Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the preliminary results for the year ending thirtieth of June 2024 conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. Alternatively, you may submit your question via the webcast. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Dirk Hahn, CEO. Please go ahead.
Good morning, and welcome, everyone. I'm Dirk Hahn, Chief Executive, and here with our CFO, James Hilton, to present our financial year 24 results. As you know, I became CEO on September first, and while it has been a challenging first year, our senior team of leaders and I have firmly embraced these challenges. Three key areas that we will cover throughout the presentation today are: implementing our focus, strategy, and driving enhanced operational rigor, closely managing our cost base, and actively shifting our business mix into more resilient, higher value areas where we see sustainably higher productivity levels driving stronger profitability. So while we are not satisfied with our financial performance last year, we are firmly focused on ensuring that we benefit strongly from market recovery.
When the recovery comes, I remain confident we can return to and then exceed our prior peak profits of GBP 250 million. Right up front, I would like to sincerely thank all our expert Hays colleagues for the deep commitment they show every day. I will begin on our operating performance and decisive actions we have taken. James will then cover our financial performance and our trading outlook. Before we take your questions, I will give you an update on implementing and delivering our focus strategy, which we set out in February. I'm determined to make Hays a far more resilient business, and despite current market challenges, I believe our future is bright. During financial year 24, client and candidate confidence reduced and time to hire extended.
We estimate it is taking about 15%-20% longer on average to secure a placement, although in terms of input activity, our teams are as busy as ever. This creates a material drag on the average number of placements per consultant and our profitability. But as we have previously highlighted, we have tried to balance cost reductions with protecting our strong positions in key markets. Group fees were down 12% to GBP 1.1 billion, and this inevitably drove negative operational leverage, meaning operating profit declined by 43%, working day adjusted to GBP 105.1 million. Our profit decline was magnified by the impact of lower average hours worked per contractor in Germany, which I will cover later.
As fees particularly slowed at the end of H1 and H2, most of the three-year reduction flowed straight to profit and contributed to conversion rate down 580 basis points year-on-year to 9.4%. Our cash generation was excellent, with cash conversion of 107%, and we ended the year with a robust cash position of GBP 57 million. As a sign of confidence in our strategy, the board has proposed an unchanged final dividend of 2.05 pence per share, which would make our full-year dividend 3 pence. Given tough markets, we have taken difficult but decisive decisions to manage our costs. Group headcount is down 15% overall. The largest reductions were in markets seeing the toughest conditions, such as Australia, the USA and China.
We restructured operations in several countries, better aligning operations to market opportunities, delayering management, and reducing operating costs. We accelerated our back-office efficiency programs, reducing non-consultant heads, and these programs are ongoing. In doing this, we incurred 42 million GBP of exceptional costs. However, these actions have already driven approximately 30 million GBP of structural annual cost savings. And as James will outline later, we expect a further 30 million GBP of structural cost savings per annum within three years. So given how challenging conditions have been, I believe we have achieved a balance between managing our costs in the short term, while positioning Hays to benefit from recovery once markets stabilize and inflect. Turning to our countries, our largest market of Germany saw a fee decrease of 7%, with operating profit down 27%, working day adjusted at a conversion rate of 20.1%.
After a relatively resilient H1, conditions slowed sharply in H2, with our activity catching up with the negative GDP in Germany, which has been evident for the last two years. Clients increasingly looked to control costs with lower volumes. We also saw lower average hours worked per contractor, which led to a GBP 16 million negative fee and profit impact in H2. Temp and contracting saw fees down 6% working day adjusted. Average volumes were sequentially stable in H1, but weakened through the year, including Q4, down 6%. Perm declined 5%, but with Q4 down 20% as client demand reduced and placement processes lengthened. After several years of significantly outperforming the market, we consolidated our market-leading share in Germany. Fees with MSP clients were flat, demonstrating greater resilience.
Sector-wise, engineering declined 3%, with automotive increasingly tough, but better performance in energy and renewables, where we have several MSP contracts. That said, utility companies tend to have lower average hours and contributed to the hours impact. Our largest sector, technology, decreased by 12%. Consultant headcount decreased by 9% year-on-year, including a 10% reduction year-on-year in H2. Also, we took significant actions to restructure the business, particularly in H2. Overall, we are balancing cost savings in Germany with ensuring we fully benefit from recovery when it comes. Moving to the U.K. and Ireland, where conditions were challenging as the wider economy experienced a recession. We also saw a slowdown towards the end of our financial year in the run into the general election. Fees decreased by 15% and profit was down 78%. Temp fees declined by 13%.
