Paycom Software, Inc.

Good afternoon. My name is Terry and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to Paycom's first quarter 2024 financial results conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star followed by two. Thank you. I will now turn the call over to James Sanford, Head of Investor Relations. You may now begin.

Thank you and welcome to PACOM's earnings conference call for the first quarter of 2024. Certain statements made on this call that are not historical facts, including those related to our future plans, objectives, and expected performance, are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements represent our outlook only as of the date of this conference call. While we believe any forward-looking statements made on this call are reasonable, actual results may differ materially because the statements are based on our current expectations and subject to risks and uncertainties. These risks and uncertainties are discussed in our filings with the SEC, including our most recent annual report on Form 10-K. You should refer to and consider these factors when relying on such forward-looking information. Any forward-looking statement made speaks only as of the date on which it is made, and we do not undertake and expressly disclaim any obligation to update or alter our forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by applicable law. Also during today's call, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted EBITDA, non-GAAP net income, and certain adjusted expenses. We use these non-GAAP financial measures to review and assess our performance and for planning purposes. A reconciliation schedule showing GAAP versus non-GAAP results is included in the press release that we issued after the close of the market today and is available on our website at investors.paycom.com. And I'll turn the call over to Chad Richardson, Paycom's co-CEO and president. Chad?

Thanks James, and thank you to everyone joining our call today. I'll kick off the call with a few highlights from the quarter, and then I'll turn it over to Chris to discuss client trends and recent awards. Craig will then review our financials and our guidance before taking questions. Our product vision centers around eliminating redundant HR work, eliminating cost, and allowing users to recoup valuable time in their day to add value to the organizations. In addition to our single database, which simplifies the client experience and reduces integration costs, another key PACOM differentiator is that employees input and validate their data directly into our HCM solution. With PACOM, employees do their own payroll, fixing errors before they become problems. On our last call, we highlighted three key focus areas in 2024, solution automation, client ROI achievement, and world-class service. Led by Betty, our solution automation initiatives continue to generate tremendous opportunities for our clients. We released more product enhancements in the first quarter than in the previous two quarters combined. We are leveraging AI and decisioning logic across our solution, adding more value and eliminating mundane non-revenue generating activities for our clients. A recent new client told us that prior to implementing Betty, it would take over two days to process payroll. With Betty, they complete the process in only 90 minutes. We've also automated time off decisioning, allowing managers across the country to focus on value added activities. With GON, our time off product leverages decision logic to automatically approve, deny, or warehouse time off requests by employees. This is a better experience for employees and delivers both time savings and efficiencies for workforce management and scheduling. On the client ROI achievement front, our success with Betty results in increased client ROI and is resonating with more and more businesses in the marketplace. Our clients already receive industry-leading ROI, and we are focused on accelerating our product roadmap to drive even more value. Now with Betty, clients regularly tell us that their company runs much smoother when their employees do their own payroll. And I know this sentiment is shared across the client base of Betty users. We are changing the way payroll is done and our clients are telling us we're right. On the world-class service front, we are meeting clients where they live to help identify and close any gaps they might be seeing between their respective total available ROI and where they stand today. We are strengthening our client relationships with service and value achievement, and I want to thank our employees for their incredible efforts on this front. It is working. Our go-to-market strategy continues to emphasize the differentiated nature of our offering and the significant benefits of doing your own payroll with Paycom. We are getting more leads thanks to Betty, and we are seeing solid demand for our solutions. At our recent sales incentive trip, we recognized our first sales rep to sell over $4 million in annual new business. It wasn't that long ago that we celebrated the first sales rep to sell $1 million in annual new business. We believe our unique value proposition separates us from the other disparate offerings in the market that require complex integrations and manual entry activities. We continue to make meaningful progress on the international front as we build on the momentum we achieved in 2023 and early 2024 when we released our global HCM product and announced the launch of Native Payroll in Canada, Mexico, and the United Kingdom. Today, we are pleased to announce that we have developed and are launching our Native Payroll solution in Ireland. In less than a year since we announced our international journey, We are already seeing US-based companies with an international presence look to Paycom as a global provider. While still early, I'm pleased to see that all the work on our international strategy is paying off. In fact, we recently won a large international sports organization thanks to our multi-country payroll and HCM offering. This client will process payroll with Betty in multiple countries. And this win represents another proof point for our international strategy. While this is a great win for PACOM, I want to be sure to note that we remain highly focused on our U.S. growth as we still have only an estimated 5% of the total addressable market. To sum up, I'm pleased with the progress we are making on our strategic initiatives, and I look forward to building on the momentum we are seeing. With that, let me turn the call over to Chris.

