另一件事要記住的是，進入市場的努力將持續進行。因此，當你第一次開始問這個問題時，是在25 年的秋季，我看到我們已經完全準備好，並且能夠充分告知潛在客戶即將發生的事情、演示、現有的情況以及我們擁有的內容來，客戶能夠做出加入的決定。因此，我還沒有準備好確定實際產品的發布日期，但我知道我們將走上正軌，並且將在銷售發生的時間範圍內，我對此充滿信心。希望這對回答這個問題有幫助。我知道這個問題還有第二部分，但我不記得那是什麼了。不，是的，關於 - 你實際上是在談論來回傳遞線索的進入市場的努力以及類似性質的事情，這已經開始了。我在腳本中提到，實現這一目標的關鍵是在兩家公司的業務計劃中製定進入市場計劃，因此它不會被擱置。但就在今年我們把所有這些都落實到位的時候，真正將其作為人們激勵等的基本要素已經超出了重點。我們已經解決了這一切。我們召開了一次重要的上市策略團隊會議，以確定兩家公司 2025 年業務計畫的所有內容。因此，我預計隨著時間的推移，這個水平會出現真正的加速。

Your next question is coming from Jeff Martin of Roth Capital Partners.

您的下一個問題來自羅斯資本合夥公司的傑夫馬丁。

I wanted to dig in a little bit more. It sounds like you're expecting year end transition to be favorable coming out Q1 [WSEEs] relatively consistent with Q1. Just curious if you could confirm that. And if there's anything specific to that, that you expect to be different from years past that would drive a positive transition?

我想再深入一點。聽起來您預計第一季的年終過渡將是有利的 [WSEE] 與第一季相對一致。只是好奇你能否證實這一點。如果有什麼具體的事情，您期望與過去幾年有所不同，從而推動積極的轉變？

So I do expect it to be favorable. We've got work to do. We're in the middle of it. And I'd say favorable, I thought compared to last year, we had seven customers go away that cost us 8,000 employees and $40 million of adjusted EBITDA for the year. By the way, while I mentioned that, just keep in mind as we talk about the Workday solution, we're talking about a nominal number of clients that makes a huge difference in our model. So I really want people to understand that. So again, a little bit better ability to keep some good sized customers because of that -- at least it's in the hopper coming down the road. We're hopeful that, that is part of the picture for this year but there's still a lot of work to do. And we don't -- I think it's important also to have in context that to have growth acceleration, to turn the corner and go from a nominal reduction in worksite employees to a positive number, we just need to have a decent year end and have the number we pay in the first quarter about the same as the number we pay in the fourth quarter, and then we're in deposit. And based on the sales effort that we have right now and the specifics that we have planned for a more role based approach for next year specific to each product that we offer in the marketplace. We think that also is going to help us be more effective next year. So even this year has been a tough year with the climate out there. But in an environment like that is when you really roll up the sleeves, people work hard and you learn things, and we've learned a lot of good things. And I think we're ready to make some tweaks, make some changes that we're really looking forward to a solid 2025.

所以我確實希望它是有利的。我們還有工作要做。我們正處於其中。我想說的是，我認為與去年相比，我們有 7 個客戶離開，導致我們損失了 8,000 名員工，並且在該年度調整後 EBITDA 損失了 4,000 萬美元。順便說一句，雖然我提到過這一點，但請記住，當我們談論 Workday 解決方案時，我們談論的是名義上的客戶數量，這對我們的模型產生了巨大的影響。所以我真的希望人們能夠理解這一點。因此，再次強調，留住一些大客戶的能力要好一些——至少在未來的料斗中是如此。我們希望這是今年的一部分，但仍有許多工作要做。我們不——我認為重要的是要考慮到要加速成長、扭轉局面、從工地員工的名義減少到正數，我們只需要有一個體面的年底，我們第一季支付的金額與第四季度支付的金額大致相同，然後我們存入資金。根據我們目前的銷售工作以及我們計劃在明年針對我們在市場上提供的每種產品採取更基於角色的方法的細節。我們認為這也將幫助我們明年提高效率。因此，就氣候而言，今年也是艱難的一年。但在這樣的環境中，當你真正捲起袖子時，人們會努力工作，你會學到東西，我們學到了很多好東西。我認為我們已經準備好進行一些調整、做出一些改變，我們真的很期待 2025 年的穩定發展。