Perm was particularly tough and slowed through the year, with fees down 17%. We acted to reduce costs, with consultant headcount down 16% year-on-year or down 27% versus our peak levels in September 2022. We also closed 10 offices and made improvements to our temp operating model. By specialism, technology decreased by 29% versus a tough growth comparator. C&P decreased by 12% and A&F by 13%. Despite tough market conditions, we maintained our market share in U.K. and Ireland. Significant actions were also taken to restructure the U.K. and Ireland business appropriately for market conditions, particularly in H2. Our actions will help to increase conversion rate when markets recover. Conditions in ANZ have also been difficult for some time, and markets further slowed through the year, especially in Perm. Fees declined by 20%, with operating profit down 61%.
We restructured the business under new leadership, focusing on improving consultant productivity, driving operational efficiencies, and aligning management capacity to market conditions. Consultant headcount decreased 32% year-on-year. Temp fees fell by 16%, driven by volume down 17%, including ongoing lower public sector activity. Perm fees were down 28%. Most specialisms traded broadly in line with the overall average, including C&P, our largest ANZ business, down 24%. Although conditions in ANZ remain challenging, we maintained our market share in Australia, and our management team decisive actions and increased rigor are improving our operational performance, and productivity increased by 1% year-on-year. We also end our financial year 2025 with positive conversion rate momentum. In our Rest of World division, fees declined by 11% overall, with operating profit down 46%.
Lower profit was driven by slowing markets in EMEA and losses in China and the Americas in H1. However, following restructures, we delivered consistent profitability in both the USA and China in H2. Temp fees were resilient and flat overall, with perm down 17%. Regionally, EMEA decreased by 7%, and as a result of the slowdown in fees, we reduced headcount in several countries in H2. France, fees fell 6%, with Poland down 26%. Although Portugal and Italy delivered records up 10% and 8%. Overall, the Americas declined 21% and made modest profits after loss-making H1. Asia decreased by 13%, and overall, we ended the year with broadly stable conditions. A key part of our focus strategy is delivering at least 25% conversion rates in each country.
Given many markets are currently facing cyclical pressure, we will give our businesses an appropriate time to improve their profitability. So while we are not satisfied with our overall Rest of World profitability, we are confident our actions will improve performance, particularly in our Americas and Asian focus countries, where productivity is currently increasing. I will now hand over to James, who will present our detailed financials.
Thank you, Dirk, and good morning, everyone. FY 2024 was a year of significant operational and strategic transition against the backdrop of increasingly challenging market conditions. Client and candidate confidence decreased through the year, driving lower placement volumes and a material lengthening of time to hire. Summarizing our financial performance, on a like-for-like basis, net fees decreased by 12% to GBP 1.114 billion, with pre-exceptional operating profit down 46% to GBP 105.1 million. FY 2024 cash conversion was good at 107%, and our balance sheet remains strong, finishing the year with GBP 56.8 million of net cash after paying out GBP 83.3 million in dividends and completing our GBP 12.3 million in treasury share buyback. Moving on to the income statement. Turnover decreased by 6%, with net fees down 12%.
The difference between the headline and like-for-like growth rates was primarily the strengthening of sterling versus the Australian dollar. Overall, FX movements decreased net fees and operating profits by GBP 28.7 million and GBP 4.2 million, respectively. Pre-exceptional earnings per share was 4.03 pence, a 53% decrease versus prior year, driven by 47% lower reported operating profits, higher net finance charge, and a higher tax rate of 32.4%. Moving on to the performances of perm and temp. Perm fees decreased by 17%, driven by volumes down 25% as job inflow decreased and hiring processes extended through FY 2024. This was partially offset by good growth in our average perm fee of 8%. Temp fees were more resilient and decreased by 8% year-on-year.
Temp volumes decreased by 7%, with a further 2% impact, or GBP 16 million, fee reduction from lower average hours worked per contractor in Germany. We saw a 1% positive impact from an increase in average placement rate, partially offset by a 40 basis points reduction in our underlying temp margin. And as the chart in the top right corner shows, our actions to drive pricing and focus on higher value placements increased group fees by GBP 54.9 million. This slide sets out our year-on-year operating profit bridge and provides additional color on our cost control actions. Starting with FY 2023 profit of GBP 197 million, we deduct the negative exchange impact of GBP 4.2 billion and the 12% decrease in our like-for-like fees of GBP 152.3 million, explained on the previous slide.
Like-for-like admin expenses decreased by 6% or 64.6 million, driven by the following: a 59.6 million reduction in payroll costs resulting from the actions taken to reduce consultant, operational, and back office headcount in the year, which reduced total group headcount by circa 1,900 employees. A 19.9 million decrease in commission and bonus payments, driven by the declining fees and overall financial performance. Partially offsetting this, our average 3% group pay rise in July 2023 increased payroll costs by 18.6 million. Our overhead costs decreased by 5 million, including lower advertising and travel and entertainment costs. Property costs reduced by 1.6 million year-on-year as we consolidated and reduced our overall office footprint, net of lease indexation increases. And the increase in other costs was primarily driven by insurance and IT-related costs.