Thanks, Chad. Our service and client relations groups continue to work very closely together to drive value for our clients. Usage of our system continues to increase as more employees interact directly with their data. Our average DDX score continues to rise and is above 95% across our client base today. Our innovative technology and our client ROI achievement strategy are key drivers of satisfaction. and bolster our world-class service model. In fact, we were very pleased to receive several awards that highlight the strength of our relationship with our clients. Most recently, we were recognized as a 2024 winner of the Excellence in Customer Service Award by Business Intelligence Group. It's gratifying to receive recognition from an organization for our hard work and dedicated focus on our clients. This award highlights businesses who are redefining service standards in their industry. This achievement showcases our ability to further drive client ROI while making a positive impact across our client base. We were also named one of the most trustworthy companies in America by Newsweek for the third consecutive year. These awards are testament to our service model. I'm pleased to see that our relationships with our clients continue to get even stronger. Finally, we earned the Gallup Exceptional Workplace Award for the second consecutive year, and we're grateful to be recognized among global leaders in workplace culture. With that, I'll turn the call over to Craig for a review of our financials and guidance. Craig?

Thanks, Chris. Before I review our first quarter 2024 results and our outlook for the second quarter and full year 2024, I would like to remind everyone that my comments related to certain financial measures will be on a non-GAAP basis. First quarter revenue of 500 million was up 11% over the comparable prior year period. Within total revenues, recurring revenue was 492 million for the first quarter of 2024, representing 98% of total revenues for the quarter and growing 11% from the comparable prior year period. We delivered strong net income and adjusted EBITDA in the first quarter of 2024 with gap net income of 247 million or $4.37 per diluted share based on approximately 57 million shares. Included in our GAAP results is a one-time non-cash stock compensation benefit of 118 million related to the forfeiture of the 2020 CEO Performance Award. Non-GAAP net income for the first quarter was 147 million, or $2.59 per diluted share. First quarter adjusted EBITDA of nearly 230 million was better than expected, primarily due to higher revenue and expense discipline and represented a margin of 45.9% for the quarter. During the first quarter, we paid over 21 million in cash dividends. And earlier this week, the board approved our next quarterly dividend of 37 and a half cents per share payable in mid June. We still have approximately $796 million remaining under our buyback authorization as of March 31st, 2024. Adjusted R&D expense was 45 million in the first quarter of 2024, or 9% of total revenues. Adjusted total R&D costs, including the capitalized portion, were 71 million in the first quarter of 2024, compared to 55 million in the prior year period. We continue to invest in our long-term future growth in areas of automation, AI, and international. Our tax rate for the first quarter of 2024 was 15% on a GAAP basis, reflecting the benefit of the forfeiture of the 2020 CEO Performance Award during the quarter. For Q2 and the full year 2024, we anticipate our effective income tax rates to be approximately 33% and 22%, respectively on a GAAP basis. We estimate Q2 and full year 2024 non-GAAP effective tax rate to be 25%. Quarterly fluctuations in our effective tax rates are generally due to the timing of stock compensation vesting and related tax effects. For the remainder of 2024, we expect stock-based compensation expense to be approximately $33 million per quarter. Turning to the balance sheet, we ended the first quarter with a very strong balance sheet including cash and cash equivalents of $371 million and no debt. The average daily balance of funds held on behalf of clients was approximately $2.6 billion in the first quarter of 2024, up 8% year over year. On the capital expenditure front, our fifth building in Oklahoma City is substantially complete and will be placed into service in the second quarter. While we continue to estimate total CapEx as a percent of revenues to be approximately 12% in 2024, we also expect that percentage to decline beginning in 2025. Now let me turn to guidance. For fiscal 2024, We are maintaining our revenue and adjusted EBITDA guidance ranges with revenue expected to be in the range of $1,860,000,000 to $1,885,000,000 or approximately 11% year-over-year growth at the midpoint of the range. We expect adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of $720,000,000 to $730,000,000 representing an adjusted EBITDA margin of approximately 39% at the midpoint of the range. We remain on track with the full year plan we put in place at the beginning of the year and are beginning to see positive responses from our strategic initiatives. For the second quarter of 2024, we expect total revenues in the range of $434 million to $438 million, representing a growth rate over the comparable prior year period of approximately 9% at the midpoint of the range. We expect adjusted EBITDA for the second quarter in the range of $151 million to $155 million, representing an adjusted EBITDA margin of approximately 35% at the midpoint of the range. We continue to focus our efforts on executing on our plan and building momentum. We have a differentiated product, an industry-leading value proposition, and a solid foundation to build upon. With that, we will open the line for questions. Operator?

