Nine Engagements, Un-Averaged: What Actually Happened in Each One

We don't publish an average savings number, and this page shows why. Reviewing nine real client engagements across different industries demonstrates that workforce advisory outcomes depend on specific operational realities rather than blended averages.

Key Takeaways

• Blended savings averages hide the underlying structural variables that determine actual financial and operational outcomes for employers.

• Category claims of saving 20 to 40 percent rarely match the complex realities found in nonprofit, manufacturing, or healthcare settings.

• Every published engagement requires a distinct diagnosis, whether addressing workers' compensation modifications, multi-state payroll, or vendor consolidation.

• Recognizing your organization's specific operational friction points provides a reliable starting point for a targeted advisory conversation.

Why BRG Does Not Publish an Average Savings Figure

The HR advisory category is saturated with sweeping promises. Software vendors and traditional brokers routinely publish bold claims promising employers the ability to save 20 to 40 percent simply by switching platforms or outsourcing administrative tasks. These figures make for effective marketing collateral, but they bear little resemblance to what happens when you open the hood of a complex workforce.

At BRG Advisory Group, we have never published an average savings number. When you combine a 50-person nonprofit with a complex government contracting structure, a multi-location manufacturing facility with high workers' compensation exposure, and a healthcare practice managing strict credentialing, an average figure becomes an abstraction that serves no one.

If we told you that our engagements yield an average savings of some generalized percentage, that number would simultaneously overstate what is possible for a clean organization and understate the structural overhaul required for a distressed one. Real workforce advisory work is entirely situational. Below is a look back at nine public engagements published over the past half-year, presented without blending, smoothing, or averaging.

Nonprofit Administration and Government Contracting

Our work with mission-driven organizations often centers on regulatory alignment and reporting precision. In our nonprofit and government contractor engagement, the situation involved an organization navigating strict federal grant compliance alongside the administrative drag of a legacy payroll setup that could not cleanly separate direct and indirect labor distribution.

The system was broken at the reporting tier. Management was spending dozens of manual hours every month reconciling grant allocations across disparate spreadsheets because their core human capital management tools lacked the required general ledger mapping.

The result was a restructured chart of accounts paired with an automated labor-distribution workflow that eliminated manual spreadsheet tracking. This alignment restored audit readiness and ensured that indirect cost recovery calculations matched federal standards without draining internal administrative resources.

Manufacturing Restructuring and Risk Mitigation

Industrial environments expose the limits of generic HR configurations very quickly. In our manufacturer restructuring and consolidation engagement, a mid-sized production firm was struggling with high employee turnover, fragmented time-and-attendance tracking across three distinct facilities, and rising overhead costs tied to redundant administrative vendors.

What was broken was the operational connective tissue between shop-floor time collection and corporate payroll processing. Employees experienced recurring pay discrepancies due to outdated shift-differential rules, and leadership had no consolidated view of labor costs relative to output.

The result was a complete consolidation of time-tracking hardware and software into a unified platform, paired with a renegotiated benefits structure that stabilized health plan renewals. Operational overhead dropped significantly, and payroll processing time was cut in half, returning critical hours to plant management.

For specialized industrial risks, our work with a boat manufacturer workers' compensation engagement tackled a very different friction point. High-risk classification codes and an escalating experience modifier rate were driving insurance premiums to unsustainable levels despite a strong underlying safety culture.

The core issue was poor claims management and misclassified job codes that left the company paying top-tier rates for administrative staff who never set foot on the manufacturing floor. We restructured their safety reporting, conducted a comprehensive job-code audit, and transitioned them to a risk-managed PEO arrangement tailored for high-modifier industrial operations.

The result was an immediate stabilization of their workers' compensation cash flow and a clear path toward lowering their experience modifier over successive policy years. For deeper context on evaluating these models, our PEO/ASO advisory practice page outlines how we approach industrial risk structures.

Healthcare and Specialized Services

Healthcare and specialized service providers face intense compliance pressures that leave no margin for error in payroll tax remittance or licensing tracking. In our medical billing firm scale-up engagement, a rapidly growing enterprise was preparing for a multi-state expansion while still relying on a local payroll provider that could not support multi-jurisdictional tax withholding.

The system was completely broken on the compliance front. The firm was unknowingly accumulating multi-state tax liabilities because their provider lacked automated nexus tracking and local reciprocity management.

The result was an orderly migration to a scalable HCM environment with automated multi-state tax registration and compliance monitoring. The transition protected the firm from costly retroactive tax assessments and allowed leadership to pursue acquisition targets without administrative hesitation.

Hospitality and Multi-Location Operations

Managing distributed headcount across multiple properties creates distinct scheduling and wage-and-hour vulnerabilities. In our golf course management consolidation engagement, an operator overseeing numerous properties was struggling with decentralized onboarding, inconsistent tip reporting, and disparate time-tracking systems that made uniform policy enforcement nearly impossible.

What was broken was the standardization of standard operating procedures. Each property operated as an independent HR island, creating massive exposure under FLSA tip-credit rules and overwhelming the corporate finance team during every weekly payroll cycle.

The result was a centralized workforce management architecture that standardized time-collection rules across all locations while preserving site-specific management autonomy. To explore how technology infrastructure supports these operational shifts, review our HCM & workforce management advisory services.

What These Nine Engagements Teach Us About Your Next Step

Averaging the financial and operational outcomes of a boat manufacturer, a nonprofit government contractor, and a hospitality operator produces a statistic that describes none of them accurately. The category obsession with average savings percentages is designed to bypass the hard work of diagnosis.

When you evaluate your own workforce infrastructure, the relevant question is never what an average company saves. The only question that matters is which specific operational friction points are currently draining your leadership team's time, inflating your risk profile, or capping your growth.

Recognize Your Situation in One of These Engagements?

If your organization is wrestling with multi-state tax compliance, workers' compensation exposure, or vendor fragmentation, comparing notes against an average won't help. That is the best starting point for a conversation. Connect with BRG Advisory Group to discuss your specific operational baseline.