What changed in this filing

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Item 1. Business

2021-02-22 compared with 2020-02-24 · 146 added, 126 removed, 70 unchanged (80% of the section changed)

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(the “company,” “TrueBlue,” “we,” “us” and “our”) is a leading provider of specialized workforce solutions that help clients achieve business growth and improve productivity.

In 2019, we connected approximately 724,000 people with work and served approximately 139,000 clients.

Our PeopleReady segment offers on-demand, industrial staffing, PeopleManagement segment offers contingent, on-site industrial staffing and commercial driver services, and PeopleScout segment offers recruitment process outsourcing (“RPO”) and managed service provider (“MSP”) solutions to a wide variety of industries.

We are headquartered in Tacoma, Washington.

We began operations in 1989, specializing in on-demand general labor staffing services with the objective of providing clients with talent and flexible workforce solutions to enhance the performance of their businesses.

We grew our on-demand, general labor staffing services through organic geographic expansion throughout the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico.

Commencing in 2004, we began expanding through acquisitions to provide a full range of blue-collar staffing solutions, and to help our clients be more productive with a reliable contingent labor workforce to rapidly respond to changing business needs.

In 2014, we expanded through acquisitions to provide complementary outsourced service offerings in permanent employment RPO and employer recruitment branding services, as well as outsourced management of clients’ contingent labor vendors.

We began operations in 1989 and are headquartered in Tacoma, Washington.

BUSINESS OVERVIEW

We report our business as three reportable segments described below and in Note 16:

Segment Information , to our consolidated financial statements found in Part II, Item 8 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

PeopleReady provides access to qualified workers in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico through a wide range of staffing solutions for on-demand contingent general and skilled labor.

PeopleReady connects people with work in a broad range of industries that include construction, manufacturing and logistics, warehousing and distribution, waste and recycling, energy, retail, hospitality, and others.

PeopleReady helped approximately 138,000 clients in fiscal 2019 be more productive by providing easy access to dependable, blue-collar contingent labor.

In 2020, we connected approximately 490,000 people with work and served approximately 99,000 clients.

Our operations are managed as three business segments:

PeopleReady, PeopleManagement and PeopleScout.

• PeopleReady offers on-demand, industrial and skilled trade staffing throughout the United States (“U.S.”), Canada and Puerto Rico.

• PeopleManagement offers contingent, on-site industrial staffing and commercial driver services throughout the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico.

• PeopleScout offers recruitment process outsourcing (“RPO”) and managed service provider (“MSP”) solutions to a wide variety of industries and geographies, primarily in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia.

PeopleReady provides access to qualified associates through a wide range of staffing solutions for on-demand contingent general and skilled labor.

PeopleReady helped approximately 98,000 clients in fiscal 2020 be flexible and more productive by providing easy access to dependable, blue-collar contingent labor.

Through our PeopleReady service line, we connected approximately 221,000 people with work in fiscal 2020.

We have a network of 629 branches across all 50 states, Canada and Puerto Rico.

Complementing our branch network is our mobile application, JobStack TM , which connects workers with jobs, creates a virtual exchange between our workers and clients, and allows our branch resources to expand their recruiting, sales and service delivery efforts.

JobStack is helping to competitively differentiate our services, expand our reach into new demographics, and improve both service delivery and work order fill rates as we lead our business into a digital future.

Complementing our branch network is our industry-leading mobile app, JobStack TM , which connects people with work 24/7.

This creates a virtual exchange between our associates and clients, and allows our branch resources to expand their recruiting, sales and service delivery efforts.

JobStack is competitively differentiating our services, expanding our reach into new demographics, and improving our service delivery and work order fill rates, as we embrace a digital future.

PeopleManagement provides recruitment and on-site management of a facility’s contingent industrial workforce.

In comparison with PeopleReady, services are larger in scale, longer in duration, and dedicated service teams are located at the client’s facility.

In comparison with PeopleReady, services are larger in scale and longer in duration, and dedicated service teams are located at the client’s facility.

We provide scalable solutions to meet the volume requirements of labor-intensive manufacturing, distribution and fulfillment facilities.

Our dedicated service teams work closely with on-site management as an integral part of the production and logistics process, managing all or a subset of the contingent labor for a facility or operational function.