Since our FY 2023 prelim results, our actions have reduced our cost per period by circa GBP 5 million, from around GBP 87 million to around GBP 82 million, equating to an annualized group cost saving of circa GBP 60 million. Of these savings, around GBP 30 million arose from the reduction in consultant headcount as we managed our consultant capacity through the year. A further approximately GBP 30 million of savings is more structural and resulted from the operational and back office restructurings undertaken across the business to better align to market opportunities, improve efficiencies, and save cost. Our Q4 FY 2024 cost base was around GBP 81 million. Following our annual pay reviews in July 2024, our current cost base is approximately GBP 82 million per period.
In addition, our ongoing actions to transform our technology and finance functions will continue to drive efficiencies and deliver additional cost saves going forward of circa GBP 30 million per annum by FY 2027. These include greater use of group shared service centers and outsourcing arrangements. During the year, we incurred an exceptional cost of GBP 80 million, which comprised two parts. Firstly, a GBP 42.2 million charge related to the restructuring of the business operations of several countries to better align operations to market opportunities and to reduce cost. This restructuring exercise led to the redundancy of a number of employees, including senior and operational management and back office positions. In addition, we closed several business units and consolidated a number of our offices around the world, including 10 offices in the U.K.
We estimate these restructuring costs will result in circa GBP 30 million per annum longer-term cost saves, which are included in the overall approximately GBP 60 million annualized cost saves. Additionally, we incurred a non-cash exceptional charge of GBP 37.8 million. GBP 22.5 million related to the impairment of intangible assets, following the initiation of a group-wide project to transform our IT infrastructure to better support the operations of the business. The remaining GBP 15.3 million non-cash exceptional charge, previously announced at H1, resulted from the partial impairment of goodwill relating to our 2014 U.S. Veredus acquisition. The remaining Veredus goodwill balance at the thirtieth of June was GBP 7.2 million. I've explained how challenging market conditions, and in particular, the lengthening of time to hire, reduced fees in FY 2024.
Despite our decisive cost management, this fee decline drove negative profit leverage, which directly impacted our operating profit result. Our cost actions limited the drop through of lower reported fees to profit to 51%, with fees down GBP 181 million and profit down GBP 92 million. Overall, our group conversion rate decreased by 580 basis points to 9.4%, or 9.7% adjusted for working days. Moving on to interest and tax. Our net finance charge for the year increased to GBP 10.4 million, driven by a GBP 1.3 million charge on the defined benefit pension scheme obligations, and in FY 2023 was a credit of GBP 1.1 million and is non-cash.
In addition, we saw 0.8 million increase in IFRS 16 interest, again non-cash, and a 2.3 million increase in net bank interest, driven by higher average interest rates. We expect a finance charge of around 10 million in FY 2025, broadly in line with this year. Our pre-exceptional effective tax rate increased by 440 basis points to 32.4%, driven by the geographic mix of operating profit, and notably the impact of Germany, which has one of our highest corporation tax rates and represented 65% of group profits in the year. Unless our geographic profit mix changes materially, we expect our FY 2025 tax rate will remain at around 32%. We delivered a strong cash performance in the year, with cash from operations of 112.3 million.
This represented a conversion of pre-exceptional operating profit into operating cash of 107%. Our working capital outflow was GBP 16.5 million, driven by an increase in debtor days to 36 days. This was due to greater resilience in our enterprise client business and relative resilience in Germany and EMEA, each of which have longer payment terms than the group average. From this, we paid tax of GBP 26.4 million, which included some prepayments, cash interest of GBP 4 million, and we incurred cash restructuring payments of GBP 22.9 million. And we expect the restructuring exceptional to drive a cash outflow of GBP 17.8 million in FY 2025. Overall, this led to free cash flow of GBP 59 million. On the right-hand side, we detail how we use the cash generated.
The main items were the payment of GBP 35.7 million of special dividends and GBP 47.6 million of core dividends, the purchase of GBP 12.3 million in treasury shares, with that scheme now complete, CapEx of GBP 23.4 million, and pension deficit payments of GBP 18.2 million. Our FY 2025 CapEx guidance remains at circa GBP 30 million, slightly higher than FY 2024, as we undertake a number of technology projects. Despite the increase in debtor days, we ended the year with cash of GBP 56.8 million. Although DSOs increased by three days in FY 2024, they remain below pre-pandemic levels, and our age debt profile and bad debt write-offs are both at historically low levels. On this slide, we compare the balance sheet of June 2024 with June 2023.