Thank you. At this time, I would like to remind everyone, in order to ask a question, please press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. In the interest of time, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. We'll pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Remo Lenschao of Barclays. Please go ahead, your line is open.

Perfect. Thank you. Two quick questions. One for you, or for the two of you, Chad and Chris. If you think about the strategic initiatives that you're kind of talking about, can you frame them in the, you know, how does it compare to what, first of all, what are you doing there? Maybe you could be more specific. And then also, how does it compare to or kind of relate to what you see in the market in terms of, you know, end demand, you know, headwinds from less new hiring, et cetera. Just frame it a little bit like, you know, what's going on in the market versus what's going on at you. And then my follow-on question is for Craig. Can you speak to the benefits or extra benefits you might see from less rate cuts this year? Is that kind of helping you or how does it play into the model? Thank you.

Sure. So I'll take the first one, Raimo. And so our client value achievement strategy, or as you called it, the strategic initiatives, that we're working throughout the year, you know, really have to do with meeting clients where they live and making sure that they're achieving the full value of ROI that's available to them through the appropriate usage of our software. And so we've been focused on that. We did call that out in October 31st, actually, when we reported, we did call out that we're going to be really focused on that. All of those initiatives are in efforts to continue to drive improvements in retention. and, again, be able to set clients up to achieve full value because we do have additional products for many of these clients that can really help them out once they're utilizing the product correctly that we've already implemented. And I'm going to say that's in regards to our current client base. From a new client base perspective, you know, we're focused on our sales initiatives, and those have been, you know, unchanged as we've moved throughout the year as far as what our focus is there.

Sure, and Ryan, on the rate cuts, I mean, obviously, you know, that changes every day as to how many there might be, but it seems like there may be less than we had originally thought. So, you know, I mean, that is a benefit towards the end of the year, but the one thing we're also looking at is do we try to extend the duration of some of those funds, and, you know, when you do that, you're trading off some of those higher rates. You know, effectively, you're taking two or three rate cuts if you do that. That's kind of what we're looking at strategically with those funds.

Thank you. Your next question comes from Samad Samana from Jefferies. Your line is now open.

Hi, this is Mason Marion on for Samad. Thanks for taking our questions. So looking at your guidance, can you kind of elaborate on what you're seeing from a churn new bookings perspective and the assumptions that you have for those in your guidance?

Well, you sound exactly like Samad. So churn, new bookings, POV assumption. What is the, I'm trying to think, can you maybe rephrase, can you say that question again?

I'm just trying to better understand what you're factoring into your 2Q assumptions and maybe for the back half year around what you're seeing from a new bookings perspective and from a churn perspective.

Yeah, stability. I mean, from a new bookings perspective, you know, we are seeing improvement in that. You know, retention is something that we call out at the end of the year, but all of our initiatives that we're working through our client value achievement are set to have an impact on that. And, you know, we feel good about how that's working.

Great. Thank you.

Your next question comes from Mark Marson of Baird. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. Chad, I was wondering if you could talk just a little bit about what, you know, what you're seeing in terms of variance in terms of sales performance across the various offices. You did mention that you've got one quota carrier that achieved over 4 million, and so that obviously seems very strong. But on the other hand, you know, we've had a little bit of a deceleration with regards to the revenue growth rate. And so I'm just wondering, you know, when you talk to your sales leaders and you obviously made some changes there, what are they seeing out in the market? How much more difficult is it to get, you know, new sales? There have been some investors that have been asking about, you know, saturation in the mid-market. And I'm wondering, you know, what your perspective is with regards to that.

