With a combined revenue of $21 trillion and $2.1 trillion in profits, the 2026 Fortune 500 is the definitive list of America's largest companies.

Fortune 500

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World's Most Admired Companies

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The 300 companies on this year’s list brought in over $12.6 trillion in revenue for the latest 12 months, with the median revenue figure at $22 billion.

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Modern Board 2022-ADP

ADP has four former CEOs and three active CEOs on its board. The actives include ADP’s own chief, Carlos Rodriguez, who is also on the board of Microsoft (No. 1 on this list); and Nazzic Keene, CEO of SAIC. ADP scored high in the Modern Board ranking for nationality dispersion, board independence, and board expertise.   
 
The HR software and services company has <a href="https://seekingalpha.com/article/4492107-12-top-stocks-bear-market">received analyst praise</a> for steady cash flow, stability of demand for its offerings, and strong dividends. William J. Ready, president of commerce at Google, and Francine Katsoudas, chief people officer at Cisco, are also ADP board members. The company <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/adp-adp-1-9-since-163004806.html">projects steady (6%) revenue growth</a> for its employer services arm in 2022, along with 13% to 15% growth for its PEO (professional employer organization) division.

Fortune Modern Board 25

The companies on this year's list stand out for celebrating innovation, promoting cooperation, and more.

GPTW New York Large 2022-ADP

Employees say: 
 
“A lot of focus on diversity and inclusion, which creates very unique and diverse teams. Everyone is welcome, there's a lot of focus on culture and work-life balance, and our differences are celebrated.” 
 
Read the Great Place to Work review .

Best Large Workplaces in New York

The companies on this annual list make a conscious effort to be supportive, inclusive workplaces.

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“A lot of focus on diversity and inclusion, which creates very unique and diverse teams. Everyone is welcome, there's a lot of focus on culture and work-life balance, and our differences are celebrated.”

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Best Large Workplaces New York 2021-ADP

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F500 2021-208-ADP

ADP provides services and software for businesses to help streamline human resource management, payroll, tax services, and benefits for workers.

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F500-2020-227-Automatic-Data-Processing

Automatic Data Processing, more commonly known as ADP, provides HR solutions including electronic payroll systems in more than 140 countries.

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Wal-Mart stayed on top as its sales crept closer to half-a-trillion dollars. Apple moved into the top five. And UnitedHealth Group continued its steady climb. 

Best Large Workplaces In New York

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Automatic Data Processing, or ADP, provides cloud-based human resources products to organizations around the world. The company has two primary segments: one for employer services and the other focused on professional employer organizations. These parts of the business include platforms and services for payroll, HR management, tax compliance, benefits administration, and talent management.

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Automatic Data Processing (ADP): Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings

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Automatic Data Processing

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Good morning. My name is Michelle, and I'll be your conference operator. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to ADP's second quarter fiscal 2026 earnings call. I would like to inform you that this conference is being recorded. After the prepared remarks, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. Instructions will be given at that time. I will now turn the conference over to Matt Keating, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Michelle, and welcome everyone to ADP's second quarter fiscal 2026 earnings call. Participating today are Maria Black, our President and CEO, and Peter Hadley, our CFO. Earlier this morning, we released our results for the quarter. Our earnings materials are available on the SEC's website and our investor relations website at investors.adp.com, where you'll also find the investor presentation that accompanies today's call. During our call, we will reference non-GAAP financial measures, which we believe to be useful to investors and that exclude the impact of certain items. A description of these items, along with a reconciliation of non-GAAP measures to their most comparable GAAP measures, can be found in our earnings release. Today's call will also contain forward-looking statements that refer to future events and involve some risk.

We encourage you to review our filings with the SEC for additional information on factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from our current expectations. I'll now turn it over to Maria.

Thank you, Matt, and thank you everyone for joining us. This morning, we reported strong second quarter results that included 6% revenue growth, 80 basis points of Adjusted EBIT margin expansion, and 11% Adjusted EPS growth. We achieved these financial results while also making meaningful progress across our strategic priorities. Before discussing this strategic progress, I will briefly review some additional highlights from our results. We delivered solid Employer Services new business bookings growth in the second quarter. We enjoyed broad-based strength with the fastest growth in our international, U.S., enterprise and compliance businesses. Our small business portfolio and mid-market business also contributed to the growth in the quarter. With good momentum and healthy pipelines, we are focused on driving continued new business bookings growth in the second half of our fiscal year.

