HR Compliance Audit for European Consolidation and Restructuring
Before you announce it, find out what the plan costs in every country.
Closing sites, moving activity into hubs, collapsing entities. Every one of those moves lands on employment law that works differently in each market, and on paperwork nobody has read in years. Right now you can still change the plan. Once consultation opens, you can’t correct anything quietly.
Europe HR Solutions audits the countries in your perimeter against the moves you actually intend to make, then prices and sequences the exposure: thresholds, notice, severance, consultation duties and the terms that transfer with people. Your plan reaches the works council already tested.
What the Business Case Didn't Price In
Consolidation savings get modeled on headcount and property. Employment law is what moves the number, and it moves it differently in every country.
Headcount thresholds change the process, not just the price
Collective redundancy rules trigger at different numbers, over different reference periods, in every country. Cross one without noticing and a straightforward reduction becomes a formal procedure with minimum timelines you can’t compress.
Consultation runs on its own calendar
In Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands, representatives have to be informed and consulted in a set order before decisions take effect. That order is measured in months. Start it in the wrong place and you start it again.
Nobody has read the paperwork in years
Old contracts, unsigned addenda, policies that were circulated but never adopted. None of it matters until a lawyer, a works council or a judge reads it against the measure you’re proposing.
Severance isn't one formula
Statutory minimums, collective agreement top-ups, seniority credit and local case law all feed the number. A provision built on one blended assumption is usually wrong in the two countries that matter most.
Pay gaps become evidence
Selection criteria and severance calculations put comparable employees side by side for the first time. Differences that were invisible in daily operations turn into the grounds for a challenge, exactly when scrutiny is highest.
The people who know are inside the perimeter
Local HR holds the detail, and is often part of what’s being restructured. You need a baseline that doesn’t depend on asking them, and doesn’t signal what’s coming.
An Audit Scoped to the Moves You've Already Decided
This isn’t a general compliance review. We take the moves on the table, which sites close, which activity goes to a hub, which entities disappear, and test each one against the law and the paperwork in the countries it touches. What comes back is priced and sequenced, not cited.
For over 15 years we’ve worked alongside HR teams, employment counsel and program offices through European restructuring.
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ONE AUDIT, FOUR STEPS
How We Test a Restructuring Plan Before It’s Announced
Lock the Perimeter and the Moves
The audit follows your plan, not a standard scope.
- Countries, entities and populations in scope
- The moves themselves: closures, hub transfers, entity mergers, reductions
- What stays confidential, from whom, and for how long
Gather and Test the Paperwork
We collect what exists and test it against local law and against the measure you plan.
- Contracts, addenda, policies and handbooks
- Collective agreements and representation arrangements
- Thresholds, notice, severance and consultation duties per market
Price and Rank the Exposure
Every finding carries a number and a consequence, not just a citation.
- Cost range per measure, per country
- Where a missed step can void the measure
- Pay and selection issues that will be challenged
- Ranked: fix before announcement, manage during, monitor after
Hand Over a Plan With Dates on It
The output is built for the people running the program.
- Country by country obligation and exposure map
- Consultation and notification calendar set against your announcement date
- Board summary with the assumptions behind every number
Over the past 15 years, we have served 250+ clients
TIMELINE
How Long the Audit Takes
The audit is faster than the restructuring it protects. Timing depends on how many countries sit in the perimeter and how quickly the documents surface.
Priority countries
Full European perimeter
Board-ready risk report
Threshold & Obligation Mapping
Collective redundancy thresholds, notice periods, severance rules, selection criteria and consultation duties for every country in your perimeter. One comparable view, not five local memos in five formats.
Contract & Document Testing
Contracts, addenda, policies and handbooks tested against current local law and against the specific measure you plan, with every gap ranked by what it costs or what it blocks.
Consultation Sequencing & Timeline Build
Who has to be informed, consulted or negotiated with, in what order, and by when, mapped onto your announcement date so one missed step doesn’t reset the clock.
Severance & Pay Exposure Modeling
What the plan actually costs under local rules, including the pay differences that selection and severance calculations expose. Quantified before a works council or a court does it for you.
Pre-Announcement Execution Support
Findings turned into a working plan sequenced against your dates, with our team carrying the HR workload wherever yours is already at capacity.
HR Compliance Audit Services for European Consolidation and Restructuring
SCOPED TO YOUR SITUATION
Three Ways to Scope the Audit
Priority-Country Audit
The one or two countries where the first moves land.
Includes:
- Threshold and obligation map
- Document testing for the population in scope
- Exposure range per measure
Full-Perimeter Audit
Every country and entity inside the consolidation.
Includes:
- Everything in the Priority-Country Audit, across the whole perimeter
- Consultation and notification calendar per market
- Board-ready report with quantified exposure
Audit Through Announcement
We stay on past the findings: correcting documents, preparing consultation packs, supporting local HR, and carrying the HR workload until the announcement is behind you.
Trusted by Multinationals Restructuring in Europe
Long-term relationships built on discretion, local knowledge, and work that holds up under scrutiny.
Chantelle Hilleard
Everbridge
Frequently Asked Questions About Auditing Before a Restructuring
1. We haven't told our own local HR teams yet. Can the audit still run?
Yes, and it usually does. We work through the small group already inside the plan, and document requests go out framed as a periodic compliance review. If a step can’t happen without disclosure, we tell you before we take it. Who learns what, and when, stays your decision.
2. Our business case already has severance and provision numbers. Will the audit change them?
Often, yes. Blended assumptions hold across most of a footprint, then break in the two or three countries where collective agreement top-ups, seniority credit or notice rules push the real figure well past the model. You get a range per country with every assumption written out, so your CFO can see which parts of the savings case are solid.
3. We're closing two sites and moving the work into a hub. Do we need to look at every country?
More than two, rarely all. The closures set the urgent work. The receiving hub, and any country whose employees, contracts or representation bodies are touched by the transfer, set the rest. We fix the perimeter with you in the first conversation. When the calendar is tight, a priority-country audit is a legitimate place to start.
4. What happens if we get the consultation sequence wrong in one country?
It ranges from a delay to a measure that’s void. In several markets a decision taken before consultation has properly closed can be set aside, which means running the process again with your intentions already public. Sequencing is the cheapest part of the plan to get right and one of the most expensive to get wrong.
5. How does this sit with our employment counsel and the restructuring PMO?
Between them. Counsel gives you the legal position on specific questions and defends you if something is challenged. The PMO owns the plan and the dates. We build the operational picture neither is resourced to produce: every country in one comparable format, priced and sequenced, handed to both. Counsel then works from a scoped list instead of an open-ended brief.
6. How fast can you give us something the board can use?
Two to three weeks for a priority-country view. Four to eight weeks for the full perimeter. Around a week beyond that for the board-ready report. Findings come out in phases rather than all at the end, so the time-critical items reach you while there’s still room to change the plan.
Find out what the plan costs while you can still change it. Start with a conversation.
Not sure where to start? Talk to a restructuring compliance specialist.
Whether the board has signed off, a closure date is already set, or you just want the numbers in the business case checked before anyone is told, a confidential conversation will tell you where you stand.
Our role is to understand the moves you’re planning, the countries they touch, and the date you’re working back from. No obligation, no pressure. Senior HR professionals who do this work in Europe every week.
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