Yeah. And so I guess first I would say, I mean, our best offices are going to have the best managers regardless of geography. And I think there for a couple of years, Tulsa was number one and it's a city of 400,000 people. You know, we've been in that city for 22, 23 years. So Your best office is going to have your best manager from a saturation perspective that's No, there's no such thing as saturation in the mid market. I mean, you've had the same players for a long period of time. You know, we're all very competitive in the market. We have about 5% of the total addressable market available to us. And so now I wouldn't say it's from a saturation perspective, it comes from a appropriate management, appropriate training, and appropriate leadership. And as we've gone through the year, we've gotten better and better and can call out that we are having accelerated sales if you look at the last two months of this year versus the first two months of this year from a bookings perspective. And that's not to say that the first two months were bad. It's just to say that we are getting better and better at how we move product.

That's great. And can you talk a little bit about what you're doing with regards to the internal sales group that typically does the up sales? How are you structuring, you know, commissions? You know, is there still a mandate that, you know, new clients have to have Betty? And where do you stand with the Betty penetration within the existing client base?

Yeah, so there's no change with what the CRR groups have been doing. They've been making significant impacts for us in the client value achievement strategy. Again, meeting clients where they are today, making sure they're receiving full value of using the system that they've already purchased, you know, before we move forward selling them additional products. They've done a good job with that. There's no change as far as what their focus is from that, but, you know, We are seeing the positive impacts from that.

Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Brian Schwartz of Oppenheimer. Your line is now open.

Hey, good afternoon. This is Camden Levy sitting in for Brian Schwartz. Thank you for taking my question. My question is around sales capacity. How do you guys feel about the quota carrying, like, sales capacity of the business? And are there any plans to increase the number of sales offices in the second half of this year or early 2025? And then just additionally, thinking about just the pipeline momentum, is there anything you guys can provide qualitatively about how the pipeline is building in 2024? I know you guys have mentioned stability, but any other commentary regarding how that's building? Thank you.

Yeah, first around sales capacity. Our sales capacity numbers, again, have gotten a lot more improved, I would say, over the last two or three months from that perspective. It'd be too early to say exactly when we would be opening up additional offices because, as you know, we take a current manager that's successful, relocate them to a new territory to open up an office, and then we backfill them with salespeople who are ready to be sales managers. And so you know, how quick we're able to open up additional offices is really dependent upon that backfill bench and how we are doing there. And so, you know, we've continued to have success building that out, but also key for us is we have 55 sales teams right now, and it's making sure that all of those are performing at top levels. And that's a focus that we've had going throughout 2024. Commentary on pipeline, pipelines are very strong. Okay, awesome. Thank you so much.

I appreciate it.

Your next question comes from the line of Joshua Riley of NEDM. Your line is now open.

Yeah, thanks for taking my questions here. Can you give us a sense, how is the pre-employment services revenue trending for the year relative to your maybe expectations leading into the year and remind us how correlated is that revenue stream to job switching versus any other factors that we should be considering there?

Our unemployment services are stable is the way I would categorize that. They've been stable. They're somewhat going to be a reflection of the new clients that you bring on as well as the current client trends. Yes, I mean, I would say that increased if you if you do. I'm not saying we're seeing this. I'm just saying if a company did have increased turnover, then you know they would have Especially if they're set up for new hire background checks and you know they're going to have more of those obviously We don't have any of that call out from an, you know, additional employees leaving clients and going to others, any more so than what it's been in the past. Again, there was a period of time there in COVID where it seemed that, you know, it was happening maybe a little bit more than what you would see in times like today. But, you know, we don't have anything to call out significant to that product.

Got it. And then just a quick follow-up. The revenue guidance implies a little more of maybe a second half reacceleration in growth than what we were previously expecting. Can you just give us a sense of, you know, what gives you the confidence or visibility to that revenue growth re-accelerating in the second half. Thank you.

Yeah, so, you know, a lot of the initiatives that we had and we talked about, you know, last November and, you know, fourth quarter, you know, really were front-end loaded. And so, you know, that's really what we saw, you know, even going into the Q2 guide is those were more front-end loaded. And then we would expect, you know, once we get through some of those that, you know, we would see a re-acceleration in the back half of the year.

Your next question comes from the line of Steve Enders of Citi. Your line is now open.