Our Employer Services retention rate matched our expectations with a modest decline in the second quarter. We continue to benefit from a stable overall business environment and very high levels of client satisfaction. In fact, our overall client satisfaction results represented the single best quarter in ADP history. Employer Services pays per control growth rounded up to 1% for the second quarter, representing modestly higher year-on-year growth compared to the first quarter. And last, our PEO revenue increased 6% in the quarter, helped by growth in zero margin pass-throughs and solid new business bookings growth. Our 2% growth in average worksite employees included a moderation in PEO pays per control growth. Peter will share our updated outlook in a few minutes, but we believe the demand environment for our PEO and other outsourcing services also remains healthy.

We are proud of our strong second quarter financial results and excited by the progress we continue to make across our three strategic business priorities. I will start with what we are doing to lead with best-in-class HCM technology. We are very pleased with the strong traction our Workforce Now Next Gen and ADP Lyric HCM platforms continue to experience. Workforce Now Next Gen is being embraced by our mid-market clients for its always-on payroll processing capabilities, generative AI functionality, and expedited implementation timelines. We reached a milestone in the second quarter with our first sale to a client with more than 1,000 employees. The client, a logistics company in the Midwest, selected Workforce Now Next Gen based on the strength of its underlying technology and the breadth of its integrated solutions, which included payroll, HR, benefits administration, time and attendance, and learning.

Workforce Now Next Gen is a great example of how we build products to solve real-world challenges HR teams face each day, and we do so by combining our Next Gen platforms, investments in AI and automation, and robust compliance expertise to support our clients' wide-ranging needs. In the enterprise space, Lyric's new business bookings once again exceeded our expectations in the second quarter, and its new business pipeline continued to expand at a rapid pace. Underscoring Lyric's strong reception in the market, more than 70% of its new business bookings and overall pipeline related to new logos as it continues to fare favorably against our competitors. Organizations are turning to Lyric for its flexibility, intelligence, and human-centric design that enhances the employee, manager, and practitioner experience.

Among our many Lyric new business wins in the second quarter were two companies with more than 20,000 employees, which represents two of our largest clients sold on the platform to date. Earlier this month, Lyric was named a winner in the 2026 BIG Innovation Awards, presented by Business Intelligence Group, earning recognition for driving transformative impact in the HCM industry. In addition to building our own best-in-class solutions, we strive to enhance our HCM offerings through acquisitions that complement our business. Our October 2024 acquisition of WorkForce Software is a great example. During the second quarter, we launched the ADP WorkForce Suite, our integrated workforce management solution, across our leading payroll and HCM platforms. Clients now have the opportunity to offer their employees around the world a unified time, pay, and HR experience with best-in-class workforce management tools at their fingertips.

We are already seeing benefits from our integrated approach, winning several deals in the second quarter that included the ADP WorkForce Suite. We also partner with others to accelerate innovation. In December, we successfully embedded Fiserv's CashFlow Central, an integrated accounts payables and receivables management solution, into run in order to help our small business clients better manage their cash flow. The RUN Powered by ADP platform brings payroll, contractor payments, bill pay, and invoicing together in one clear, connected experience. With payroll and payments in sync, our clients can do more in less time and steer their business forward confidently. AI remains central to our technology strategy, and we are moving full speed ahead to leverage it in attracting, serving, and retaining our clients.

We continue to scale the usage and capabilities of our client-facing AI, including the launch of new ADP Assist payroll, HR, analytics, and tax agents that apply advanced intelligence to real workforce challenges. Built on ADP's comprehensive global data platform, these new persona-based agents help organizations manage people, streamline processes, and make informed decisions that support people at work. For example, ADP Assist tax registration agents can proactively identify when clients have missing or incomplete tax IDs and guide them through every step of the registration process. Additionally, our ADP Assist HR agents can create key talent actions instantly, such as initiating a promotion simply by the user typing what they want to do. The system delivers real-time answers and guided next steps, reducing time spent navigating HR workflows.

Our AI solutions are designed with a human-centric approach that enhances the value and meaningful connection we all derive from our work. Unlike generic AI solutions, ADP's approach combines proprietary workforce insights with advanced automation to solve real workforce challenges while maintaining the security, governance, and compliance standards companies trust. Our second strategic priority is to provide clients with unmatched expertise and outsourcing solutions. Success here requires us to carefully consider the breadth of our solutions and to continually evolve to best meet client needs. To this end, we were excited to introduce our first pooled employer plan, or PEP, within our retirement services business during the second quarter. A PEP is a single 401(k) plan that lets unrelated employers participate together with a pooled plan provider acting as plan sponsor, named fiduciary, and plan administrator.

