Good afternoon. My name is Jerome, and I'll be your conference operator today. I would like to welcome everyone to the Insperity Second Quarter 2020 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; and Douglas Sharp, Senior Vice President of Finance, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Mr. Douglas Sharp. Mr. Sharp, please go ahead.

Thank you. We appreciate you joining us. Let me begin by outlining our plan for this evening's call. First, I'm going to discuss the details behind our second quarter 2020 financial results, which were strong considering the current economic environment brought upon by the pandemic. Paul will then comment on the key drivers behind our Q2 results and our outlook for the remainder of the year. I will return to provide our financial guidance for the third quarter and an update to the full year 2020 guidance. We will then end the call with a question-and-answer session. 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. Now let's discuss our second quarter results in which we achieved $1.54 in adjusted EPS, an 86% increase over Q2 of 2019; and adjusted EBITDA of $92 million, an increase of 62%. Average paid worksite employees declined by just 1.8% from Q2 of 2019 compared to our forecast of a 1% to 5% decline that took into account the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our clients and prospects. All 3 drivers, including worksite employees paid from new sales, client retention and net losses in our client base from layoffs and hiring, were better than expected. Worksite employees paid from new client sales were approximately 20% above forecasted levels driven by a 15% increase in trained…

Thank you, Doug, and thank you all for joining us. Today, I'll begin with a discussion of our efforts over the recent quarter to support our small and medium-sized business clients throughout the historic disruption arising from the pandemic. Secondly, I'll cover our view of the dynamics driving our expectations over the balance of the year for growth and profitability. And I'll finish my remarks with some thoughts about the long-term effect on demand for Insperity services, which represents a silver lining in the cloud of COVID-19. This quarter was an eye-opener in many ways, including highlighting the absolute necessity and the tangible value of a sophisticated HR function for small to medium-sized businesses. The unexpected events that played out over the course of the quarter cast a spotlight on the HR department, which, of course, is what Insperity is to our clients. The sequence of events beginning with the health crisis evolved into economic disruption and the transformation to working from home, followed by the emotionally charged dynamic of prolonged stay-at-home orders and political and social unrest. When you add in federal, state and local legislative and regulatory responses with new obligations and opportunities for businesses, you have a monumental challenge and opportunity for an HR services provider to demonstrate value to clients. Insperity Workforce Optimization has long been the most comprehensive business service offered in the marketplace, and our competitive distinction is the breadth and the depth of our services and the level of care of our service providers. Our clients were relying on us to help them work through decisions that directly affected the livelihood of their businesses, employees and families. Our service teams continue to serve our clients and worksite employees with genuine care and excellence in an unprecedented time of need and constant change. In…

Thanks, Paul. Now let me provide our guidance for the third quarter and an update to the full year 2020. With the first half of the year behind us, we have more visibility as to the impact of the pandemic on our business and have seen signs of gradual improvement as businesses have started to reopen and employees have gradually returned to work. However, a high level of uncertainty associated with the pandemic, its impact on the economy and any further government stimulus packages continues to exist. The current political environment and upcoming election adds another element of uncertainty. Our guidance intends to take this into account and continues to reflect a wider range of possibilities than that provided in the past. Based upon the details that Paul just shared on our expected worksite employee levels, we are now forecasting a 1% to 3% decrease in the average number of paid worksite employees for the full year 2020. This is a substantial improvement over our previous guidance of a 1% to 6% decrease and reflects the more favorable starting point for the second half of the year. The low end of this guidance assumes a persistent level of pandemic cases, continued economic disruption and ultimately, a recurrence of layoffs in our client base, exceeding both new hires and furloughed employees returning to work. The high end of our paid worksite employee guidance assumes a gradual improvement in conditions associated with the pandemic and its impact on the economy and, therefore, a nominal level of growth in our client base through both furloughed employees returning to work and general hiring. For the full year 2020, we are raising our earnings guidance and now forecasting adjusted EBITDA of $235 million to $255 million, ranging from a decrease of 6% to an increase…

[Operator Instructions]. Your first question comes from the line of Tobey Sommer from SunTrust.

Paul, I'm interested in your perspective on the -- how this sort of recession and pandemic have played out with respect to you being able to kind of pull the playbook that you had thought you would implement in the next recession and sort of what you've done to deal with the situation currently. It looks like the BPAs are up substantially. That's something you had hinted that, but how about the cost structure and other things like that?

Yes. Thanks, Tobey. We have kept an eye on that as we've gone through this. This was more an abrupt change in reduction layoffs that you would typically find from a normal recession. But this also came with a more significant need for immediate HR support. So we have kept our corporate staff even with where we were at the time even though there was the 6% reduction in the worksite employee base because the workload, the volume has been really incredible. We've really been able to help our customers in amazing ways, but our people obviously have been really putting out a tremendous amount of extra effort. We also think that as we see how we bounced back about 40% from that bottom already and have the organization in place to grow in the very near future, even though there are some gives and takes about this next quarter or two, we think we're positioned very well for a substantial rebound in regaining our growth momentum earlier than you normally would if we didn't have this ongoing investment in our BPA team. And we're also going to look at really invigorating our marketing effort in the fall to kind of double down on that strategy. So we have followed our game plan, I think, pretty much. The thing that was a little bit different was such an increase in demand for the services because of the nature of the events that occurred.

