There is a mistake that almost all French companies make when recruiting their first Belgian Country Manager: they start from their French salary grid and apply it as is, thinking that geographical proximity guarantees comparability. It does not. The Belgian market has its own remuneration logic, and a package that seems generous viewed from Paris can appear ordinary viewed from Brussels.
Attracting a good Country Manager means first understanding how to build a competitive package in Belgium, before discussing any amount. This is a step we systematically address in our Country Manager recruitment support, because a misaligned range causes a mission to fail before the first interview.
Why copying the French grid does not work
French gross and Belgian gross do not tell the same story. Taxation, charges, the relationship between displayed salary and real purchasing power differ on both sides of the border. Comparing a gross figure to another gross figure, without looking at the complete structure, leads straight to a misunderstanding.
In Belgium, the remuneration of a senior executive is read as a package, not as a single salary line. The base salary is only part of the equation. What makes the difference in the candidate’s eyes are the elements that revolve around it, and which have become market standards for this level of function. A recruiter who ignores these standards arrives with an offer that seems correct on paper and weak in Belgian reality.
Company car: a standard, not a perk
First reflex to acquire: in Belgium, for a commercial management position, the company car is not a bonus to be negotiated. It is expected. The absence of a car on a Country Manager offer is an immediate negative signal, the kind of detail that makes a candidate doubt the employer’s seriousness.
Around the car is added a whole mechanism of extra-legal benefits that carries significant weight in the decision: meal vouchers, group insurance that prepares supplementary pension, hospitalisation insurance, sometimes eco-vouchers or a bonus plan. These elements are not icing on the cake. They are part of the cake. An experienced Belgian candidate reads an offer by adding all this up, not by looking only at the top line.
For a foreign company, the challenge is not to discover these standards during negotiation, when the candidate compares your proposal to that of a local competitor who knows them by heart.
Think in terms of complete package, not salary line
The comparison error is corrected with a simple discipline: add everything up before comparing anything. Annual base salary, target variable, value of the car and fuel card, meal vouchers for the year, employer contribution to group insurance, hospitalisation insurance, any eco-vouchers. This is the total the candidate has in mind when weighing your offer against another, because this is the total that determines their real standard of living.
A French company that presents a good base salary but forgets half of the Belgian extra-legal benefits arrives with an offer that seems superior and proves inferior as soon as the full calculation is made. The candidate always does it. Conversely, building this package well sometimes allows you to be more attractive than a competitor with a higher base salary, simply because the structure is better designed. The Belgian grid is not a cost to be endured, it is a lever, provided you master it before sitting at the table.
The structure also varies according to the targeted profile: recruiting a local or expatriating an executive from headquarters is not financed in the same way, expatriation calling for mobility elements that the local candidate does not expect.
Base salary, variable, and market alignment
Once the structure is understood, the question of the right level remains. Defining the right range requires having first framed the position: this is the whole challenge of recruiting the right Country Manager for Belgium, upstream of the salary discussion. And there, the trap is to reason by pride: “here is what we propose, this is our budget”. The market does not care about the budget. If the range is below the real level for a trilingual Country Manager capable of covering Flanders, good profiles will not move, and you will spend months wondering why sourcing yields nothing.
This is why we tell the client things, even when they are uncomfortable. Our role is not to take a range and execute it silently. It is to say whether this range holds up against the market, before the mission becomes bogged down.
Our principle of transparency is embedded in our values: saying what needs to be said, even when it is uncomfortable. Concretely, this means we will tell you if your salary range is misaligned with the market. We will tell you if the candidate you absolutely want raises a red flag on a critical point. We will tell you if the training you are requesting will not solve the problem you identify. Everyone says they like transparency; few bear its relational cost. We do.
– The Archetype method, since 1993
The variable deserves the same frankness. An opening Country Manager carries real risk: no existing pipeline, no team, a market to build. Beyond this commercial risk, they assume legal responsibilities from the opening of the subsidiary that weigh in the negotiation. Offering them an aggressive variable indexed on unattainable objectives in the first year is guaranteeing a resignation after twelve months. The right package rewards building, not just immediate results.
What retains a Country Manager beyond the figure
A competitive package opens the discussion. It does not end it. The best management profiles do not change positions for a few thousand euros more. They move for a clear mandate, real autonomy, and headquarters’ trust.
A Country Manager recruited to open a market and then restrained with Paris validations ends up leaving, regardless of their salary. What makes them stay is the latitude to decide on their territory, a board that supports them when they take a calculated risk, and clarity on what is expected at one year and three years.
Salary attracts. Working relationship retains. Building the right package means holding both ends: an amount aligned with Belgian reality, and a mission framework that makes them want to settle in for the long term rather than leave at the first competing offer.