Client on-site staffing is large-scale sourcing, screening, recruiting and management of the contingent workforce at a client’s facility in order to achieve faster hiring, lower total cost of workforce, increased safety and compliance, improved retention, greater volume flexibility, and enhanced strategic decision-making through robust reporting and analytics.

Client contracts are generally multi-year in duration and pricing is typically based on either an hourly or productivity-based cost per unit model.

The productivity-based model leverages a strategically engineered on-site solution to incentivize performance improvements in cost, quality and on-time delivery using a fixed price-per-unit approach.

Both models are impacted by factors such as geography, volume, job type, and degree of recruiting difficulty.

Effective December 30, 2019 (first day of our 2020 fiscal year), we combined our two on-site contingent industrial workforce operating segments, Staff Management | SMX and SIMOS Insourcing Solutions into one operating segment titled “On-site,” which continues to be reported under PeopleManagement.

On-site includes our branded service offerings for hourly and productivity-based industrial staffing solutions serving the same industries and customers.

Our on-site staffing solutions provide large-scale sourcing, screening, recruiting and management of the contingent workforce at a client’s facility in order to achieve faster hiring, lower total workforce cost, increase safety and compliance, improve retention, create greater volume flexibility, and enhance strategic decision-making through robust reporting and analytics.

Our On-Site business includes our Staff Management | SMX (“Staff Management”) and SIMOS Insourcing Solutions (“SIMOS”) branded service offerings, which provide hourly and productivity-based (cost per unit) pricing options for industrial staffing solutions.

Client contracts are generally multi-year in duration.

The productivity-based pricing leverages a strategically engineered on-site solution to incentivize performance improvements in cost, quality and on-time delivery using a fixed price-per-unit approach.

Both hourly and productivity-based pricing are impacted by factors such as geography, volume, job type, and degree of recruiting difficulty.

PeopleManagement also provides dedicated and contingent commercial truck drivers to the transportation and distribution industries through our Centerline Drivers (“Centerline”) brand.

Centerline delivers compliant drivers specifically matched to each client’s needs, allowing them to improve productivity, control costs and deliver improved service.

Effective March 12, 2018 , we divested the PlaneTechs, LLC business.

For additional information, see Note 2:

Acquisition and Divestiture , to our consolidated financial statements found in Part II, Item 8 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K .

PeopleScout provides RPO of end-to-end talent acquisition services from candidate sourcing and engagement through the onboarding of employees.

Centerline delivers drivers specifically matched to each client’s needs, allowing them to improve productivity, control costs, ensure compliance, and deliver improved service.

PeopleScout provides RPO services that manage talent solutions spanning the global economy and talent advisory capabilities supporting total workforce needs.

We are recognized as an industry leader for RPO services.

Our solution is highly scalable and flexible, which allows for outsourcing of all or a subset of skill categories across a series of recruitment, hiring and onboarding steps.

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PeopleScout also includes our MSP business, which manages our clients’ contingent labor programs including vendor selection, performance management, compliance monitoring and risk management.

As the client’s exclusive MSP, we have dedicated service delivery teams which work as an integrated partner with our client to increase the productivity of their contingent workforce program.

Effective June 12, 2018, we acquired TMP Holdings LTD (“TMP”) through our PeopleScout subsidiary.

Accordingly, the results associated with the acquisition are included in our PeopleScout operating segment.

TMP is a mid-sized RPO and employer branding practice operating in the United Kingdom, which is the second largest RPO market in the world.

This acquisition increases our ability to win multi-continent engagements by adding a physical presence in Europe, referenceable clients and employer branding capabilities.

F or additional information, see Note 2:

Acquisition and Divestiture , to our consolidated financial statements found in Part II, Item 8 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K .

As the client’s exclusive MSP, we have dedicated service delivery teams which work as an integrated partner with our clients to increase the productivity of their contingent workforce program.

INDUSTRY AND MARKET DYNAMICS

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This allows for rapid response to changes in business conditions through the ability to replace absent employees, fill new positions, and convert fixed or permanent labor costs to variable costs.

Staffing companies act as intermediaries in matching available contingent workers to employer work assignments.

assignments vary widely in duration, skill level and required experience.

Staffing companies act as intermediaries to match available associates with employer work assignments.

Work assignments vary widely in duration, skill level and required experience.

The staffing industry is large and highly fragmented with many competing companies.