The main movements were our cash position reduced by GBP 78.8 million, as outlined earlier, and our defined benefit surplus decreased by GBP 6.3 million, driven by lower expected returns from scheme assets and a decrease in the discount rate, partially offset by company contributions. Our priorities for free cash flow remain unchanged, namely to fund the group's investment and development, maintain a strong balance sheet, deliver a sustainable, progressive and appropriate core dividend, and to return surplus cash to shareholders. Given confidence in our strategy and our strong financial position, the board has proposed a final dividend of 2.05 pence per share, delivering a full year core dividend of three pence per share, or GBP 47.5 million, in line with prior year.
As a reminder, our policy for returning surplus cash to shareholders is based on distributing all funds above a cash buffer of GBP 100 million at each financial year-end, through an appropriate combination of special dividends and share buybacks, subject to the economic outlook. As our closing net cash position was GBP 56.8 million, there will be no surplus cash return for FY 2024. In summary, fees declined by 12%, with markets increasingly challenging through the year. Volumes declined in both temp and perm, although we saw good increase in average fee pricing in both temp and perm, as we targeted the most skill-short and higher value areas of perm and temp markets. Our decisive actions reduced costs through the year by an annualized circa GBP 60 million, half of which will be structural savings, and which drove the GBP 42.2 million restructuring exceptional charge.
Our focus on operational rigor and careful management of our capacity meant that our average productivity per consultant was up 1% year-on-year, and increased sequentially in H2, despite our volume productivity being down significantly. In addition, our ongoing back-office efficiency programs, particularly in our technology and finance functions, we now expect to deliver circa GBP 30 million in annual savings by the end of FY 2027. We continue to maintain a strong balance sheet, underpinned by good levels of cash conversion, and I'm confident that our actions have better positioned Hays to benefit from the market recovery when it comes. Turning to current trading, July and August to date have been in line with our expectations. As normal, September is our largest trading month of the quarter, and it is currently too early to assess trends.
Overall, temp and contracting volumes are in line with Q4 FY 2024, after adjusting for normal seasonal trends, and are circa 8% down year-on-year. In perm, as reported at Q4, weaker activity levels have resulted in more subdued summer trading than normal in Germany, U.K. and Ireland, and in EMEA. Perm trading in the Americas, Asia, and ANZ remains stable overall. Overall, given our focus on driving consultant productivity in recent quarters, we expect group consultant headcount will remain broadly stable in Q1. Our cost base per period is currently circa 82 million GBP. Our current capacity has significant scope to deliver material fee and profit growth when our key markets recover. I'd now like to hand back to Dirk to cover our strategy.
Thank you, James. I will spend the next few minutes updating you on progress made in executing on our focus strategy. We are working hard to better position Hays and make our profits and cash flow more resilient, and deliver our conversion rate target for each business line of 25%. To repeat what I said in February, my personal goal is to return to and then exceed our previous peak profits of GBP 250 million. To do this, we will deliver improved consultant productivity in excess of inflation, better leverage our overhead costs, and drive improved conversion rates. So what is our goal? We want to build the leading business in recruitment and workforce solutions globally. And to be clear on what this means, contracting temp and perm recruitment is our core expertise and will remain so.
Placing talented workers in roles to meet and solve our clients' skills needs is the heart of Hays. We serve large enterprise clients, the public sector, SMEs, and startups. We have market-leading direct outsourcing expertise, mainly via managed service provision, and our workforce solutions capability is evolving, including D&I consulting, training and skills, workforce planning, and assessment and development. Each of these has great potential to enhance our relationships with clients and drive a flywheel effect for further recruitment, and to generate modest profits for the group. This slide shows the key strategic levers we set out in February, and I am pleased to say we are making good progress. We have completed our work to analyze the group on a business line basis. Each country's financial year 2025 budget is now measured by job sector and by each contract form.
This allows us to properly measure pillars one, two, and three, and to better allocate our resources towards more resilient and higher value areas going forward. As evidence of this, across Hays, we have moved four hundred consultants to business lines where they have a better chance of delivering our 25% conversion rate target. I will now go into more detail on the repositioning we have done in the last six months. Looking at our key countries, Germany conducted a management delayering and is progressing ongoing back-office efficiency programs to create leaner structures. Our ratio of fee-earning consultants to non-billing resources improved by 10% year-on-year. In ANZ, we enter financial year 2025 with improving productivity and positive conversion rate momentum, despite fees being down. This was achieved via greater focus and increased productivity.
