Paul Sarvadi
Analyst · First Analysis. Your line is open
Thank you, Doug. Today, my comments will cover three primary topics. First, I will provide some detail regarding how Hurricane Harvey affected Insperity, and our response to the devastation caused by the storm. Secondly, I will discuss the key drivers to our continuing excellent financial performance in Q3 and year-to-date. Lastly, I will discuss our outlook for the fall campaign selling and retention season and our first impression of how 2018 is shaping up. Our strong financial performance continued in Q3 as a result of sustained double-digit unit growth, strong pricing and management of direct costs, and ongoing operational excellence. This was in spite of the considerable disruption caused by the unprecedented hurricane in Houston, the home of our corporate headquarters. Harvey hit Houston and the surrounding area in a manner that was epic in a number of ways. The storm lingered on for nearly a week and poured rain across a 150-mile radius with rainfall totals equal to expectations for an entire year. This event required considerable attention for several weeks, beginning around August 21st the week before the storm hit, then intensified considerably during the week of and the week immediately following the storm. This disruption has waned since but continues even to some degree now, as recovery and rebuilding efforts are still a work in progress. Insperity has a disaster recovery plan and team that performed incredibly well when this real calamity hit. No plan can anticipate the exact circumstances of a disaster but an effective plan includes the agility to respond to whatever does occur. In the week leading up to the storm, our team accelerated all the possible service requirements to reduce potential workloads during the event and communicated emergency plans appropriately, both internally and externally. The first priority once a disaster actually strikes, is the safety and welfare of people including our own corporate employees, our clients, and worksite employees, and their families. Since we are the HR department for our clients, we are the repository for emergency contact information and a facilitator in meeting the immediate need of ensuring everyone’s safety. This was an ongoing process for many days as widespread flooding occurred due to continual rain and necessary opening of dams and reservoirs. We have over 1,400 of our 2,750 corporate employees and over 1,200 clients with nearly 20,000 worksite employees in the affected areas, so just the effort to meet this top priority was substantial. I am going to spare you the details about the stages of the disaster and the agility of our response, and focus on three bottom line outcomes from the experience. First, we are not aware of a single service request from across our entire client base that went unfulfilled during the entirety of this event. This is truly amazing considering the scale and duration of this storm and I must give credit to our amazing corporate employees and our disaster recovery team. Secondly, the demonstration of the Insperity corporate culture including the professionalism to meet commitments, the caring for clients and employees, and the support of our community at large was on full display throughout this event. This special culture that overcomes challenges to meet business and financial goals performed with flying colors when it really counted and people’s lives were at stake. The third outcome from the storm was the temporary and limited disruption to worksite employee growth as we dealt with the necessary distraction of the disaster for nearly a month of the third quarter. All three drivers to paid worksite employee growth, paid from sales in the cue, retention, and net change in employment at client locations were below expectations in September resulting in unit growth slightly below our expected range for the quarter. In spite of the interruption, we continued double-digit growth in worksite employees driven by the growth of the number of business performance advisors, maintaining sales efficiency, and solid retention. Year-to-date, we are slightly ahead of sales forecast at 101%, although we were slightly below forecast at 92% in Q3. In the quarter, we achieved a 14% increase in total hired BPAs and a 12% increase in average trained BPAs while maintaining the same level of sales efficiency over the third quarter of last year. This demonstrates our capability to recruit and train BPAs and support them with effective marketing efforts. Corporate leads, social media followers and unique visitors to insperity.com are all up more than 30% year-to-date and for Q3. Our marketing programs including digital, channels, and customer loyalty programs are all performing well contributing 56% of sold worksite employees, year-to-date. Retention of accounts continued at a very high level of 99%, however included the termination of one of our largest accounts due to an acquisition, which we discussed last quarter. We are continuing to see very high client satisfaction levels and strong demand for our services driving these results. So, our primary drivers to unit growth remain strong. However, we also saw a dynamic in the hiring within our client base this quarter worth noting. The third growth driver, -- this third growth driver largely out of our control, is the net gain or loss from clients hiring and terminating employees. This metric has