No single company has a dominant share of the industry.

Staffing companies compete both to recruit and retain a supply of contingent workers, and to attract and retain clients who will employ these workers.

Staffing companies compete both to recruit and retain a supply of associates, and to attract and retain clients who will employ these associates.

Client demand for contingent staffing services is dependent on the overall strength of the economy and workforce flexibility trends.

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Historically, in periods of economic growth, the number of companies providing contingent workforce solutions has increased due to low barriers to entry whereas, during recessionary periods, the number of companies has decreased through consolidation, bankruptcies or other events.

Our solutions address the following key trends contributing to anticipated staffing growth:

Workforce flexibility:

The staffing industry continues to experience increased demand in relation to total job growth as demand for a flexible workforce continues to grow with competitive and economic pressures to reduce costs, meet dynamic seasonal demands and respond to rapidly changing market conditions.

Workforce productivity :

Companies are under increasing competitive pressures to improve productivity through workforce solutions that improve performance.

Worker preferences and access to talent:

Workers are demanding more flexibility in how, when and where they work as well as access to contingent work opportunities through mobile technology.

Baby boomers are leaving the workforce resulting in a talent shortage in what have traditionally been blue-collar trades.

The remaining workers are in greater demand and have more power to find the employment situation they want.

The human resource outsourcing industry involves transitioning various functions handled by internal human resources and labor procurement to outside service providers on a permanent or project basis.

Human resource departments are faced with increasingly complex operational and regulatory requirements, a tightening labor market, increased candidate expectations, an expanding talent technology landscape, and pressure to achieve efficiencies, which increase the need to migrate non-core functions to outsourced providers.

PeopleReady and PeopleManagement are leaders in industrial staffing services.

The human resource outsourcing industry, which includes our PeopleScout services, involves transitioning various functions handled by internal human resources and labor procurement to outside service providers on a permanent or project basis.

Human resource departments are faced with increasingly complex operational and regulatory requirements, increased candidate

expectations, an expanding talent technology landscape, and pressure to achieve efficiencies, which increase the need to migrate non-core functions to outsourced providers.

The human resource outsourcing industry includes RPO and MSP solutions which allow clients to more effectively find and engage high-quality talent, leverage talent acquisition technology, and scale their talent acquisition function to keep pace with changing business needs.

PeopleScout is a leader in RPO and MSP services.

Our solutions address the following key trends contributing to anticipated RPO growth:

RPO providers can add significant scalability to a company’s recruiting and hiring efforts, including accommodating seasonal, project or peak hiring needs without sacrificing quality, which enables clients to focus on their core business.

Providers also help clients increase efficiency and drive better performance by standardizing processes, reducing time to fill, and onboarding the best fit talent into a client’s organization.

Talent access and engagement:

As competition for qualified candidates increases, clients are relying on RPO providers to elevate the employer brand, build talent communities, create a world class candidate experience, leverage innovative talent technology, and facilitate effective recruitment marketing and candidate communication strategies.

Leveraging talent acquisition technology:

Our workforce solutions address the following key industry and market trends contributing to anticipated growth:

• Workforce flexibility and scalability:

Providers in the human resource outsourcing industry can add significant scalability to a company’s recruiting and hiring efforts, including accommodating seasonal, project or peak hiring needs without sacrificing quality.

These providers also help clients increase efficiency and drive lower overhead costs by standardizing processes, reducing time to fill, and onboarding the best fit talent into a client’s organization.

• Workforce productivity :

Companies are under increasing competitive pressures to improve productivity through workforce solutions that improve performance, and enable clients to focus on their core business.

• Leveraging technology to access talent:

Automation, artificial intelligence and machine learning are transforming talent acquisition.

The fragmented talent technology ecosystem is becoming more crowded, with significant investments flowing in and new technology coming online rapidly.

RPO providers are continuously identifying, evaluating and investing in new technology to leverage as part of their talent technology stack to best meet today’s candidate’s expectations of a personalized, mobile-optimized and efficient hiring process.

RPO providers are uniquely positioned to successfully integrate and deploy new talent technology based on the volume of candidate engagements they manage and their understanding of the talent landscape, thereby reducing the investments required to be made by clients.

