s.Oliver Clothing Group: Legal support for Dutch HR team

s.Oliver manages its Belgian and Dutch HR policies from Maastricht in the Netherlands. A decade or so back, this HR team engaged SD Worx to handle the payroll for Belgian staffing. They also needed advice on social and tax law, however. The legal support provided by SD Worx Tax & Legal proved an ideal solution.

German fashion company s.Oliver employs more than 7,200 people worldwide. Though the international clothing group's Dutch payroll processing takes place in-house, they employ a payroll service provider for the Belgian staffing. Chantalle Hameleers, Team Leader HR Benelux at s.Oliver: "Our group has 70 employees on its Belgian payroll. However, staff at the Trade Mart Brussels showroom fall under a different joint industrial committee than the sales force at the retail branches. We were looking for a payroll partner with expertise in retail and made the transition to SD Worx almost 10 years ago."

A practical solution for every problem

However, being Dutch, the HR team was also in need of social and fiscal legal support. They needed to be able to apply the complex and rapidly changing Belgian laws correctly, but also to provide fast and accurate answers to questions from Belgian employees. Chantalle Hameleers: "We refer to the experts at SD Worx Tax & Legal for any questions from Belgian employees relating to time credit, overtime, holiday entitlements and more. We also relied on their guidance when we went through a restructuring a few years ago. In short, their experts provide legally sound and practical solutions for every problem."

The results

Thanks to the legal support by SD Worx Tax & Legal, s.Oliver's Dutch HR team can:

• apply rapidly changing Belgian legislation correctly;
• deal with all social and tax legal issues quickly and accurately;
• correctly and clearly apply advice to the payroll.

Concrete advice in plain language

s.Oliver could also have called on a law firm for this legal assistance. Opting for SD Worx was very deliberate, however: "With a single party handling legal support and payroll processing, rapid switches are easy. After all, the consultant can immediately translate their advice into concrete action points for the payroll service provider's file manager. We also evaluate our collaboration at regular intervals to ensure that the support remains optimally aligned with our needs and requirements."

s.Oliver works with a single contact person for all day-to-day questions regarding the individual and collective aspects of personnel employment at both the national and international levels. Chantalle Hameleers: "Our consultant knows how our group works inside out. Our interaction is fantastic; he doesn't just provide correct advice, he also manages to translate this into plain language every time and present it in such a way that it makes sense in our Dutch context."