This arrangement shifts most of the compliance, filing, and oversight burdens from employers to the pooled plan provider. Our save for retirement pooled employer plan brings together scale, integration, and fiduciary support, allowing employers to offer robust retirement plan benefits without adding administrative burden. Clients gain scale-driven cost savings, reduced administrative work, and lower fiduciary risk. Finally, we are focused on executing on our third strategic priority, benefiting our clients with our global scale. We serve more than 70,000 clients outside of the United States, where we pay more than 16 million wage earners across more than 140 countries. Our mix of global solutions includes both in-country and multinational offerings. During the second quarter, we won the business of a large European bank with more than 75,000 employees.

This win demonstrates the power of our brand, built by having associates on the ground for decades in most of our international markets. We also recently enhanced our global payroll platform through more intuitive dashboards with clearer messaging and easier navigation, all of which reduce manual tasks and enhance the overall user experience. The investments we are making in our international business are being noticed, as we were recognized recently in the HRM Asia Readers' Choice Awards, winning two golds in 2025 for Best HR Tech, Outsourcing, and Payroll Solution. Overall, our second quarter represented strong outcomes on the financial front and with respect to our key strategic priorities.

I'd like to take a minute to thank our associates, who continue to deliver exceptional product and outstanding service to our clients, particularly now, as many of them are in the middle of our most hectic time of year, completing year-end work. Their consistent effort over decades has established our company's trusted corporate reputation, and I am proud to announce that ADP was recognized earlier this month by Fortune Magazine as one of the world's most admired companies in 2026. This marks ADP's twentieth year on this annual ranking, and I would like to congratulate all ADPers on this well-earned accomplishment and thank them again for all that they do for ADP and for our clients. Now I will turn the call over to Peter.

Thank you, Maria, and good morning, everyone. I will start by providing some more color on our second quarter results and then update our fiscal 2026 outlook. Overall, we reported a strong second quarter with our consolidated revenue growth, Adjusted EBIT margin, and Adjusted EPS growth, all coming in slightly ahead of our expectations. Let me focus on our Employer Services segment first, and I will cover both our results and our updated outlook. ES segment revenue in Q2 increased 6% on a reported basis and 5% on an organic constant currency basis, with FX contributing about a point of revenue growth in the quarter. As Maria shared, ES new business bookings were solid and broad-based in the second quarter. With continued healthy pipelines, we are maintaining our 4%-7% new business bookings growth guidance for fiscal 2026.

ES retention was in line with our forecast, declining modestly versus the prior year. We are keeping our outlook of a 10-30 basis point decline in full-year retention unchanged. ES pays per control growth improved slightly, rounding up to 1% for the second quarter, and we continue to forecast about flat pays per control growth for the full year. Client funds interest revenue increased slightly more than we anticipated in Q2, helped mainly by higher average client funds balance growth. We have increased our forecast for average client funds balance growth to 4%-5% in fiscal 2026, and we continue to expect an average yield of approximately 3.4%. Accordingly, we are increasing our full-year client funds interest revenue forecast by $10 million, to a range of $1.31-$1.33 billion.

We are also raising our expected net impact from our extended investment strategy by $10 million to a range of $1.27 billion-$1.29 billion. On an overall basis, we are also increasing our ES revenue growth outlook to about 6% for the full year. ES margins increased by 50 basis points in Q2, driven by both operating leverage and the contribution from client funds interest revenue growth. Turning now to the PEO. Overall, PEO revenue growth in the second quarter was 6%, while PEO revenue growth, excluding zero margin pass-throughs, was 3% in the quarter. PEO new business bookings growth was solid in Q2, but did come in slightly below our expectations. This impact, along with some further moderation in PEO pays per control growth, weighed on our average worksite employees growth in the quarter.

Accordingly, we are now expecting average worksite employee growth of about 2% in fiscal 2026. We continue to expect fiscal 2026 PEO revenue growth of 5%-7%, and PEO revenue, excluding zero-margin pass-throughs, to grow by 3%-5%. PEO margins decreased 70 basis points in Q2, driven mainly by zero-margin pass-through growth and higher selling expenses. As we highlighted on our Q1 conference call, we do expect positive contribution to overall ADP margins this year from our other segment as a result of our client funds extended investment strategy. This margin contribution is being driven by growth in our corporate extended interest income, while at the same time, our short-term financing costs are decreasing. We saw this in the second quarter, and we expect this dynamic to continue across the balance of the fiscal year.

Putting it all together, we are increasing our fiscal 2026 consolidated revenue outlook to about 6% growth, and we are maintaining our forecast for Adjusted EBIT margin expansion of 50-70 basis points. We continue to expect our effective tax rate to be around 23% for the year, and we are also raising our fiscal 2026 Adjusted EPS growth forecast to 9%-10%, supported by share repurchases. Earlier this month, our board authorized the purchase of $6 billion of our common stock, which replaced, in its entirety, our 2022 authorization of $5 billion. This new authorization, along with our recent 10% dividend increase, signals our continued commitment to driving shareholder value and to returning excess cash to our shareholders, which remains a key pillar of our capital allocation strategy.