Our solutions address the following key trends contributing to anticipated MSP growth:

Vendor consolidation and cost savings:

Vendor consolidation can achieve significant efficiencies through enhanced scale and cost advantages such as a single point of contact to manage multiple outside vendors, standardized contracts, consistency among contractors and processes, centralized invoicing and reporting, and maintaining robust performance tracking and analytics.

Access to talent:

An MSP solution allows a company access to a large variety of staffing vendors with the efficiency of working with one supplier.

An MSP can access numerous vendors to find the best talent at the best price more quickly, thereby delivering a better outcome for the client.

Compliance pressure :

Demand for contingent employee sourcing and workforce vendor management solutions is driven by increasing worker eligibility legislation and compliance monitoring to ensure correct worker classification in order to properly

address tax withholding, overtime, Social Security, unemployment and health care obligations to avoid government penalties and lawsuits.

Associates are demanding more flexibility in how, when and where they work, as well as access to contingent work opportunities through mobile technology.

Available associates are in high demand and have more power to find the employment situation they desire.

As competition for qualified candidates increases, clients are relying on service providers to elevate the employer brand, build talent communities, create a world-class candidate experience, leverage innovative talent technology, and facilitate effective recruitment marketing and candidate communication strategies.

BUSINESS STRATEGY

Market leadership through organic growth of our specialized workforce solutions

Our clients have a variety of challenges in running their businesses, many of which are unique to the industries in which they operate, their competitive pressures and business performance.

Our clients have a variety of challenges in running their businesses, each of which are unique to the competitive pressures of their industry.

We are industry leaders dedicated to staffing solutions tailored to our clients’ needs and the industries in which they operate.

Our differentiated solutions keep pace with their changing needs and are as follows:

We will continue to evaluate opportunities to expand our market presence for specialized blue-collar staffing services, expand our geographical reach through new physical locations, expand use of existing locations to provide the full range of blue-collar staffing services, and dispatch our contingent workers to areas without a physical location.

We ensure our differentiated solutions keep pace with the changing needs of our clients through the following:

• We continue to evaluate opportunities to expand our market presence for specialized blue-collar staffing services, expand our geographical reach, provide a broad range of blue-collar staffing services, and dispatch our associates to areas without a physical location.

Continued investment in specialized sales, recruiting and service expertise will create a more seamless experience for our clients to access all our services with more comprehensive solutions to enhance their performance and our growth.

Our service lines offer complementary workforce solutions with unique value propositions to meet our clients’ demand for talent.

We will continue to invest in technology that increases our ability to attract more clients and employees as well as reduce the cost of delivering our services.

We are committed to leveraging technology to improve the experience of our contingent workers, permanent employee candidates and clients.

Our technological innovations make it easier for our clients to do business with us, and easier to connect contingent workers with work opportunities and candidates to permanent employment opportunities.

We are making significant investments in online and mobile applications to improve the access, speed and ease of connecting our clients with high-quality contingent and permanent employee workforce solutions.

Complementing our PeopleReady branch network is our JobStack platform which connects our contingent workers and clients through real time 24/7 digital exchange with easy-to-use mobile apps.

JobStack currently fills a job every nine seconds and enables our branches to expand their recruiting, sales and service delivery efforts.

Currently 87% of PeopleReady’s workers use JobStack to find on-demand work.

In 2018, we introduced JobStack to our clients, and we ended 2019 with approximately 21,300 registered clients using JobStack to order workers, rate their performance, and approve their time worked.

In 2019, approximately 48% of the orders filled by our PeopleReady branches were digitally filled through JobStack.

We continue to expand functionality to further leverage this technology to transform our business, and further enhance our client and worker retention.

Complementing our PeopleScout dedicated service delivery teams is our mobile-enabled cloud-based proprietary platform, Affinix, used for sourcing, screening and delivering a permanent workforce.

Our business segments offer complementary workforce solutions with unique value propositions to meet our clients’ demands for talent.

• We continue to invest in technology that increases our ability to attract more clients, employees and associates as well as reduce the cost of delivering our services.

We are committed to leveraging technology to improve the experience of our associates, clients and permanent employees.

Our technological innovations make it easier for our clients to do business with us, and easier to connect associates with work opportunities and candidates to permanent employment opportunities.

We are making significant investments in online and mobile apps to improve the access, speed and ease of connecting our clients with high-quality contingent and permanent employee workforce solutions.