And in the U.K., we have made material operating model improvements, particularly in our temp business, and analyzed each business line, ensuring our midterm growth plans are fit for purpose. We closed two specialisms. In our focus countries, we are also ensuring we have appropriate and scalable operating models. All countries are focused on implementing our golden rule, namely, the operating profit growth should be greater than fee growth, which should be in turn exceed headcount growth through the cycle. Early examples of success include in the USA, where delivery model improvements have significantly improved productivity. We have gone from a loss-making position in the USA in H1 to consistently delivering profitability through H2 2024. We increased contractor and temp volumes in the USA, Italy, Poland and Japan. Each country and business line must have a credible medium-term plan to deliver our 25% conversion rate target.
Where we don't believe this target is achievable, we will redeploy our resources into markets where it is realistic. And we have taken difficult decisions to close areas which were subscale and unlikely to reach our group conversion rate target. This includes our temp business in Italy, refocusing our resources on the more profitable contracting market. Also, our healthcare and education in ANZ, and healthcare and social care in U.K. and Ireland. Again, reallocating resources and sales and marketing temp in Germany and statement of work in France. So in conclusion, while we know that our markets are challenging today, they will recover. We are determined to deliver high drop through of incremental fees to operating profit growth, and we can do this via a relatively modest volume improvement, given our current capacity.
Our focus strategy and the actions we are taking now will allow us to maximize our recovery and strongly capitalize from powerful structural megatrends. We have strong market leading businesses at Hays, many of which are implementing parts of our strategy well. But in all our countries, we can improve our focus on the key growth industries and job categories of the future. We are financially strong and are increasing our focus on the most attractive and skill-short markets worldwide. We have outstanding people here at Hays, and I am determined to capitalize on our expertise and make Hays an even better place to work in the future. And now we would be happy to hand back to the operator to take your questions.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one, one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your questions, please press star one and one again. Once again, that's star one, one if you wish to ask a question. Please stand by, we will compile a Q&A roster. We will now take the first question from the line of Ryan Flight from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Good morning, all. Three from me, if I may, to get started. So firstly, and it's a common question we get asked, is to do with: Is Germany still a structural growth market for the industry? So any comment on that would be really helpful. Then secondly, with regard to moving consultants from 180-degree to 360-degree, I wondered if you could help me, you know, understand what this means in practice for consultants on why you had 180-degree in the first place and perhaps where it was most prevalent. And then lastly, I know that the tech landscape is evolving pretty quickly on some of the data and analytics that you've got going on.
So let me take the first two and the third, maybe you can repeat then afterwards, because we couldn't understand it really, it was a bit noisy here. So the first one, yeah, for sure, Germany, it's definitely structural growth has huge structural growth potential still, despite the fact that especially the automotive industry is not in a good shape in Germany, and for sure, most of our competitors and we have a certain exposure to automotive. So but we see other industries like utilities and so are really growing, and I think it's just a question of time when the economy itself picks up.
I would say for all of us, all our competitors, too, it's been a long downturn for us also in Germany, I would say the last two years. I'm pretty sure that the economy comes back. Even when we don't have a big GDP growth or huge GDP growth in Germany, I'm convinced this is a huge market, because you're just thinking about the industry itself. I think in comparison to the U.K., the penetration of perm recruitment is low. I think it's just 20% in comparison to the U.K., which is much higher. I think it's 60%-80%. I think this alone is a huge potential.
And then the new trends with AI and so on, this is also a huge potential for our industry to help our clients. So I would and we see also a structural growth in contracting and temp, also in comparison to other countries. I would say, yeah, it is still an important economy in Europe or in the world, and they will recover, I'm pretty convinced. And the second question, 180, 360. This is the way we deliver to our clients a 360 model. You have a consultant doing the sales, with or handling the clients and doing also the recruitment of the candidates.
If you have some volume clients, then it makes sense to split it up because you get more efficiency in it. But when the market is a bit more in trouble or you get less requests from a client, then this model is not so effective and too cost intense, and therefore we are restripping and we are checking every situation with every client to strip this back. Especially in the U.S., this was a huge profit driver for us. And so that's why we are analyzing every operating model, we call it, in detail, where it makes sense to use one hundred and eighty or where it makes sense more using three sixty. The third question, sorry, I didn't get.
Yeah, yeah, thank you. The third one was just on, I know the tech landscape is evolving pretty rapidly in the industry at the moment. So if you could just give us a comment on some of the initiatives that you're doing around data and analytics.
Hi, Ryan, I'll pick that one up. And clearly we've, you know, had a long-standing tech environment that's served us incredibly well at Hays. And I think that should be put on record. But the world is changing pretty quickly, actually. And we've had a change in leadership in technology in the last nine months. And we have reassessed what the world is needing today, and will need in the next five years going forward. And, you know, the pace of change in areas such as AI and how that can affect how we do business and how we do operations is evolving quickly. So we have undertaken a strategic review of our technology landscape.