Finally, a quick note on our anticipated Adjusted EBIT margin cadence in the second half of the year. As we mentioned last quarter, we continue to expect a bit of a ramp in the back half of the year for margin expansion, and we currently expect to deliver more of this margin expansion in Q4 than in Q3. Thank you, and I'll now turn it back to the operator for Q&A.

Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one one. If your question has been answered and you'd like to remove yourself from the queue, please press star one one again. We ask that you please limit yourselves to one question with a brief follow-up. Our first question comes from Mark Marcon with Baird. Your line is open.

Good morning. Lots of significant positives in the quarter. Maria, I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about the international opportunity, and congratulations on that win. Where do you see ADP currently in terms of, you know, addressing that strategic pillar? And what do you think the runway is like, and how do you compare the profitability of the international operations relative to the U.S.? And then I've got a follow-up on PEO.

Sure. Good morning, Mark, and thank you for the question. As you know, international is an entire strategic priority for us. So we have three strategic priorities, one of which is candidly dedicated to exactly what you just suggested, which is the opportunity we have in our global space. So how are we doing? How are we faring? Perhaps I can comment on that, and Peter can touch on the impact of that business from a margin perspective, kind of address the second part of your question. How we are faring is very well. I think the strength that we see in our offering is just getting started. I was excited to see the rebound in bookings, specifically this quarter, after a tiny bit of a softer first quarter on the heels of a very incredible fourth quarter.

So we do know that the international space and those-

-opportunities, they're big, they're complex, they're broad. They often involve lots of different stakeholders, countries, decision makers. So how do we show up? We show up well. I think the thing that was the highlight for me, with respect to this quarter, was this 75,000 employee, European bank, that we cited. But it wasn't just the fact that we had that win, which was tremendous execution by the team, it was also how that win came about, which was a direct reflection of the offering that we have in conjunction with our existing platforms, married to now the Workforce Suite, that we launched. And so that was a key contributor to that win, and I think we continue to make progress in our offerings, in our investments, whether that's through the products, through acquisitions.

So we, you know, show up well from a product perspective. I mentioned during the prepared remarks how we show up in terms of kind of this balance of ADP associates on the ground, in country. That's unique, that's differentiated. So I think in general, and I apologize, I don't know what's happening to my voice. We're very proud of the offers that we have, how we show up in the international space. We continue to execute well from a bookings perspective. And as, you know, as it relates to the, the future, I think it's, it's bright for us, and I'll let Peter kind of comment on the margin piece.

Yeah, Mark, on the profitability side, the international business is a little bit lower margin than some of the domestic businesses, which I think is to be understood. I think you know, the retention rates, though, are very, very high. So if you look at it from a lifetime value, sort of contribution, if you like to value, you know, very much comparable with any of the businesses we have in the U.S. So we're very happy to continue investing in that business. It does drive margin. It's an important contributor to our margin evolution, but it is a little bit lower on the margin, as is the enterprise business in the U.S., relative to, call it, the down market, mid-market.

But over a lifetime value of a client, given the very high retention rates, you know, we believe we achieve very similar levels of ultimate value from growing in international as we do in some of the maybe higher margin domestic market businesses.

That's great. It seems like a great long-term opportunity. I was wondering, on a separate note, can you just talk a little bit more about PEO, and the WSE growth? You know, it has been slowing for a while across the entire space, and Maria, I know you know the PEO space better than anybody. What do you think is contributing to that slower growth, and how do you think about the long-term outlook on the PEO, just in terms of WSEs? Because it seemed to me like we still have a long way to go in terms of penetration in multiple states that aren't as well developed as some of the core states.

Yeah, Mark, I'll, I'll take that, and Maria might wanna chime in, but I think we still, I agree with you. I think we still have tremendous opportunity in the PEO. You know, we've spoken about what we believe is the addressable market opportunity, and we are, whilst we are clearly the largest PEO, we still think there's plenty of room to grow in that space. And, and as you know, around half of our PEO bookings come from our own, from our own client base. So again, plenty of opportunity there. What's going on at the moment? I mentioned in my prepared remarks, "we had solid bookings. Maria also mentioned we had solid bookings in the PEO this quarter.

They were a little less than we were expecting, but not a huge difference, but it does contribute when we're sort of dealing with relatively small movements, basis point movements in things like WSEs. We also saw a little bit, little bit contrary, again, very small margins here in terms of basis point moves, but we did see a little bit of softening in the PEO pays per control metric in the quarter. We saw a little bit of strengthening. Again, I don't wanna overemphasize it, but it's just tens of basis points, but a little bit of softening in the PEO pays per control metric. By the way, it came in at exactly the same level as the ES metric.