continued to run below expectations, and in fact, was negative two out of the three months of the quarter and four out of nine months for the year. This is in contrast to what our historical employment growth indicators would predict. Overtime as a percentage of base pay was 11% and commissions paid to the sales staff of our clients was nearly 7% in Q3. This combination along with positive sentiment from business owners about the economy typically coincides with robust hiring. We have seen an increase in job openings but filling the jobs has been more difficult of late. The labor market has shifted from employers selecting from among a number of qualified candidates to candidates selecting from among multiple employer offers. This is consistent with data and anecdotal information from our recruiting division regarding the difficulty finding qualified candidates, the length of time to fill positions, and candidates indicating they have multiple opportunities. So, the big picture on growth year-to-date is we continue to drive double-digit growth throughout the year in spite of weaker than expected net gains in the client base, the loss of one of our largest clients, and the interruption of Hurricane Harvey. In spite of the slight volume variance experienced in the quarter and year-to-date, two underlying trends in other aspects of the business have allowed us to outperform at the bottom line. Our pricing strength and management of direct costs has combined with our operating leverage more than offsetting slightly lower unit growth. Now, at this point of the year, it is critical to have momentum in our fall selling and retention efforts in order to have a successful year-end transition in new and renewing accounts. This is important to achieve a starting point in paid worksite employees in January to continue our strong multiyear trends in our financial performance. The most important metrics to focus on at this point in the campaign are midmarket sales and retention, and the pipeline of business profiles for new core sales. We look at midmarket sales in the pipeline and midmarket termination notices scheduled for January to see if we are on target for our baseline objective of offsetting terminations with new sales in this segment. At this point, we appear to be in good shape on this front with midmarket sales scheduled for January payroll running ahead of terminations. This can certainly change over the quarter but so far so good. In the core market, the number of business profiles has ramped up at an unprecedented pace providing confidence in achieving our targeted sales goals for the fall. We have to execute effectively in closing and enrolling accounts, but it is always comforting at this point to see such a full pipeline. It is too early to get a measure on retention in the core market but we are encouraged due to stable pricing on our direct costs including benefits and minimal plan design changes for the benefit plan year ahead. This combination historically supports high retention at year-end. We also have the added advantage this year of the introduction of Insperity Premier, which we announced this quarter. This unique co-employment HCM platform has been very well received, and we are on track with the rollout of this upgrade. Over one-third of our cloud-based activity is already occurring on the new platform and we expect to reach our target of completing this upgrade across the customer base by year-end. Therefore, we have a relatively high level of confidence of a successful fall selling and retention campaign and year-end transition ahead. Our confidence is also bolstered by the past three years in a row where our execution through this period each year has allowed us to start a New Year at double-digit growth rates. This quarter, we will be completing our detailed budget for 2018, so we will not provide specific guidance until next quarter. However, we can provide some high level information to frame next year. First, we are ahead in total hired Business Performance Advisors exceeding our target of 475, which was our goal for year-end. This is the most important key metric for driving consistent predictable growth into the future. Therefore, we expect to continue double-digit growth in worksite employees next year, with the range of that growth dependent on the starting point, which we will know in January. Our outlook for profitability is also favorable with positive trends in pricing and direct costs including the full year benefit of certification under the Small Business Efficiency Act. We would expect for some level of operating leverage to continue offset by some investments in BPA growth, office expansion, marketing and technology investments. We will determine this in the budgeting process this quarter. So, when you put these pieces together, we would expect adjusted EBITDA growth slightly above unit and gross profit growth rates. As usual, we will be conservative early in the year and work a plan to control risk and costs throughout the year to build that spread, similar to the last few years. In summary, we have had an excellent year so far and we are all systems go for a strong finish to 2017. We are in a position for a successful fall selling and retention campaign, which we believe, will set us up for continuing our outstanding financial performance and superior returns to shareholders next year. At this time, I would like to pass the call back to Doug.