◦ Complementing our PeopleReady branch network is our JobStack platform which connects our associates and clients through a real-time 24/7 digital exchange with an easy-to-use mobile app.

JobStack enables our branches to expand their recruiting, sales and service delivery efforts.

JobStack is helping to competitively differentiate our services, expand our reach into new demographics, and improve both service delivery and work order fill rates as we embrace a digital future.

Currently 90% of PeopleReady’s associates use JobStack to find on-demand work.

During 2020, we introduced new digital onboarding features that cut application time in half, increasing the percentage of applicants put to work.

We introduced JobStack to our clients in 2018 and by the end of 2020 over 26,000 of our clients were using JobStack to place orders for associates, rate their performance, and approve their time worked, an increase of 23%, compared to the prior year.

During fiscal 2020, PeopleReady dispatched approximately 2.9 million shifts via JobStack and achieved a digital fill rate of 53%, compared to approximately 3.7 million shifts and a digital fill rate of 48% in the prior year.

We are focused on driving growth in the number of heavy client users of JobStack.

A heavy client user is a client who has 50 or more touches on JobStack per month.

Heavy client users have consistently posted better year-over-year growth rates compared to all other PeopleReady clients.

We more than doubled our heavy client user mix

from 11% in 2019 to 24% in 2020.

We continue to expand functionality to further leverage this technology to transform our business and enhance our client and associate retention.

◦ Complementing our PeopleManagement dedicated on-site contingent workforce management is StaffTrack TM .

StaffTrack is a proprietary technology platform that enables us to recruit and connect the best candidates with on-site assignments.

StaffTrack has robust, real-time analytics that drive dynamic supply chain and workforce strategies, which allow clients faster, more precise hiring and help drive operational improvements and efficiencies.

The recently launched StaffTrack associate mobile app provides associates the ability to search for a job, view their schedules, pick-up shifts, and receive real-time notifications.

We continue to expand functionality within StaffTrack to further enhance our client and associate experience.

◦ Complementing our PeopleScout dedicated service delivery teams is our technology platform, Affinix, used for sourcing, screening and delivering a permanent workforce.

Affinix creates a consumer-like candidate experience and streamlines the sourcing process.

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We will continue to invest in Affinix to further improve our ability to quickly and efficiently source the most attractive talent at the best price.

We are recognized as an industry leader for RPO services.

The RPO industry is in the early majority stage of its adoption cycle, and therefore, we believe it has higher growth potential.

We have a differentiated service that leverages innovative technology for high-volume sourcing and dedicated client service teams for connecting people to opportunities.

• Our RPO services leverage innovative technology for high-volume sourcing and dedicated client service teams for connecting people to opportunities.

We have a track record of helping our clients reduce the cost of hiring, add significant scalability to recruiting and hiring, and access numerous sources to quickly find the best talent, thereby delivering a better outcome for the client.

Companies are facing rapidly changing employment demographics, a shortage of talent, and dynamic changes to how people connect with work opportunities.

Our solution addresses these growing challenges.

We expanded our services with the TMP acquisition, which increases our ability to win multi-continent engagements by adding a physical presence in Europe, referenceable clients, and employer branding capabilities.

Our MSP solution is focused primarily on domestic middle-market companies with a growing dependence on contingent labor.

Our managed service provider solutions have enabled our clients to efficiently source, engage, fulfill, measure and manage all categories of contingent and externally sourced labor.

We believe our MSP solution is uniquely positioned to manage the full range of our clients’ labor needs.

Growth through strategic acquisitions

Strategic acquisitions continue to be a key growth strategy with a focus on globalizing our RPO services.

We believe we have a core competence in assessing, valuing and integrating acquisitions culminating in higher shareholder returns.

We are excited about the future of human resource outsourcing and believe we can continue to create shareholder value through acquisitions, which expand our service offerings in high-growth markets, enhance our use of technology to better serve our clients, and increase our own efficiency.

• Our MSP business is focused primarily on managing the contingent labor programs of domestic, middle-market companies with a growing dependence on contingent labor.

This enables our clients to efficiently source, engage, fulfill, measure and manage all categories of contingent and externally-sourced labor.

We are uniquely positioned to manage the full range of our clients’ labor needs.

Our clients range from small and medium-sized businesses to Fortune 100 companies.