You have seen in the results today that included an impairment of some intangible areas. And those were really related to a number of our legacy systems, which we don't feel will be part of the future, going forward. So there will be quite a bit of work for us to do in technology over the next two or three years, as we reconfigure the systems that we need for the next five years and beyond.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you. We will now take the next question. From the line of Rory Mckenzie from UBS . Please go ahead.
Good morning all, it's Rory here. Two questions, firstly, on, I guess, the balance between cost savings and protecting capacity. So firstly, I think your consultant headcount is just about maybe 10% below the pre-pandemic level. Can you say what the total change has been in perm and then temp and contractor? And then secondly, how should we think about the kind of normalized productivity of the business now compared to before? At a headline level, gross profit per FTE is at record levels, really. But of course, volume productivity is down maybe 17% over the past five years, and all the repositioning that Dirk discussed suggest a higher mix to higher fee areas.
So what stats or what can you tell us about where you think productivity could get to, thanks to the repositioning that you've done? I guess that's helpful to think about even from this low point in the cycle. And then just a final question is on the extra £30 million savings announced. Can you just discuss, you know, where they come from, how you get them and yeah, the phasing of when they might come through. Thank you.
Let me start with the productivity thing, and then I hand over to James with all the details and all the figures. I think that's the best solution for... Productivity overall, I'm personally convinced that when we are moving alongside or executing our strategy in the direction of the five levers, that we have already a productivity increase with the current capacities we are in, even when the market recovers, or even though the market is not recovering, it is stable, we see a productivity increase. And personally, I have my personal goal of increasing the productivity in the next two, three years by say 10%, and you can then calculate what does this mean for our profits.
So I think we don't need a big upturn in the economy to improve productivity, just a shift in other areas and other industries, moving up the food chain and skills. And I am personally convinced, if you dig deeper in the details, you see the 1% productivity increase. For sure, there is some inflation and headcount reduction in it. But if it is definitely also the first sign that we are moving in the right direction in terms of moving up the food chain, the skill level in the industry, that we are doing a good job in margin increasing and going into other industries.
That's why I'm really positive that we are doing the right things with executing the strategy in this direction, but maybe James gives you maybe more detail about the figures.
Hi, Rory. I don't have to hand the exact split of temp and cons versus perm consultants from pre-pandemic, but I think what we always have had is a balance in the business between temp and perm, and obviously that has changed through the cycle. I think what we did see through the post-pandemic period was a massive perm boom as we came out with the great resignation. Naturally, we expanded our perm consultant headcount in response to that. Now, if you think, I mean, Dirk's obviously talked quite clearly about the focus of the business now going forward, and clearly our ability to drive growth in the non-perm area is a key part of that focus.
And if I look at the balance of business today versus where we were pre-pandemic, it's probably not dissimilar, but it has unwound quite a bit of the perm consultant focus that we had from two or three years ago during that unusual period of time. So I think it's a more normal balance today. Clearly, as we go forward, a focus of ours is to build greater resilience in the business and greater resilience of earnings, and that will require a focus on non-perm, which is in the contracting and temp space. So I think we'll maintain a similar balance, probably a little bit more of a balance towards temp and contracting as we move forward.
I think I'll just pick up as well the last question, which was around the ongoing projects that we have in flight currently, and predominantly in the back office spaces in finance and technology. They're currently underway at the moment, so we're kind of in those as we speak. And we've still got some more to do there, and I think what are we trying to do? We've looked at a major outsourcing contract within the technology area that will outsource a significant part of our IT infrastructure. We're looking at greater uses of shared service centers across finance and other support areas, which will help us build efficiency and have a better operating model.
Really, as Dirk alluded to earlier, we've got a dual focus at the moment. The first focus is how do we improve the productivity of our business? Dirk outlined that pretty clearly. The other key part of our focus is how do we drive a more efficient, scalable back office over the next few years? Clearly, we've set out some ambitions to deliver further savings in that area over the next three years. You know, we're up and running on that. We're making good progress, but we've clearly got plenty to do over the next three years to get there.
That's great. Thanks, both.
Thanks, Rory.
Thank you. We will now take the next question from the line of Alfonso Osorio from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Hello, everyone. Thanks for this. I have three as well, please. The first one, can you tell us in terms of the levels of visibility you have today, in terms of weeks or months, and why do you think it is still too early to call for any trends in Q1, even though we are already in late August? So that's the first one. And secondly, when you say that volumes are currently in line today versus Q4, adjusted for some seasonality trends, what exactly are those trends, seasonality trends you're seeing today? And then lastly, and this is a bigger picture question really on the recovery, do you think we will still need to see unemployment going up significantly before growth comes back, as then unemployment trends turns down?