I think I mentioned last quarter, the PEO was, as it typically does, sitting a little ahead of the S. It's not always the case, but it's typically the case. This quarter, they happened to come in together. So just doing the math, you know, looking at sort of where we were in Q1 and where we are now, we felt the lower end of the range was more appropriate, and hence, we've sort of adjusted our guide. But, you know, we're still very bullish on the opportunity. We continue to invest in distribution. We're investing in our product capabilities within Workforce Now, specific to the PEO, and certainly feel that there's a tremendous opportunity in front of us with respect to the PEO.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Tien-tsin Huang with J.P. Morgan. Your line is open.

Hey, thanks so much. Thanks for the details. Just to follow up on Mark's question on PEO, I'm just curious if you're doing anything differently to spur growth versus plan at the beginning of the year. You know, I know there's a lot of talk about healthcare costs being higher and perhaps SMBs are looking to trade down. Curious if you're seeing any of that, and if you're responding to it.

Sure, happy to comment on that and the, the general value proposition of the PEO. As, as Mark mentioned, and, and you know as well, I'm incredibly close to this business, certainly been watching that value proposition over decades, and I can confidently say it's as strong as it's ever been. The complexity to be an employer in that space, dealing with, whether it's, as you mentioned, healthcare and the complexity of offering those type of things to your employees, it's very difficult. The PEO fits into that, value proposition for those employers. I think the other piece is just the basics of co-employment and what employers are looking to do in that shared liability. So what are we doing, to respond to what is arguably an increasingly complex landscape for those small to medium-sized businesses, we're investing.

So we're investing in our sellers, we're investing in their ecosystem. We talked a lot at Investor Day about the tools that we're developing to serve up the right leads to the right sellers at the right time. As Peter mentioned, a big piece of our value proposition inside of ADP is that ability to mine our own base, and we're getting smarter about that. So investments into tools, technology to figure out who the exact right fit is for that PEO, investment into things such as sales incentives, headcount. So I can tell you from a go-to-market perspective, not a shortage of focus. The team is laser-focused and building on the healthy pipelines, the momentum. We see that certainly in the solid results in PEO bookings in the second quarter.

But we also see it when we look into the healthy activities, RFPs, things of that nature. There's a lot of, lot of motion in that space, and we're definitely positioned to take advantage of it.

No, great value comments there, Maria, importantly. Just on the, on the margin cadence, Peter, I think, you know, you talked about this last quarter about it being more back half weighted. Looked like 2Q was a little bit better than what we had, modeled, including the higher float from the higher balances. So 3Q to 4Q, any call-outs in terms of, step function change? And have you changed your investment approach given, given the higher, higher float? It sounds like maybe you're investing a little bit more, or maybe I'm misreading it. Thank you.

Yeah, yeah, Tien-tsin. The second quarter, I think, came in a little higher than we were anticipating as well. We were pleased with that from a margin perspective. The margin cadence point is sort of really two things. As I said, we are expecting, you know, continued margin delivery in the second half, a little higher than the first half. The main driver of second half versus first half is we still had in Q1, as you remember, the fourth quarter before the anniversary of the WorkForce Software acquisition. So we had some acquisition-related drag in the first quarter. Second quarter came in strongly. We're expecting good results in both Q3 and Q4.

The main difference, I think, in Q3 versus Q4 is a little bit of timing of expenses, but that sort of happens from time to time. I wouldn't overemphasize that. The other piece, though, is the float portfolio, which I think is where you're going. So the float portfolio in Q3, being calendar Q1, is our highest balance period, where we, you know, bonus season, we have tax rate, tax limits resetting. So we have more float, basically, in Q1, which results in more overnight balances. And this year versus last year, you know, as you know, we had a 75 basis point reduction in Fed funds between the same period last year and this year. So that creates a little bit of margin pressure in Q3 over Q3 last year.

Relatively, we don't really have that in Q4, so we're expecting a little bit more of this. The underlying margin expansion continues, I think, at really good momentum, but that float element, as well as a little bit some timing of expenses, we're expecting Q3 not to be quite as strong as the fourth quarter.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Scott Wurtzel with Wolfe Research. Your line is open.

Hey, good morning, guys. Thank you for taking my question. Maria, just wondering if you can talk a little bit more about the overall bookings environment. Just wondering how, you know, if you can characterize how growth in bookings was sort of trending in 2Q relative to 1Q, and even in the context, if we go back to sort of the end of last year and some of the slowdown that we saw maybe on sales cycles, wondering how, you know, all of that is sort of trending now relative to, you know, six to nine months ago. Thanks.