That makes sense. If I could pull back the aperture and look a little longer term with my follow-up, what does this do to you thinking -- your thinking about this year's fall campaign and whether you can try to slingshot the growth as early as next year? And thinking about you and the industry provided a lot of value to sort of your customers as a category, does this change the way you think about the addressable market or the rate of growth over some sort of maybe 5-year period for the company?

Yes. It really does. It makes me really excited about the opportunity to use real-world, tangible examples that came out of this situation in conversations and in advertising and marketing and in telling the story to prospects in the marketplace. And I also think that businesses in general, the ones that didn't have us or were not using a service like us, they felt a deep need and it hurt. It was painful. And so I think as we become effective at telling the story and translating what occurred into the marketing message, into the sales motion, if you will, and the dialogue and even getting current clients speaking with prospective clients and whether that happens by video or referrals or whatever, I really think this is -- we'll turn and we'll look back and say, wow, we had a nice surge of demand and hopefully a better ability to convey the message and the value, which in our world is very important. It supports not only the rate of growth, but our pricing and our service model is all tied together in that value equation. So very excited about that as we see this immediate situation kind of get into the rearview mirror.

Your next question comes from the line of Jeff Martin from ROTH Capital.

Can you hear me okay?

Yes, we can.

Okay. Great. I was wondering if you could kind of walk us through the cadence throughout the quarter in terms of monthly change. Obviously, April was the bottom, but you alluded to briefly May somewhat. But in terms of June and July, what have you experienced in terms of sales efficiency as well as head count within the client base?

Yes. So what I tried to lay out in my remarks there, Jeff, was that we -- from where we were in March, we had a 6% reduction in paid worksite employees by the end of May, and about 40% of that number has recovered in paid worksite employees since that time. So we're not quite halfway back from that low point to the March number, but we're well on our way and we'll be heading that direction. Now as far as new sales, in the virtual selling environment, we took a look at our original budget. And based on what we thought we could do in the early stages of virtual selling, we decided that over the last 3/4 of the year, if we could end up somewhere between 60% and 80% -- and frankly, I was thinking closer to 60% in the second quarter and closer to the high end in the latter part of the year, but we ended up at over 70% for the second quarter. And we feel confident we can continue to do that. So we're in a good place to perform really, really well, I think, in the current environment for what we're facing.

Okay. And then in terms of the middle market, is that an increasingly attractive area to focus given the recessionary environment we're in? And if so, what strategically are you doing to shift more to the middle market?

Yes. We actually had -- even in the core markets, shifting to the larger customers was part of the strategy throughout the -- since the pandemic hit. But our mid-market has performed very steady through this whole period, keeping in mind that those discussions take a longer period anyway. So we had a good pipeline for that, but that pipeline has continued and we feel really good about where we are this year. And we didn't have the same kind of negative interruption in that space just because the sales cycle is longer anyway. And you normally do have some interruptions in that process as you go through mid-market sales. So in any event, it's been more even for us through this period, and pipeline still looks good and everybody is doing the right thing. So we feel good about our mid-market segment going forward.

Your next question comes from the line of Mark Marcon from Baird.

With regards to just what you're seeing from a geographic perspective, are any of the flows that you're seeing in terms of worksite employees or engagement in terms of new business tied with the various geographic surges of the virus? In other words, did you see stronger performances in June and July out of the Northeast relative to, say, Texas and California? Or any sort of correlation from that perspective.

Yes. I mean I think if we look at -- particularly if you look at those layoffs and return to work as it relates to the furloughed employees by region, it would be what you would expect. The layoffs were more concentrated in the West. I would say that's probably the highest, and a little bit less than that in the Northeast. The other regions would probably be, layoffs as a percentage of total layoffs, less than their proportionate share of worksite -- total worksite employees but -- so again, what you would expect on the layoff side. But that again, the same is holding true on the return-to-work side. And so more of the return to works are coming from those particular regions also. So I think overall, Mark, it would be what you would expect by region.

Okay. Great. And then with regards to the health care cost, how much of the year-over-year improvement in terms of GP for WSE came from health care costs? Or how much were the health care benefits down on a year-over-year basis?

I think you could say, if you look at the gross profit, as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, sort of the outperformance in that area was due to both the benefit cost and the workers' comp and the -- more of the share of that did come from the health care cost and the workers' comp.