Or do you think it's possible to see a recovery without a big change in the unemployment rate in Europe and in the U.S.? And if that's the case, the second one, what would drive that recovery if it is not unemployment coming down?
Okay. I'll pick each of those ones, and I'll start off with the current trading questions and around visibility in Q1. And I mean, you know, we look where we are today. We've had six weeks worth of trading of the new financial year, not finished August yet. So, it's also worth bearing in mind that July and August are lower months anyway because of the impact of summer. So that does reduce visibility. We naturally see a reduction in our activity through the summer. As you'd expect, people go on holidays. We see a reduction in our input activity 'cause our own consultants are away, and ultimately the number of jobs and interview numbers do come down. So it does reduce visibility.
We've always talked about September is the most important month in the quarter. It's normally around about 40% of the overall quarter, and it is also a really important term month, because clearly a lot of the activity that we do over the summer lands in September when people come back from holidays and start the new placements. Until we have that secured, and at the moment, we're currently sort of midway through August, we have an early view of it. Of course, we do. We have some forward activity and forward placements going into September. But until we actually see those land, and remember, our revenue recognition start is on the start date of the person put into the placement.
So until that person turns up for the new job, you know, we don't. We like to be relatively cautious on that. In terms of what does the volume question and in terms of what does that actually mean? Well, we normally have a reduction in our temp and contractor volumes through summer. Good example, in our education business in the U.K., we're the biggest supplier of supply teachers into the education system. People go on holiday, and we have the school holidays. That's a natural seasonality that we have. And also, just generally, we see holiday patterns come through in July and August, as you would expect.
But we know what to look for within that, and if we look through the normal adjustments that we would make for seasonality, at the moment across the business, our volumes are consistently where we were in Q4, which you know is why we said we've not seen any real change in the last six weeks of trading. And I'll try and pick up the last question as well, and I might want to chip in with some thoughts as well around the recovery and what do we need to see?
It's been an interesting period of time in the macro, because whilst many of the countries around the world have been in a recession or near recession conditions, employment has stayed pretty high through that period of time, and we've not seen a massive spike in unemployment across most countries. But what we have clearly seen in all of our countries is a significant reduction in consumer and candidate confidence alongside client confidence as well. So if you look at index PMI indices, they're consistently down around the world, and that's a pretty good indicator of how confident our clients are and how much they want to expand their headcount. Consumer confidence is an important bellwether for how confident our candidates are and how keen they are to change job, and how, you know, how happy they are to change job.
A lot of our work is around people moving jobs, not necessarily additional job creations, and you put those two together. So I don't think it's necessarily, we need to see a massive expansion in employment, but we certainly need to see a recovery in confidence levels, both within our clients and candidates.
Yeah, I agree, and I think for me, it is not nothing unusual. I think you see this also in our figures, that the perm placements or the perm net fees are more affected than the temp business. That's normal because the clients are not hiring in a downturn. Normally, fixed employed people, they use the flexibility and so on, but it is a reality that the skill shortage is still there, and you see this, the clients are hiring, but they take more time to take the decision. They see more candidates. But when they are looking for a candidate or want to fill a job, then they do this, but this is just less volume for this, and it takes longer.
And on the candidate side, they are insecure in this situation. What should I really move a job when I'm the first person, the last person in, and then I'm normally the first person out? So that's a normal trend in this market, but it is a matter of fact that we have this mega trend of skill shortage, and this will stay. So from my perspective, it doesn't need a lot, but we need a bit more confidence in the countries, in the economies, that we see an uptick.
That's very helpful. Thank you very much.
Thank you. We will now take the next question. From the line of Karl Green from RBC Capital Markets . Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you very much. I've just got a few questions, please. I mean, the first one's really linked to the cost, structural cost saving program. So firstly, just broadly looking out to fiscal 2027, where do you think proportionally the cumulative 60 million of structural cost savings is likely to fall, i.e., which region is the most likely to benefit there? And then just in terms of some of the outsourcing arrangements that you've negotiated, can you give us a sense as to how much of that has switched out fixed costs towards more variable, kind of on-demand, SaaS costs, for example? Or is it really just kind of like one fixed cost for another, just at a cheaper rate? So that, that's sort of the cost side of the equation.
And then a sort of second broader question, you know, some of the dynamics we've seen over the course of this year, for example, you know, increased utility work in Germany with lower average hours, increased enterprise demand as well, both of which are kind of return on operating capital dilutive. Are there any kind of dynamics you see going into 2025, you think could also act as a bit of a drag on effectively ROIC and free cash flow? I mean, obviously, the margins will do what they do, but just thinking about those other building blocks of the return on capital, please.
