CASE STUDY

Modernizing Compensation Structures Through Rapid Growth and Workforce Change

October 29, 2026

A privately held, family-owned mining and manufacturing company producing mineral-based technology solutions for global markets, with mining and processing operations across multiple states and Canada, turned to BPM to modernize a compensation structure that had not kept pace with the company’s rapid growth. With a workforce spanning corporate, mining, manufacturing, packaging, and distribution functions across multiple rural locations, each with its own legacy pay practices, the company needed a partner who could bring order and consistency to an increasingly complex compensation picture.

Problem 

The company’s salary structures had not been comprehensively reviewed against market data in several years, and the existing grade structures were applied inconsistently, disconnected from individual employees, and built around unclear market reference points. Compounding the issue, annual compensation planning relied on a complex, error-prone spreadsheet process that HR found difficult to maintain and, by its own account, painfully time-consuming to complete each year.

The stakes for getting this right had also grown substantially: the workforce had nearly tripled, expanding from roughly 110 employees to close to 300, and a large portion of that population was transitioning from union to nonunion status, a shift that required entirely new job titles, career progression paths, technical levels, and pay structures to support it.

Solution 

BPM conducted organization-wide market benchmarking using multiple compensation survey sources and data sets, evaluating employee pay against market benchmarks, the company’s existing salary structures, and proposed new compensation ranges. From there, BPM facilitated a series of leadership discussions to define and refine the company’s compensation philosophy, covering market positioning, the factors driving pay decisions, salary increase practices, promotion guidelines, transparency and communication, and the company’s broader total rewards strategy.

With that philosophy in place, BPM developed a customized job architecture framework built around defined job families and career levels, updated salary range structures, clear career progression paths, and identification of pay compression issues and outliers across the workforce. BPM also modeled multiple implementation scenarios, giving leadership visibility into transition costs and the impact of minimum-range adjustments before committing to a rollout.

To address the burdensome annual review process, BPM redesigned it from the ground up, building consolidated compensation planning tools that brought together employee census data, market benchmarks, salary ranges, performance ratings, formula-driven pay recommendations, and budget assumptions in one streamlined system. Throughout the engagement, BPM provided ongoing advisory support to leadership and HR across every phase of compensation planning, review, and implementation.

Outcome 

The company now operates with modern, market-aligned salary structures and a far more sustainable compensation management framework, bringing new consistency and transparency to pay decisions across the organization. The redesigned annual compensation review process has meaningfully reduced administrative effort while improving usability for both leadership and HR. Leadership offered strong, positive feedback on both the new compensation framework and the streamlined review process, noting that BPM’s recommendations were practical, easier to administer, and better aligned with how the business actually operates.

The engagement also strengthened the credibility of the company’s internal HR team, giving them independent, market-based expertise to stand behind their recommendations to leadership. BPM has since become a trusted compensation advisor to the organization, providing ongoing strategic guidance as it continues to navigate workforce growth, organizational change, and evolving compensation needs.

Ready to Build a Compensation Structure That Grows With You?

Whether your organization is navigating rapid growth, a workforce transition, or an outdated and burdensome compensation process, BPM’s compensation consulting services can help you build a framework and process that scale with your business. Contact BPM to start the conversation.