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“The first quarter was a celebration of our customers’ loyalty and ingenuity,” said Chris Todd, CEO at UKG. “The momentum of customer migrations to modern UKG solutions continued, especially among our largest customers, and customer retention across the board continues to be strong. We also had a great quarter for large deals, as we doubled the ARR from $1 million-plus deals compared to last year. These factors, along with a particularly strong quarter for both public sector and retail sales, combined to help surpass expectations for new contracts won by UKG. We also hosted our largest-ever Aspire customer conference where we honored a record 15 customers from around the world through our annual Innovation Awards competition for using UKG technology to create a great place to work that drives better business outcomes.”
First Quarter 2024 Business Highlights
UKG debuted several new solutions and enhancements at Aspire, where 5,000 customers, partners, and HCM thought leaders collaborated to inform and inspire their work journeys and support their people’s success. These innovations, which helped UKG again land on Fortune’s America’s Most Innovative Companies list for its product innovation, process innovation, and innovation culture, include:
- UKG Bryte, an AI-powered assistant for great workplaces that uses generative AI (GenAI) to help guide employees, people managers, and HR leaders by shining a light on important insights that support great workplace experiences and GenAI models that have been trained on 30 years of Great Place To Work benchmark data and proven best practices
- The availability of the UKG Great Place To Work® Hub to all UKG Pro customers, enabling them to transform HR metrics into opportunities for equity, belonging, and creating great leaders.
- UKG One View, which helps multinational organizations manage their entire workforce — from complex scheduling to payday — with the same consistent experience, regardless of where in the world their employees work.
- The launch of UKG Pro Benefits Hub, an entirely new, modern benefits experience that makes it easier for employees to understand the full scope of their benefits options.
In the quarter, UKG also announced the second cohort of early-stage companies from four different countries — all of whom are committed to helping businesses create high-performing, people-centric cultures — as part of its fast-growing, in-house global startup ecosystem and virtual laboratory, UKG Labs.
This dedication to innovation and the customer experience (CX) led UKG customers to continue to share stories of how their partnership with UKG drives business growth, supports their frontline workers, and helps create a great place to work for all, including Boba Tea Company, Costa Coffee, and Hartford HealthCare. New and longtime customers that selected UKG HR, payroll, workforce management, and culture solutions in the quarter included:
- A tech giant known for its smartphones, tablets, and computers, with over 150,000 employees;
- A well-known clothing retailer recognized for its diverse fashion offerings from casual wear to trendy styles with nearly 130,000 employees;
- One of the world’s largest food companies and a recognized leader in protein with about 140,000 employees;
- One of Australia's largest non-government community services provider networks, with more than 40,000 employees and 30,000 volunteers working at 1,600 locations nationwide;
- The world’s third most visited theme park, located in Japan, which hosts more than 12 million guests per year;
- The electronics division of a global enterprise operating in more than 100 countries across India with a mission to improve the quality of life of the communities they serve;
- Forty stores in Mexico of one of the world’s largest membership-only, big-box warehouse club retail stores;
- A global sportswear brand known for its athletic footwear, apparel, and accessories with close to 80,000 employees;
- One of the largest railway companies in the UK and the primary provider of rail service across Scotland serving nearly 100 million passenger journeys each year;
- A global logistics and supply chain technology company that provides customers and businesses with a broad portfolio of transportation, e-commerce, and business services; and
- A renowned designer and distributor of toys that drives children’s imagination with over 27,000 employees in 40 countries.
Beyond these customer successes, industry analysts and associations also lauded UKG for its products and customer support in the quarter, including:
- Gartner naming UKG a Leader in the Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Cloud HCM Suites for 1,000+ Employee Enterprises report, a comprehensive review of 11 HCM providers;
- NelsonHall naming UKG Pro a Leader in the NelsonHall NEAT report for Next Generation HCM Technology in the Mid/Large Market, and UKG Ready a Leader in the NelsonHall NEAT report for Next Generation HCM Technology in the SMB Market Focus.
- UKG Ready receiving a Bronze designation in the 2023 Brandon Hall Excellence in Technology Awards in the Human Resources Technology Category for “Best Advance in HR or Workforce Management Technology for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses; and
- The UKG CX team being recognized with three finalist designations from the Customer Centricity Awards in the categories of CX Team of the Year, Customer Centricity in B2B, and Contact Center.
Furthermore, UKG earned several accolades for its award-winning culture and commitment to being a great place to work for all. In the first quarter:
- UKG earned a 100% score on the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Foundation’s 2023-2024 Corporate Equality Index (CEI), marking the third consecutive year it achieved a perfect score on the nation’s foremost benchmarking survey and report that measures corporate policies and practices related to LGBTQ+ workplace equality;
- TIME magazine named UKG one of the World’s Best Companies of 2023 on its list of organizations with great workplace cultures, continued business growth, and positive sustainability practices;
- Foundry’s Computerworld 2024 Best Places to Work in IT ranked UKG #3 in the world among large companies as well as #3 for Diversity, #7 for both Benefits and IT Growth, and #8 for Career Development; and
- UKG garnered four awards from employee review site Comparably in the categories of Compensation, Perks & Benefits, Happiness, and Work-Life Balance.
To continue on its journey towards being a great place to work for all, UKG also announced it has joined 10 other large, global organizations in a groundbreaking, three-year research initiative led by Great Place To Work® called The Great Transformation. CEOs, CHROs, and Chief Diversity Officers have committed to participating in targeted, data-backed pilot initiatives designed to unlock the full potential of all employees and improve organizational productivity, agility, resilience, and innovation.
Additionally, UKG was successful in actioning several capital markets activities in the first fiscal quarter of 2024, including its inaugural $2.5B bond offering, refinancing and extending maturities on its first lien and a portion of its second lien debt, and reducing the overall cost of debt. Simultaneously, UKG raised additional primary equity capital to fund M&A and growth, and bring new investors to the ownership group. The debt and equity capital will close during the second fiscal quarter.
“We are excited about what’s possible when we put who we are at the heart of everything we do to inspire greatness in ourselves and others,” continued Todd. “Inspired by our people and our purpose, we create meaningful relationships with our customers not only through a product vision that helps them become a great place to work, but also by leading their businesses through a cultural transformation. We are uniquely positioned to provide our customers with the technology and people insights that give both UKG and our customers a competitive advantage.”
About UKG
At UKG, our purpose is people. We are on a mission to inspire every organization to become a great place to work through HCM technology built for all. More than 80,000 customers across all sizes, industries, and geographies trust UKG HR, payroll, workforce management, and culture cloud solutions to drive great workplace experiences and make better, more confident people and business decisions. With the world’s largest collection of people data, work data, and culture data combined with rich experience using artificial intelligence in the service of people, we connect culture insights with business outcomes to show what’s possible when organizations invest in their people. To learn more, visit ukg.com.
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