Okay, Karl I n terms of how much of that was related to operational versus back office, I don't have the exact split to hand, but it was primarily operational cost reduction, relatively small amounts in the back office areas, because a lot of our restructuring that we undertook this year, as you've read and we talked about today, was very much focused on the operational structures of the business, centered on operational management. We talked about closing several of the business lines and the offices as well around the world, so quite a lot of operational focus, but we did get in on the pitch through the year in the back office areas, and there are a number of projects which are in flight currently today.
I mentioned the technology transformation, and a core part of that was the outsourcing arrangements, and that sort of leads into your second question. What is that? Yes, absolutely. It is a replacement of fixed cost with variable cost, depending on our usage, and that's the kind of the nature of the arrangement that we have. But I think it's, there's a significant efficiency within that from a cost perspective. There's also a significant opportunity within that to lean into an external provider and have really cutting-edge technology access to us as an organization. And I think that brings with it a number of benefits as we look to how we transform our technology going forward.
You know, I think it's a combination of making sure we get better service for good value for money, but also we can lean into expertise at a global level, and I think that's really quite powerful. I will pick up the last question on ROIC, if I understand it correctly, and ROIC is not return on capital employed, isn't a kind of key metric that we measure ourselves against, but I understand the point that clearly, we didn't get a working capital cash inflow this financial year, which what you would normally expect of things being equal with the reduction in spend volumes.
But, as I outlined, we did see a DSO increase to 36 days in the year, and that was primarily driven by the resilience in our enterprise business, which is on average higher debt, trade debt, payment terms. So I don't think I'll expect it to sit, to move too much more. Obviously, it's stepped up from where we were the last two or three years, but if you go back five years in time, we are still below where we were pre-pandemic. If I look back to where we were through the sort of the two thousands and the two thousand and tens, we had DSOs of over 40 days. I don't think we will go back to that level. I'm really pleased with how we've gone. Actually, from a balance sheet perspective, I mean, we only had GBP 1.7 million of write-offs this year. And we did a really good job on managing the aging as well. But I think that's a bit of a structural part of the cycle because enterprise has been more resilient, and I think, you know, it will come back in the SME, in the spot market, through the cycle, and I think that will rebalance that capital outlay, Karl
That's great. Thanks for that.
Cheers.
Thank you. I would like to now hand over for web questions.
...Okay, we've just got one question come through on the internet, and it's related to IT, and I'll read it out verbatim. Can you give me, and it come from Sanjay. Can you give me some more color on the reason for the about turn on back office IT, particularly the nature of in-flight projects that were canceled, the cost savings expected from outsourcing, and the exceptional costs taken specifically for third-party costs associated with this? So there's quite a bit in there. I wouldn't say there's been an about turn on IT. I think our IT has served us incredibly well over many years, but as all things do, things evolve as well. And I think it's fair to say the world of technology and how technology applies to recruitment companies is evolving quite quickly.
We've had some changes in leadership in the technology area, and we've had the opportunity to stand back and assess the technology landscape we have today and also the technology landscape that we want to have for the future. And that's led to a number of the current systems, you know, we're making decisions that we want to change those, and we're in the process of getting that set up and working towards that. That means that we did cancel a couple of projects that were ongoing. That's pretty normal. And we also took the opportunity to review some of our legacy systems and took a view that they weren't part of the future either.
The combination of those was part of the exceptional impairment. Also part of the restructuring cost was the work that we did working towards the outsourcing contract that we signed at the end of the financial year. You know, that was a pretty significant project, as you can imagine, but it will drive significant benefits as well for the company going forward. So I think that's right to include that within the restructuring exceptional. Okay. Is there any more questions, Rob? Okay, I think that was it for questions today. But just before we conclude today's call, I would on behalf of Dirk, myself, and the board at Hays, I'd like to say a huge thank you to David Phillips, who today has overseen his last set of results here with us at Hays.
I'd like to say that David has been a fantastic head of IR over the last seven years, and from a personal perspective, it's been an absolute pleasure to work with him. We wish him all the very best of luck in his new role at ConvaTec, and it is very, very much deserved, so our loss is their gain. But as most of you know, we have appointed Cian Marden, who many of you will know as our new head of IR. Of course, he's no stranger to the sector and Hays itself, having been at Jefferies for a number of years. In fact, when I first joined Hays in 2008 , got to know Cian well when he was covering the sector then.
I'm absolutely delighted that Cian's decided to join us. I'm really looking forward to him working with us going forward. That concludes today's call, and I'd like to say thank you all for joining.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.