Here is your English translation, in a professional consulting tone:

In a context of structuring and harmonizing its HR practices, the client aimed to review its compensation and benefits policy to ensure consistency, competitiveness, and compliance.

Although the group already had an internal policy in place, its application across existing employment contracts revealed potential discrepancies between defined principles, actual practices, and local and European regulatory requirements.

The leadership sought to go beyond a simple document review in order to assess the relevance of the framework against market best practices, identify risk areas, and secure the application of the policy across all employee populations.

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Approach

We designed and implemented a structured assessment approach built around three key objectives:

• Assess the consistency of the compensation and benefits policy with the group’s HR strategy.

• Test its actual application across existing employment contracts.

• Evaluate compliance with local and European regulations, as well as market best practices.

The approach included:

• a detailed review of the compensation and benefits policy,

• an analysis of a sample of existing employment contracts,

• a comparison between internal rules and actual practices,

• identification of gaps, risks, and inconsistencies,

• a benchmark against relevant market practices,

• an assessment of applicable regulatory requirements across the relevant countries.

The objective was to secure the existing framework, identify necessary adjustments, and enable the group to rely on a clear, fair, compliant, and development-oriented compensation policy.

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Diagnosis

The analysis highlighted three key findings:

Heterogeneous application of the internal policy
particularly across German employment contracts within the group’s various entities.

Inconsistencies between policy and contractual practices
Some contracts showed discrepancies between group-defined principles and actual employee conditions, particularly regarding variable pay, benefits, and specific contractual terms.

Need for clarification and harmonization of rules
The existing policy required further clarification on several aspects to reduce interpretation gaps, strengthen internal equity, and improve ease of application by HR teams and managers.

Local and European compliance challenges
Certain practices needed to be reviewed or adjusted to ensure alignment with local legal obligations, European requirements, and evolving regulations regarding compensation, equal treatment, and transparency.

Leveraged Drivers

The mission enabled a shift from a one-off review approach to a comprehensive compensation framework securing process.

The main drivers addressed were:

• Clarifying the compensation and benefits framework: formalizing rules, eligibility criteria, application methods, and approval levels.

• Harmonizing contractual practices: identifying gaps between existing contracts and group policy, then defining required adjustments.

• Strengthening regulatory compliance: reviewing local and European obligations to reduce legal and social risks.

• Aligning with market best practices: assessing competitiveness and identifying improvement areas to enhance attractiveness and retention.

• Securing operational implementation: providing concrete recommendations to facilitate policy application by HR teams, managers, and support functions.

Observed Outcomes

At the end of the assignment, several outcomes were achieved:

• A clear view of gaps between the group policy and its actual application across contracts.

• Improved identification of non-compliance risks and internal inconsistencies.

• A more readable, structured, and actionable compensation and benefits policy.

• Concrete recommendations to harmonize practices, secure contracts, and reinforce internal equity.

• A more robust HR framework aligned with market best practices and local and European regulatory requirements.

Beyond the technical policy review, this assignment strengthened the group’s HR governance and laid the foundations for a more coherent, secure, and attractive compensation system.