And then on the AI side, could you talk to 2025, how that may progress? Sounds like there's a lot of potential efficiencies. Do you expect that to be fully implemented by a certain time frame in 2025 and how much efficiency operating leverage you may be able to get out of that?

那麼在人工智慧方面，您能談談 2025 年會如何進展嗎？聽起來有很多潛在的效率。您預計該計劃會在 2025 年的某個時間範圍內全面實施嗎？

Well, I think what's really exciting is that the excitement around AI and the way it works in our business, in terms of individual service providers being able to instantly have really good information, accurate information, the best answer we have to a question and to be able to do that instantaneously instead of a process of gathering information, thinking through things that could take a day or two and then going up to different folks or going across our organization, because a lot of times answers to the question don't come out of one department, it's information from across the organization. So having that information the best answer available immediately. And then still doing the work to make sure that this specific case that is the best answer, there's still work to do but it's much faster. Now the fact that there's so much energy around this, what I'm excited about it has brought to the surface for our corporate staff and our leadership to really focus on our operating cost on these things. And it's not just the service side but I'm not just focused on that. Even in the sales side, even in some of the other support parts of the organization there is efficiency gain. And it's great when you -- the company's always want to have some focus on operating expense control and trying build leverage in an organization. But usually, there's negative energy around that. What I'm excited is that AI gives positive energy around operating efficiency. And so that's going to be a highlight in our cultural mindset for 2025.

嗯，我認為真正令人興奮的是人工智慧及其在我們業務中的工作方式，就個體服務提供者能夠立即獲得真正好的資訊、準確的資訊以及我們對問題和問題的最佳答案而言，這是令人興奮的。會出現在一個部門之外，它是來自整個組織的訊息。因此，掌握這些資訊可以立即獲得最佳答案。然後仍然做工作以確保這個特定案例是最好的答案，仍然有工作要做，但速度要快得多。事實上，圍繞這件事有如此多的精力，我對此感到興奮，這讓我們的公司員工和領導層真正關注這些事情的營運成本。這不僅僅是服務方面，但我不僅僅關注這一點。即使在銷售方面，甚至在組織的其他一些支援部門，也能提高效率。當公司總是希望專注於營運費用控制並嘗試在組織中建立影響力時，這非常棒。但通常，周圍都有負能量。讓我興奮的是，人工智慧為營運效率帶來了正能量。因此，這將成為 2025 年我們文化思維的一大亮點。

And your next question is coming from Andrew Polkowitz of JP Morgan.

你的下一個問題來自摩根大通的安德魯·波爾科維茨。

I also wanted to extend my congrats to Doug on the upcoming retirement and also Jim on the new role. My first question, I was encouraged that you called out good BPA leverage. I think it was 8% booked sales growth on 2% BPA growth. I was curious if you could call out just anything structural driving that or any details on your pipeline have you feeling good?

我還想祝賀即將退休的道格和擔任新職務的吉姆。我的第一個問題是，您指出良好的 BPA 槓桿作用令我深受鼓舞。我認為預訂銷售額增長了 8%，BPA 增長了 2%。我很好奇您能否說出任何結構性驅動因素或管道上的任何細節讓您感覺良好？

So as far as looking forward, I mentioned four things that really give me some confidence and encouragement about going forward. But I got to tell you that third quarter effort was basically rolling up the sleeves and really a lot of hard work in an environment where there's quite a bit of hesitation out there, and we even think almost the preelection stuff as things have gotten kind of crazy on that front. And thankfully, that should be hopefully over very soon. But it was really rolling up the sleeves. And it’s also testing some of our incentive-based approach during the third quarter and we were able to confirm some things and then tweak things a little further as we have gone into this fall campaign. So the number of trained BPAs out there, the incentive plans that I just spoke about and there's just other good things that pipeline in our mid market is strong. So we're really working hard to have an effective fall campaign.