Yeah, sure, Scott. So I think with respect to overall environment, as mentioned during the prepared remarks, the environment's stable. I will tell you that, you know, from a new business perspective, we were really pleased with the solid performance in Q2. I think the thing that stands out to me the most with respect to Q2 is that it was broad-based, and so every single business contributed to that growth narrative. Some of the highlights we mentioned during the prepared remarks, certainly we saw in the enterprise space, just how Lyric is resonating. It's really an incredible story for us, so really excited about the momentum in the enterprise space. Excited to see that across the compliance solutions as well.

I think within the small business portfolio, we continue to see strength in retirement services, in insurance, and mid-market also contributed to the growth, and as mentioned earlier, we had good, you know, PEO bookings, although that's not in the employer services numbers. I think just broadly speaking, the quarter felt solid, and we were excited about the broad-based results that really, you know, were reflected in that. I think, you know, with respect to kind of intra-quarter type of stuff, I don't know that there's a lot to glean from kind of what happened in the three months. I think what, you know, what I would rest on is that we feel solid about the performance, it was broad-based, and that the pipelines are healthy as we step into the back half.

But as always, we have a lot to get done in the back half.

Yeah, that makes sense. And then just as a follow-up, hate to ask the question on, on AI impacts on hiring, but just in the context of even over the last, you know, 24, 48 hours, seeing some incremental announcements from enterprises around layoffs and citing AI, just wondering if you've had, you know, have any updated views on, on that topic and, you know, impacts that AI could be having on the broader labor market. Thanks.

Yeah, thanks, Scott. I'll take that one. You know, we've seen the headlines, too. I think more of the headlines that I've seen actually have been more about sort of corporate realignment following, you know, a big hiring period post pandemic. But in terms of the data we look at, we look at it obviously very closely. We look at it by industry, about 10 or 12 industry groups. We're not really seeing anything discernible there. I mean, you look at the labor market situation. Certainly, the hiring levels are muted. Job openings are relatively muted. We've been talking about that now for some quarters on this call.

What we've also been meant talking about, though, and what we still continue to see is continuing reductions in the level of overall layoffs going on in the job market, and certainly, lower layoffs and, you know, our across the industry groups, we see a lot of consistency, if you like, in terms of where they're going and sort of areas that potentially you may think of as being more subject to being at risk with AI. We're not actually seeing it in those industry verticals. So, you know, things like financial services, things like professional services, tech, and so on, you know, we're actually seeing reasonably healthy growth. So, you know, it's hard to say, but the data, the empirical data does not really point to that happening at this point in time.

The future, obviously, is yet to be determined.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Bryan Bergin with TD Cowen. Your line is open.

Hi, guys. Good morning. Thank you. I wanted to follow up on the international ES and compare that to US. So Maria, I sense the incremental international focus here in your commentary, the investments you've been making there. Can you just give us a sense on how that's translating to potentially relative revenue and bookings growth of that international ES base relative to U.S. ES?

Yeah, I'll, I'll take the revenue, point, Bryan, and then Maria may want to comment more generally. But, in terms of the revenue mix, it's not really changing. I mean, again, with the international space, the bookings that, that we're talking about, and for example, the 75,000-employee European bank, you know, those, those things take quite some time to come through to revenue generation. You know, they're large sort of enterprise implementation projects. So, you know, in terms of, you know, bookings performance, whether it's this quarter or in recent quarters versus the, you know, having an influence, if you like, on the overall mix, not, not really. It's the mix has sort of been consistent for, for some time. I think the international business, as Maria said earlier, is, is certainly making good contributions, and we see a great growth opportunity there.

But that's more over the medium and longer term than necessarily short term influencing the revenue mix.

Yeah, I think, Bryan, if I may just add from a bookings perspective, the focus across the entire enterprise space, inclusive of the large multinationals. So if you think of that global enterprise space kind of as large companies that are incredibly complex, that are driving large transformations, undoubtedly the performance we saw, specifically in the second quarter, with respect to the enterprise space and international or Lyric and our global payroll offers, were a larger contributor to the bookings narrative than perhaps in previous. But again, both of those spaces can be a bit lumpy.

So to Peter's point, I think it's relatively consistent, but we have, we have high hopes, and lots of investment and focus as we continue to, uniquely put together global payroll, global time, global HR, and global service into a unique offer in the market.

Okay, that's helpful. I might follow up on ES PPC. So you just comment on the pickup here. I'm curious if that was broad-based or there were select contributors to that performance across, you know, certain client sizes. And as you just thought about the full year, still roughly a flat outlook. I know last quarter you said you were rounding down to zero. Here, you're rounding up to one. But just curious how you thought about the second half, just given that pickup of trend.