Okay, great. Thanks for taking the question. I guess maybe digging into the guide a little bit more, it seems like sales performance has improved the past couple of months, or at least better than the first couple of months, and I guess with rates environments maybe staying in a little bit higher, I guess, would have expected maybe a little bit better of a guide here. So, I guess, is there kind of like any change in assumptions or maybe help how many kind of think through, you know, why the guide isn't maintained versus, you know, maybe some of the green shoots that would impact that?

Yeah, I mean, you know, our guidance for 2024, I mean, it included, I mean, we gave this guidance, you know, for the first time we'd given, we had talked about what we were going to do. I think it was October 31st of last year. And so, you know, the guidance at that time included our many organic initiatives that were designed to set us up for 2025. And so we've been sticking with those disciplines and timelines. And, you know, we've said, I mean, even at the beginning of this year that it would be back in loaded. because of the many both client value achievement strategies, as well as the work that the CRRs and the other groups are performing. And so, you know, we've been focused on that. And as we go into any quarter, you know, we're focused on maintaining what we believe are going to make the largest impact on the client base to help, you know, to help them achieve the greatest ROI so we can go forward. I've said it many times that It's a lot easier to sell a client an additional product than to get them to actually use it. We've implemented several strategies to make sure that clients are able to utilize and achieve full client ROI and value before we sell them another product. In many cases, before we even will build them, even though we've sold them. We want to make sure they're utilizing the product before we even build them. These are some initiatives that have delayed certain revenue opportunities for us, but they set us up for those things as well. And so that's been important for us to continue to focus on that and really meet every client where they're living so that we can help bring them through the rest of the Paycom journey.

Okay, that's helpful. Maybe just to put another one in here, I guess maybe to ask it differently, just I guess if we think about the guide today versus 90 days ago, like maybe how are some of the underlying assumptions different, you know, different today than they were before?

They're not. They're not changed.

Okay. All right. That's helpful. All right. Thank you.

Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Kevin McPhee of UBS. Your line is now open.

Great. Thank you. I don't know if you said it on the call. If you did, I missed it. How much stock did you buy back in the quarter?

We didn't call it out on the call. It was a small amount, I think like $3 million.

Okay, great. And then it seems like the margins really overperformed. Was that a function of maybe not being able to hire certain folks you wanted to or just you know, better expense management, and how should we think about that, if possible, over the balance of the year?

I would say better expense management, you know, for the quarter. I mean, we've given the full year, you know, adjusted EBITDA guidance. You know, we'll continue to look throughout the model for efficiencies. I mean, yeah, right now we're at like 39% adjusted EBITDA margins, and so, you know, still best in class and looking at additional efficiencies.

Your next question comes from the line of Alex Zukin of Wolf Research. Your line is now open.

Hey, guys. It's Ryan Krieger. I'm for Alex. Thanks for taking the question. So first one, just to touch on margins again, you kind of previously talked about leaving a little bit of room for potential incremental investment this year. So I'm just curious, what are the top investment priorities that, you know, that optionality could be earmarked for? And then on customer cohorts, can you just give us a quick update on kind of the down market attrition that you were seeing last quarter and how the upmarket cohorts are performing now?

Yeah, so on the cost side, I mean, obviously we've continued to spend aggressively in the R&D area as we announced the launch of Ireland this quarter. So that's one area that we're continuing to spend heavily on. And then Obviously, the one that you can pull some levers on would be the marketing side of the sales and marketing.

From a customer attrition standpoint, we did call out last quarter when we reported retention the impact that the small business group, which we got into really in 2020, that that had on our retention rate. we're not calling out any updating the retention rate today other than to say I don't and again the small business represents three and a half percent of our overall revenue ish so you know but but I don't know that you would necessarily see anything that would have changed the impacts of the small business with the small business and they're you know just traditional ways of attrition and again I'm talking about the the small business portion of our revenue.

Hello?

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Siti Panigrahi of Mizuho. Your line is now open.

Hey, guys. It's Phil on for Siti. I just want to ask, it sounds like you guys are heavily investing into the product of several enhancements. What are some key features they are working on and when can we maybe hear more about them?