During fiscal 2019 , we served approximately 139,000 clients in industries including construction, energy, manufacturing, warehousing and distribution, waste and recycling, energy, transportation, retail, hospitality, general labor and many more.

During fiscal 2020, we served approximately 99,000 clients in industries including construction, energy, manufacturing, warehousing and distribution, waste and recycling, energy, transportation, retail, hospitality, and general labor.

Our ten largest clients accounted for 19.0% of total revenue for fiscal 2020, 16.5% for fiscal 2019 and 16.1% for fiscal 2018.

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No single client represented more than 10.0% of total company revenue for fiscal 2020, 2019 or 2018.

HUMAN CAPITAL RESOURCES

We believe our success depends on our ability to attract, develop and retain talented employees.

The skills, experience and industry knowledge of our employees significantly benefit our operations and performance.

As of December 27, 2020, we employed approximately 5,200 full-time equivalent employees.

Contingent workers

We recruit contingent workers daily so that we can be responsive to the planned and unplanned needs of the clients we serve.

We attract our pool of contingent workers through our proprietary mobile applications, online resources, extensive internal databases, advertising, job fairs and various other methods.

We identify the skills, knowledge, abilities and personal characteristics of a contingent worker and match their competencies and capabilities to the client’s requirements.

Our employees are in eight countries with approximately 81% located in the U.S.

None of our permanent employees are represented by a labor union.

We have not experienced work stoppages and believe that our employee relations are in good standing, as evidenced by our employee engagement survey results.

Our Compensation Committee of the Board of Directors (the “Board”) regularly receives reports regarding the progress on our key human capital initiatives.

These reports inform discussions regarding the development, retention, and engagement of our employees.

Some of our key human capital management initiatives are discussed below.

Culture and engagement

We believe a strong corporate culture and employee engagement is key to attracting and retaining talented employees.

To assess and improve our culture, we routinely utilize an independent third party to measure how favorably our employees view our organizational culture and engagement.

These surveys include corporate culture assessments, as well as real-time feedback on employee engagement and employee-managment relations.

The results of these surveys are reported and distributed throughout management and the Board, and are used to create actionable plans to improve employee engagement and retention.

Our September 2020 survey returned an engagement score of 74, which exceeds the benchmark set by the independent survey provider of 67, and is an improvement of 1 point from our pre-COVID-19 survey completed in February 2020.

Developing our people

In order to continually attract and retain talented employees, we focus on personal development and career growth through our full performance program.

Our full performance strategy for employees incorporates career planning and development, continuous learning, and creating internal career opportunities.

We provide a range of training courses to our employees to enable more effective onboarding, work performance, compliance and advancing corporate initiatives.

This strategy supports our intent to foster a culture that enables all employees to realize their full professional potential and cultivates a qualified bench of future leaders.

Employees create individual development plans, identify specific skill gaps and development goals, and chart a path for career growth.

We aim to strengthen skills that transfer across roles, business segments and functions.

Managers meet regularly with employees to discuss their plans, and yearly assessments provide a formal process for tracking progress.

This standardized process also ensures employees in similar positions are similarly evaluated.

Health, safety and wellness

We provide our employees and their families with flexible health and wellness programs, including competitive benefits.

Our benefits include health, dental and vision insurance, health savings and flexible spending accounts, paid time off, family leave, and family care resources.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we implemented significant changes to ensure the health and safety of our employees.

These changes included an investment in the technology necessary to allow the majority of our support center employees to work from home and a reimbursement for certain expenses associated with moving to home-based work.

Through the distribution and provision of necessary personal protective equipment, the continuing use of education and awareness, and changes to our operating processes, we are working to ensure our offices remain open and a safe place for our employees.

Diversity, equity and inclusion

We are dedicated to fostering, recognizing, and embracing diversity at every level of the organization.

In January 2021, we hired a Vice President of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion who reports directly to the Chief Executive Officer.

We have assembled a diverse internal employee workforce, and are committed to making further improvements.

For example, today, women hold nearly 50% of positions at the director level and above.

We have a Diversity & Inclusion Council (the “Council”) which designs and launches initiatives that advance acceptance and inclusion.

The Council reports regularly to executive leadership, who brief our Board periodically through the year.

The Council also sponsors training to build diversity and inclusion awareness, and supports Employee Resource Groups (“ERGs”), which are employee-led groups that create opportunities for employees to collaborate based on shared characteristics or life experiences to support each other for enhanced career and personal development.