Yeah, it's a good question, Bryan. I think in terms of, like I was saying earlier, I think from an industry group contribution, very consistent. Also, across the, across the, the segments, our segments to the small market, small business market, the mid-market, and the enterprise space. What we do not really see is what the wider economy is seeing, which is slowdown in the down market. Again, our base has tend to prove, been proved to be more resilient, if you like, I think, over the years with respect to hiring than the wider small business segment. So it's really, you know, a pretty broad-based contribution, whether it's from industry groups, whether it's from, you know, from the, from the segment sizes. In terms of the outlook, we had quite a lot of discussion about it.

It's not an easy one to predict because we're really talking about. We're very confident, I think, that we will continue to see growth. It's a question of is that growth just above or just below the 0.5% mark? So, you know, we decided not to adjust our guidance. I think we need to see a little bit more, as I've sort of mentioned, we're talking about either tens of basis points above or one or two below the 0.5-point mark. So it's very consistent. You know, you can extrapolate, I think, sort of the ADP NER and the BLS, apply your usual sort of ADP factor to that, and that's exactly what we're seeing.

So, you know, I think the back half, we'll see where it comes in and where it rounds to, but at the moment, it certainly looks very much like it's in and around what we have seen in the first and second quarters.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Ramsey El-Assal with Cantor Fitzgerald. Your line is open.

Hi, thank you very much for taking my question. I wanted to follow up on Tien-tsin's question before on margin cadence. I mean, there seems to be a few more moving parts in terms of the flow-through in the second half, and given Q4 is typically a lower margin quarter for you guys, I just was wondering if you could speak to your, you know, confidence level about getting to where you need to get to deeper in the year. And just also whether there are any sort of underappreciated levers you might have access to, to help things along?

Hey, Ramsey. Yeah, thanks for the question. I think, you know, I think it's really what I did say to Tien-tsin. You know, we delivered 80 basis points this quarter. We're not guiding sort of to by quarters, obviously, but we're expecting sort of similar, you know, strong underlying margin contribution across the remaining two quarters. There is that dynamic on the short portfolio, which you can pretty easily, I think, extrapolate from our filings and our press release. We give the sort of the rates by quarter and the balances by between the portfolios, you know, in our press release. So there is clearly about a 75 basis point reduction on the yield of that short portfolio in Q3 versus last year. The other two portfolios continue as they are.

And, you know, more importantly, I think the, in terms of the true underlying margin expansion from, you know, from revenue growth and diligent cost management, that continues, and they also obviously continue, particularly cost management continues to be a lever for us. So, you know, I think we reiterated our range. We do that confidently in terms of our margin expansion range, and, you know, we don't necessarily anticipate any any headwinds in the, in the back half of the year, absent, you know, the, the sort of the dynamics I've already spoken about, with respect to margin expansion.

Okay, got it. And a quick follow-up from me. Could you comment on the pricing environment right now? How does it feel in terms of your ability to deploy pricing, and maybe what contribution are you expecting from that in your numbers?

Sure. No, I think the environment, again, is very consistent with what it has been. We feel similarly confident with respect to our ability to price. Our pricing, you know, across our 1.1 million clients, we don't just have a date in the year where we apply our price increase across the base. You know, it's feathered in, so we're halfway through the year already. I think our pricing has been very thoughtful as always and generally well-received as these things go.

Again, we're not expecting anything to deviate from what we've said before, which is around 100 basis points of contribution from price in fiscal 2026, which is a little lower, not huge amount of difference, but a little lower than what we had in fiscal 2025 and a little higher than sort of what we were doing pre-pandemic, which was more in the 0.5-point range.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Ashish Sabadra with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Thanks for taking my question. Your peer talked about a lower revenue per client. I was just wondering if you have seen anything on that front in terms of the number of products that are opted by your clients. Thanks.

Ashish, I apologize. We missed the first word. Who spoke about a lower revenue per client?

It was Paychex that talked about a lower revenue per client. So I was wondering if you have seen anything on that front or in terms of, like, just the number of products that are adopted by your clients. Thanks.

Yeah, no, fair enough. I'm happy to comment on that with respect to, I believe the reference that they made was at point of sale, lower attach rates, perhaps is the way that we would think about it, or a lower number of employees. We haven't seen any of those trends. We, you know, monitor that closely, especially this time of year, as we're looking at, you know, tremendous volumes, and we haven't seen anything that would lead us to believe that, there's a lower revenue per client or per client employee, if you will.

No, and just to follow on to that, some of our strongest bookings performers have actually been our retirement and insurance services in that downmarket space. So if anything, I think we're perhaps seeing the reverse of what you were referring to.