Yeah, so we did roll out Gone fourth quarter and we continue to put people on that. From an automation perspective, I mean, we've got several things rolling out throughout this year. We don't disclose what we're developing and or what we've done until it's actually out in the market. We're having a lot of success in product and really around automation. That's very important. And I believe that's wins. I mean, it's, you know, it's 2024 and to think that any company would buy or implement a system whereby the payroll department inputs and imports data to do the payroll. I mean, it's crazy. I mean, if a company wants to do that, they may as well drive to their office, throwing money out the window and run every stoplight because they don't care about liability. I mean, you know, To me, it's all going to automation. That's what's important. That's how you do something consistency the same way and actually achieve value. That's what we're doing over in product. I did call out on the call that we did put out more product this quarter than we had the two previous quarters combined. We're just accelerating from there. It is an exciting time to be in product because you're able to really utilize technology today to make an impact and You know, I believe we've been at the forefront of that, and, you know, we're accelerating it.

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Jared Levine of TD Cowan. Your line is now open.

Thank you. My first question, how should we think about the sequential headwind to 2Q revenue growth from the annual form filings revenue recorded in 1Q?

It wouldn't be any headwinds there. No, no, in the Q2, you know... Sequential drop. Oh, sequential drop. I mean, I don't know that that... Sequential drop versus last year?

Is that... I don't know that... Yeah. Obviously, it's factored into our outlook as far as the sequential drop.

were in line with expectations yeah but we have called out for the last seven eight years that you know over time the percent of the quarter that your forms filings would have the percent of revenue that it would represent over time is going to be lower and lower because we've added additional products and additional services but we really haven't added anything to our year-end forms filing I mean it's been substantially the same service types. We added one thing to it in 2016, and that was the ACA form. But other than that, it's been the exact same services since 1998. And so it represented a larger percentage for us in revenue during the first quarter if you go way back. And then over time, that percentage has dropped, not because it's going down or we're charging less, but because of the other fees, services, and additional products now that just represent a larger percentage of that revenue for the quarter.

Okay. Any reason why you cannot shift towards PEPA-based pricing for payroll? And is this something that you've considered or you anticipate considering in the future?

We don't comment on specific pricing initiatives in regard to competitive situations. All that's to say is You know, we're looking to win every deal, and that's the mode that we're in right now. I know I have our sales organization listening to this call, and they know that. We're looking to win every deal. And so, you know, that includes all the initiatives that would go into that. So I would just stop with that.

Got it. Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Jason Salino of KeyBank Capital Markets. Your line is now open.

Great. Thanks for taking our question. This is Zane Meehan on for Jason Salino. I wanted to ask quickly about the competitive environment. Any notable changes you're seeing there and maybe any particular strength or weakness you're seeing in any specific verticals or end markets? Thanks.

No, I wouldn't say there's been change in competitive market. I mean, it's always been competitive, always. Anytime I've been asked about this, I've said it's been competitive. I do think that there's, you know, differentiating strategies out there, and I like ours when it comes to automation and, you know, really being able to utilize the employee base to leverage that ROI, which, you know, They're the ones that care the most about their check and what's happening to their financial situation and hours and health insurance and everything else individually because it impacts them the most. So, you know, we've been able to leverage that. We've made that shift. We've been leaning into that. You know, to some extent, our messaging around that as we made that shift could have been better. And I think that we've corrected course on that as we've worked with every client to move them toward that. From a go-to-market perspective, though, that's why clients, companies are calling us. I mean, they get to the point of how many back-end people can they hire to even do this work and then correct it all. And so we do have the best process. People are trusting it more and more as more and more companies have been deploying Betty. Every client's deployed Betty since July of 2021. New client that we've brought on and they've had a lot of success with both that product as well as the suite of products that goes around it as well. And then, you know, now we've announced gone. I mean, the amount of time that managers in a company spend on managing PTO is just incredible. And 50% of all PTO requests in the US, over 50% of them are approved after the PTO's already been paid. It's already been taken and paid, so people aren't managing it. And 19 states require you to pay it out when someone leaves. And so that's just one category, but what I'm saying is there's ROI available to our clients everywhere and it's important that we meet them where they're at currently and be able to display that throughout our sales calls. We've gotten better and better at that. as we continue to re-enhance our sales training programs as well as our go-to-market strategies and lead generation.