We have ERGs that include the African American Resource Connection, Be Proud (LGBTQ+), Hispanic Opportunity and Latinx Awareness, Women in Leadership, Europe, Middle East, and Africa Developing Female Talent Team, and Veteran Employee Talent Society.

Through these experiences, we learn how our differences build stronger teams and how our histories reveal similarities.

Associates are the people we put to work for our clients.

We attract our pool of associates through our proprietary mobile apps, online resources, extensive internal databases, advertising, job fairs, community-based organizations and various other methods.

We identify the skills, knowledge, abilities and personal characteristics of our associates and match their competencies and capabilities to our client’s requirements.

This enables our clients to obtain immediate value by placing a highly productive employee on the job site.

We use a variety of proprietary programs and methods for identifying and assessing the skill level of our contingent workers when selecting a particular individual for a specific assignment and retaining those workers for future assignments.

We believe that our programs and methods enable us to offer a higher quality of service by increasing productivity, decreasing turnover, reducing absenteeism and improving worker safety.

Workers come to us because of the flexibility we offer to fill a short-term financial need and/or provide longer-term contingent flexible labor opportunities.

Workers may be assigned to different jobs and job sites, and their assignments could last for a few hours or extend for several weeks or many months.

We provide our workers meaningful work and the opportunity to improve their skills.

We provide a bridge to permanent, full-time employment for thousands of contingent workers each year.

We are considered the legal employer of our workers, and laws regulating the employment relationship are applicable to our operations.

We consider our relationships with our contingent workers to be good.

We remain focused and committed to worker safety.

We have developed an integrated risk management program that focuses on loss analysis, education, and safety improvement programs to reduce our risk exposure and operational costs.

We regularly analyze our workers’ compensation claims to identify trends.

This allows us to focus our resources on those areas that may have the greatest impact on us, price our services appropriately, and adjust our sales and operational approach in these areas.

We have also developed educational materials for distribution to our clients and workers, as well as client site visits to address specific safety risks unique to their industry.

We use a variety of proprietary programs and methods for identifying and assessing the skill level of our associates when selecting a particular individual for a specific assignment and retaining those associates for future assignments.

We believe that our programs and methods enable us to offer a higher quality of service by increasing productivity, decreasing turnover, reducing absenteeism and improving associate safety.

Associates come to us because of the flexibility we offer to fill a short-term financial need and/or provide longer-term contingent flexible labor opportunities.

Associates may be assigned to different jobs and job sites, and their assignments could last for a few hours or extend for several weeks or months.

We provide our associates meaningful work and the opportunity to improve their skills.

We provide a bridge to permanent, full-time employment for thousands of associates each year.

We are considered the legal employer of our associates, and laws regulating the employment relationship are applicable to our operations.

We consider our relationships with our associates to be good.

We remain focused and committed to associate safety.

We have developed an integrated risk management program that focuses on loss analysis, education, and safety improvement programs to reduce the safety risks that may be encountered by our associates.

We continuously monitor injuries to our associates at our customer job sites and report throughout management on our internally developed Worker Safety Ratio score in order to monitor injuries across regions, industries, and brands.

We regularly analyze this Worker Safety Ratio to identify trends that allow us to focus our safety resources on the types of jobs that may lead to more injuries.

We distribute educational materials to our clients and associates, and perform client site visits to address specific safety risks unique to their industry or job site.

In this unprecedented environment due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we have provided masks for all our associates, distributed infrared thermometers for branches and job sites, established a resource center for staff, and implemented drive-in job fairs.

Contingent staffing services

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We also experience competition from internet-based companies providing a variety of flexible workforce solutions.

The strongest staffing services competitor in a particular market is a company with established relationships and a track record of meeting the client’s needs.

Competition exists in attracting clients as well as qualified contingent workers.

Competitive forces have historically limited our ability to raise our prices to immediately and fully offset the increased costs of doing business, some of which include increased contingent worker wages, costs for workers’ compensation, unemployment insurance and health care.

The most significant competitive factors are price, ability to promptly fill client orders, success in meeting clients’ expectations of recruiting contingent workers, and appropriately addressing client service issues.