就展望未來而言，我提到了四件事，它們確實給了我前進的信心和鼓勵。但我必須告訴你，第三季的努力基本上是捲起袖子，在一個有相當多猶豫的環境中進行大量艱苦的工作，我們甚至認為幾乎是選舉前的事情，因為事情已經變得有點在那方面瘋狂。值得慶幸的是，這應該很快就會結束。但這確實是捲起袖子。它還在第三季度測試了我們一些基於激勵的方法，我們能夠確認一些事情，然後在進入秋季活動時進一步調整一些事情。因此，訓練有素的 BPA 數量、我剛才談到的激勵計劃以及我們中端市場正在推出的其他好東西都很強大。因此，我們正在努力進行有效的秋季活動。

I just got one follow-up, related to Workday. I know you mentioned that you have a process underway for ID-ing initial group of clients to get on to the new joint solution before full launch. I was just curious, as far as identifying those clients, have there been clients that have actively reached out to you guys interested in being part of the beta? And just any details on how you ID those clients.

我剛剛收到一份與 Workday 相關的後續跟進。我知道您提到您正在啟動一個流程，用於識別初始客戶群組，以便在全面啟動之前使用新的聯合解決方案。我只是很好奇，就確定這些客戶而言，是否有客戶主動聯繫你們有興趣參與測試？以及有關如何識別這些客戶的任何詳細資訊。

We have a client base that is informed, and we were able to kind of target particular mid-market customers that we felt would be a variety and be the best that we would start with and we were able to work through that. And so we have a list of specific clients that are actively in communication about this process and we're in good shape on that front. And yes, I mean -- so we started with a number of about 60 or 70, reduced that to around 30 and then have highlighted a group of customers that we believe will be the best as the very initial beta group.

我們擁有一個消息靈通的客戶群，我們能夠針對特定的中端市場客戶，我們認為這些客戶是各種各樣的，並且是我們開始時最好的客戶，我們能夠解決這個問題。因此，我們有一份特定客戶名單，他們正在積極就這項流程進行溝通，而且我們在這方面處於良好狀態。是的，我的意思是 - 所以我們從大約 60 或 70 人開始，減少到 30 人左右，然後突出顯示了我們認為將是最好的初始測試組的一組客戶。

Great. Thank you.

偉大的。謝謝。

Thank you very much. While we appear to have reached the end of our question-and-answer session, I will now turn the call back over to Mr. Sarvadi for closing remarks.

非常感謝。雖然我們的問答環節似乎已經結束，但我現在將把電話轉回給薩爾瓦迪先生做總結發言。

Well, thank you again to all of you [Technical Difficulty] with us today. And once again, I just want to say a final thank you last call with our CFO, Doug Sharp with us, and once again, really thankful for a great job done all these years and hoping for all the best for you, Doug, going forward. And Jim looking forward to getting on the road together and getting the chance to meet a lot of great people out there that are our investors in the business. So thank you, once again, everybody, for being here and we look forward to seeing you out on the growth.

嗯，再次感謝今天和我們一起【技術難度】的大家。我想再次對您最後一次與我們的財務長道格夏普(Doug Sharp) 的通話表示最後的感謝，再次感謝您這些年來所做的出色工作，並希望您一切順利，道格(Doug Sharp )，向前。吉姆期待著一起上路，並有機會見到很多優秀的人，他們是我們這個行業的投資者。再次感謝大家來到這裡，我們期待看到你們的成長。

Thank you very much. This does conclude today's conference. You may disconnect your phone lines at this time, and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.

非常感謝。今天的會議到此結束。此時您可以斷開電話線，度過美好的一天。感謝您的參與。