And how are you thinking about that philosophically for the balance of this year and thinking about next year in terms of pricing, do you think that the majority of what was deferred during the second quarter is going to come through in the back half of this year? Is that part of the plan? Or are you assuming that 80% or 60% of what was deferred comes back?

Yes. I think the best way to look at that is if you look where we were a quarter ago, we had appropriately forecasted lower costs in the second quarter and having that -- the bulk of that cost come through in Q3 and Q4, and what actually occurred was the lower cost was even lower than originally expected. But we still expect that same pattern where a lot of those costs come back through over the back half of the year. So that's how the model is working to this year differently than other years. But I think if you back away from the big picture, maybe the best way to look at it is that instead of a 3% total trend of all benefit costs that we were looking at for the full year, there -- due to the fact that there were services that were not rendered in the second quarter, people didn't go in for the things that were deferred, elective surgeries and other types of care, it probably took a couple percent out of trend for the year. But what's important for us is to be managing price and cost in the bigger picture over the longer term. And we are in very, very good shape that we've continued to manage pricing well and, as I mentioned in my dialogue, not experiencing pressure in that area. So we feel very strong that we have a very nice match in price and cost on these direct cost items. And that's why we are going to have a better year than originally expected in the gross profit area and are in good shape for the longer term.

Great. And Paul, I really appreciate those comments. How does that make you think about next year if -- let's say that instead of having the 3% increase over the course of the year, we're looking at a 1% increase, but then next year, there's probably still some more that was deferred that's still going to be in catch-up mode. How does that influence your perspective as it relates to pricing for next year?

Yes, that's exactly what we always have to keep an eye on and be working. Remember, we really look at this on a rolling 12-month type basis internally. So we're constantly monitoring where both sides of the equation are going, the pricing, which, of course, includes the plan selection and plan design and so many factors that go into what our ultimate pricing is, client selection, employee selection, new accounts coming on, which businesses you renew. There's a lot of factors going on there to where -- that we manage to make sure our pricing is continuing to match maybe not a short-term trend that's been impacted by the pandemic, but the longer-term picture and where things are going for the longer term. So we'll be watching that as we go month-to-month and making sure that we have price and cost matched as we go.

And then can you talk a little bit about some of the internal dynamics that you see within your client base? Specifically, you can see what their sales commissions are like, how they're performing relative to plan. How would you say the health is today relative to -- I know that you -- obviously, the trends bottomed in March and April and May and have been coming back. But do you see -- are there any concerns with regards to, "Hey, there's a few companies that have been hanging on that might pull back now?"

So it's been interesting to watch. We have factored in a little bit higher client terminations coming from maybe some financial struggles and business fails. We haven't seen a lot of that, just a hair. So I think it's -- that's been, I'd say, a surprise to the upside. The other metrics that we follow that have been interesting to watch, if you look at the average pay for the same employees 1 year ago to this quarter, that number, which had been going up in the 3% range in a normal quarter, was down about 1%. So that, you could actually see reflected in our numbers that some of our customers had to make pay rate changes and operating-plan-type changes that affect pay rates. So that was reflected, although it was pretty nominal when you look at the overall picture. Obviously, a smaller group of clients -- that wasn't across the board. That was across the board number, but a smaller group of clients had deeper cuts. Also, what was interesting was that the commissions did go down. The commissions were really running at a hot level for quite a long time and came down but still came down only to a level of about 6% average increase in commissions over last year, which I thought was a particularly strong number in this environment. Not sure what to think about that other than it was good to see, and we'll be watching that closely. The other number that was interesting was overtime, as a percent of base pay, which had been running well over 10% as the economy was booming along, dropped down to about 7.5% or so. And so that does reflect capacity, the need dropping, the demand dropping and the need for overtime dropping substantially. So we can see the effects going on, but I have to say that our small and midsize business customers, man, they're resilient. They're innovative and they are fighters, and it's part of what makes it really fun to help them because they're going to find a way, and most of the time, they do.

That's great to hear. Can you talk a little bit more about the marketing message? Because I mean, it's clear that you really came through for your clients during this period and there was a lot of utilization. So how much more are we going to spend? And what sort of return do you think we're going to see? And how quickly do you think that's going to take shape?

Yes. We're going to spend enough to do a good, thorough test of the messaging. We're not going crazy, spending like a ton of money until you test it. We just are going to put more money there and test some messaging. And there were some really emotional things that happened through this period, where we could see how much our clients care about their people, trying to keep them employed and keep them paid and keep -- it was just really interesting to watch. And so I would love to talk to you about the marketing message more, but my marketing guys would really be upset if I did that. And so it's kind of in that category, "if I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you afterwards."

There are no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the call over back to Mr. Sarvadi. Please continue.

All right. Well, once again, thank you all for participating in our call and for your interest, and we look forward to seeing how things pan out over the next quarter and look forward to either having calls with people, Zoom calls, whatever the new mode of interaction is, with investors over this period. So thanks again for your participation.

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect. Thank you.