We believe we derive a competitive advantage from our service history, our specialized approach in serving the industries of our clients, and our mobile application, JobStack, which connects workers with jobs, and creates a virtual exchange between our workers and clients.

JobStack is helping to competitively differentiate our services, expand our reach into new demographics, and improve our recruiting, sales and service delivery.

The strongest staffing services competitor in a particular market is a company with established relationships and a track record of meeting the clients’ needs.

Competition exists in attracting clients as well as qualified associates.

Competitive forces have historically limited our ability to raise our prices to immediately and fully offset the increased costs of doing business, some of which include increased associate wages, workers’ compensation costs, unemployment insurance and health care.

The most significant competitive factors are price, ability to promptly fill client orders, success in meeting clients’ expectations of recruiting associates, and appropriately addressing client service issues.

We believe we derive a competitive advantage from our service history, our specialized approach in serving the industries of our clients, and our mobile apps, which connect associates with jobs and create virtual exchanges between our associates and clients.

Our PeopleReady JobStack and PeopleManagement StaffTrack mobile apps are helping to competitively differentiate our services, expand our reach into new demographics, and improve our recruiting, sales and service delivery.

Our national presence, industry specialization, investment in technology, and proprietary systems and processes, together with specialized programs focused on worker safety, risk management, and legal and regulatory compliance are key differentiators from many of our competitors.

Human resource outsourcing

The strongest competitors are companies specializing in RPO services and business process outsourcing companies that also offer RPO services.

No one provider dominates the market.

Our strongest competitors are companies who specialize in RPO services, as well as companies who offer broader human resource outsourcing solutions, which include RPO services.

No single provider dominates the market.

Competition also includes internal human resource departments that have not or are not considering outsourcing.

The most significant competitive factors for RPO services are the ability to reduce client cost by deploying an RPO solution and reducing the internal human resource cost structure of our clients.

The most significant competitive factors for RPO services are the ability to attract top talent, reduce cost per hire, improve retention, deploy best in breed technology solutions, and improve employment branding.

Important factors for success in RPO services include the ability to add significant scalability to a client’s recruiting and hiring efforts, including accommodating seasonal and irregular hiring;

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and the ability to source the most attractive talent at the best price.

Our tailored solutions, client partnership, proprietary technology and service delivery are key differentiators from many of our competitors.

Our tailored solutions, client partnerships, proprietary technologies and service delivery are key differentiators from many of our competitors.

We own several trademarks that are registered with the U.S.

Patent and Trademark Office, the European Union Community Trademark Office and numerous individual country trademark offices.

CYCLICAL AND SEASONAL NATURE OF OUR BUSINESS

The workforce solutions business has historically been cyclical, often acting as an indicator of both economic downturns and upswings.

Clients tend to use contingent workers to supplement their existing workforce and generally hire permanent workers when long-term demand is expected to increase.

Clients tend to use a contingent workforce to supplement their existing workforce and generally hire permanent employees when long-term demand is expected to increase.

As a consequence, our revenue from services tends to increase quickly when the economy begins to grow.

Conversely, our revenue from services decreases quickly when the economy begins to weaken and thus contingent staff positions are eliminated, permanent hiring is frozen and turnover replacement diminishes.

Conversely, our revenue from services decreases quickly when the economy begins to weaken and contingent staff positions are eliminated, permanent hiring is frozen and turnover replacement diminishes.

Our business experiences seasonal fluctuations for contingent staffing services.

Demand is lower during the first and second quarters, due in part to limitations to outside work during the winter months and slowdown in manufacturing and logistics after the holiday season.

Our working capital requirements are primarily driven by contingent worker payroll and client accounts receivable.

Since receipts from clients lag payroll to contingent workers, working capital requirements increase substantially in periods of growth.

Demand for contingent labor peaks during the third quarter for outdoor work and the fourth quarter for manufacturing, assembly, warehousing, distribution and logistics for the holiday season.

Our working capital requirements are primarily driven by our associate payroll and client accounts receivable.

Since receipts from clients lag payroll to associates, working capital requirements increase substantially in periods of growth.

Our services are subject to a variety of complex federal and state laws and regulations.

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Compared sentence by sentence after normalising whitespace, quotation marks, case and digits, so re-formatting and restated figures do not read as changed language. Wording changes appear as one removal and one addition. The current filing and the prior one are authoritative.

What changed 10-K

Item 1. Business