Great. Super helpful. Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Bhavin Shah of Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Great. Thanks for taking my question and two for me. The first one, Chad, can you just maybe Talk about the promotion of Amy Walker to head of sales at the beginning of the quarter. Can you just elaborate on this decision and any changes to the go-to-market strategy that we should expect over the coming quarters or years?

Yeah, we changed our go-to-market strategy. I mean, Amy was running, Amy got promoted to run outside sales in late November. And then she took over all of sales not long over that and so forth. we started shifting our go-to-market strategies. Enhancing, I would say. I wouldn't say shift. I would say enhancing our go-to-market strategies, especially in regards to the outside sales group, which represents the overwhelming majority of all of our sales. And so she's had a dramatic impact on that group, and we continue to improve week after week with that.

Craig, can you just maybe help quantify some of the headwinds that you guys are seeing for revenue from your strategic initiatives, whether it's less pace or control due to, I mean, less payroll runs due to Betty or even some of the other client success measures that you talked about today that are kind of impacting revenue?

I mean, you know, what we talked about was some of those, you know, less runs because of Betty. I mean, Betty's making it more efficient. for clients and eliminating some of that. That's better for the client. In the end, that's really a better process for the client, a better situation for the client. We call that out that we were starting to see those. A lot of those are going to run through the first half of this year. Towards the back half of the year, we won't see as large of an impact.

And a lot of that corresponds to how we're working with our current clients as well in regards to utilization of that.

Thank you. Our final question today comes from Daniel Jessa of BMO. Your line is now open.

Great. Thanks for taking my question. Maybe to revisit the sort of innovation and R&D kind of theme that came up a couple of times. When you look at your customer base today, where is the least automation in the workflows? Is there any sense of where there's the easiest ROI for you to come in and offer some additional automation in the product?

There are so many places that we can go in our product and really automate full items. that were multiple steps before. It again takes appropriate client configuration. It takes a client's ability to have a mind of change management because it is different than what they've done before. It takes some trust because you are giving up some level of control when you turn it over to AI and you have to prove that out. And so there's certain ways that you can work with clients and help prove that out. And so it's everywhere. I mean, in answer to your question, it's everywhere. And we've been working on that. I've been working over in product, and I've been having an exciting time doing it. And the world's our oyster right now in regards to that. I believe we've always been the leader in what's new and innovation. And we have opportunities to continue to accelerate that, especially now that we're all focused in the same model from a product development perspective.

Okay, great. And then I apologize if this came up earlier, I joined a little bit late, but on sort of the globalization of Paycom, I think you're in four countries from a payroll perspective now. Is there any way that you can sort of quantify the amount of penetration that you've gotten? And I know Ireland is brand new, but Can you help us think about what the uptake has been thus far as you've gone more global, or is there a certain threshold that you need to see before you'll be able to share some more context with us about that opportunity? Thanks.

Sure. Separating two things. First, I would want to separate our global HCM product from the native payroll. developments that we've done. So from a global HCM product perspective, we have clients that are utilizing that product globally on the HCM side that are not running international payroll through our system, but they're getting value through the HR side of our system by using our global HCM product. Now, in regards to that, you also have clients that are utilizing the native payroll and Betty that we have in the countries of Canada, Mexico, the UK, and now Ireland. I believe we've put out Canada, I want to say July of last year, maybe. And so that was the very first one that we've done. And I would say well inside of 12 months, we've completed three more. We didn't start with the easiest. And there's still a couple of hard ones out there, I can tell you that. We are developing the areas where our US-based clients have the largest number of employees. And then kind of as we look internationally, we are able to really look at, if you look at it from a whole, we believe that 20 or so countries, I believe it's actually around 18, represent over 80% of the opportunity available to us. And so we've continued to focus on those.

Thank you. This concludes the question and answer portion of today's call. I will now turn the call back to Mr. Chad Richardson for closing remarks.

All right. Thank you for joining our call today. I do want to acknowledge and celebrate our 10th anniversary as a publicly traded company. I want to thank all employees who have contributed to our success and set us up for the next decade of innovation and growth. Over the next couple of months, we'll be attending the Needham Conference in New York on May 14th, the Jefferies Conference in Newport on May 29th, and presenting at the Baird Conference in New York on June 6th. We look forward to engaging with many of you again soon. Operator, you may end the call. Thank you all.

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