That's very helpful color. And maybe just another follow-up question on PEO. When you think about the bookings came in modestly below expectation, are there any particular regions or verticals where you have seen any particular softness, or in terms of, again, attach rate or employee penetration, have you seen any color on those fronts? Thanks.

I would say, with respect to, the strongest fit across the PEO markets, whether that's some of the, the states that have more concentration of PEOs, they continue to perform well, in terms of those markets. But again, the performance is broad-based, if you will, across various industries. Certainly, the usual suspects of industries continue to fare well, in terms of the strongest fits across PEO, whether that's the likes of property management, professional services. You know, we kind of fit into that white collar end of the PEO, maybe perhaps slightly blue collar. So I think all of that feels normal, as it relates to the overall offer.

I think the other piece that, I heard a question in there, and perhaps you weren't referring to it, but I'll take the moment to comment on it, because it is such a big contributor to the value proposition of the PEO, which is the health benefits piece, and what are we seeing with respect to, participation at the client-employee level. And what I would tell you is participation across health insurance and health offers, across our PEO are healthy and remain strong, which to me is a direct reflection of the strength of the value proposition of that offer in the market.

That's great color, and congrats on strong momentum in Employer Services. Thanks.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Kartik Mehta with North Coast Research. Your line is open.

Good morning. Maria, maybe just on PEO. In the last 12 months, have you seen a change in the type of client that is asking for PEO, in terms of, are the clients larger or smaller, or the type of industry, any noticeable difference?

Good morning, Kartik. No, no noticeable difference. I think the momentum across what is our strongest fit, if you will, so the PEOs that we or the PEO opportunities that we look to bring into our PEO remains really consistent. I think that's a big piece of the strength of ADP and ADP TotalSource and our offers, that we're incredibly guardrailed as well as strategic in terms of the clients that we target inside of the ADP base, who we want to be in that PEO. And I would say that it's largely consistent across the last couple decades, both with respect to size as well as respect to industry. You know, over time, we have pulled up a little bit in average size over the last couple decades.

Part of that is the PEO does have our best-in-class offer in the mid-market. So if you imagine the PEO sitting on Workforce Now, that stretches it into a little bit, perhaps, you know, beyond just the small businesses. But again, that's relatively consistent over the decades we've been in the business.

And Peter, just a question on AI. I know you talked a little bit about AI and maybe impact of employment for your clients. I'm wondering, for ADP, I think you've implemented AI. I think you've had success on the sales side. Just a two-part question: Has that changed the number of people that maybe salespeople you need or made them more productive, so changes in maybe the number of hires? And is the success allowing you to increase investment or one leading you to increase investment in that?

Yeah, thanks for the question, Kartik. In terms of the headcount, no, we have not sort of taken a different approach to our headcount. We remain committed to growing sales headcount. We have seen over decades the contribution that that can make. What it has done, to your point, is it's enabled our sellers to be more both more efficient and I think also more effective. I would still say we're in the relatively early innings in terms of, you know, taking dividends, if you like, from these investments and really seeing sort of the lift we expect to get from this over the coming years.

But it's less about you know, a shift change in how we approach investing in the sales force or sort of where we expect sales to come from. Really, it's a way that we're looking to make our salespeople more effective, more efficient, and ultimately deliver more wins. But I think you should expect us to continue to invest in both headcount and tools, be they AI and also other tools. We've spoken about you know, the Zone, which obviously is AI infused, but is also a platform our sellers use. All of those things we'll continue to invest in to maximize our opportunity to be successful on the sales front.

Thank you both very much. I appreciate it.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Dan Jester with BMO Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Great. Good morning, and thank you for taking my question. So maybe on Lyric, you know, it sounded like you sold a couple of quite large deals this quarter that you mentioned in the prepared remarks. Maybe can you share a little bit color about how maybe you won those deals or how they came together? And as you think about the larger part of the opportunity in the enterprise for Lyric, do you have critical mass now in terms of reference customers or and are deals like this; should we be seeing them more frequently? Or maybe just any more color about the upmarket momentum on Lyric. Thank you.

No, thank you, Dan. I'm so glad you asked. This is one of my favorite stories coming out of Q2, is the strength that we see in Lyric new business bookings. Really excited about those two specific deals, as they do represent two of the largest. Do we anticipate and want to see more of them? Of course, we do. That's everything that we've been building toward. So that is, you know, part of our goal and our expectation. I think the part that, again, also was a standout is that when you look across the pipeline, you look across the wins with Lyric, 70% of those are new logos. That's a direct correlation to how this product is resonating with CHROs, with the market at large.

Automatic Data Processing (ADP) Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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