Affordable training options for your employees

Planning to train one of your (future) employees? The Brussels-Capital Region is offering various incentives and subsidies to support your efforts. Here’s a summary.

1. The training voucher: affordable, customised training for your company

Are you planning to hire a new employee who has yet to follow additional training to be able to carry out the work? Then, why not consider the training voucher ? The scheme allows the candidate to follow a course tailored to your company’s needs during the first six months of employment. The possible refresher course options are endless: from construction to hospitality or even biotechnology.

The employer pays only half of the training voucher, while Actiris covers the other half, up to a maximum amount of 2,250 euros. Eligibility for the voucher rests on two criteria:

• your company’s HQ is located in the Brussels-Capital Region;
• you are offering the jobseeker an open-ended employment contract, based on a part-time work schedule at least.

As for the candidate, he or she must reside in the Brussels-Capital Region and be registered with Actiris. In addition, he/she must meet at least one of the following prerequisites:

• be registered with Actiris as a non-working jobseeker for 2 years or more
• hold a higher secondary education certificate (GHSO) at most
• be at least 46 years old
• have a recognised disability

2. The language voucher: free and aimed at improving language skills

Language vouchers allow newly hired workers to follow a language course in Dutch, English or French at no cost. You can choose between 20 or 40 hours of individual language lessons, during or outside working hours. Since the course focuses on your organisation and your trading activities, your employees are able to learn terminology that is specific to your business.

In this case, too, there are several prerequisites, for you and your employee.

As an employer, you must:

• have selected the employee via Select Actiris
• offer an open-ended employment contract or a contract for at least three months. In either case, the working hours must be at least part-time.

As for the employee, he or she must:

• be registered with Actiris as a non-working jobseeker
• be a resident of the Brussels-Capital Region.
• speak Dutch or French

3. Individual vocational training: affordable training for a future employee

Under the individual vocational training scheme formation professionnelle individuelle - IPO / Individuele Beroepsopleiding - IBO), the employer trains a jobseeker for 1 to 6 months and hires him/her afterwards. During the training period, instead of a salary or social security contributions, the employer pays a fixed monthly allowance which is calculated on the basis of the salary that the employee will receive once hired.

Not every employer may recruit a jobseeker under an IBO contract. These are the conditions:

• you are a non-profit organisation or an employer from the public or private sector
• you provide a training plan
• you provide occupational accident insurance and civil liability insurance cover
• at the end of the IBO, you hire the trainee under an open-ended contract, or in some cases, a fixed-term contract

The candidate, too, must fulfil a number of criteria:

• the employee is registered with Actiris
• he/she did not quit his/her previous job to start an IBO training
• he/she has never worked in your organisation, except under a temporary employment contract (maximum 20 days) or as a working student

4. Other possibilities

At the public level, in the Brussels Capital Region there are two organisations active in the training sector, namely:

• Bruxelles Formation, responsible for training French speakers.
• VDAB, responsible for training Dutch speakers in Brussels.

Similarly, training organisations depend on the joint committees to which the companies belong and pay their contributions to while also offering interesting training. For example:

• CEFORA, the training centre for employees
• EDUCAM, the training centre for workers in the automotive and metal sectors
• VOLTA, the training centre for workers in the electrotechnical sector
• LOGOS, for training workers in the transport sector
• ...

On the Bruxelles Formation website you will find a global overview of sectoral training funds and related organisations.

Finally, there is, of course, a range of private organisations offering training at all levels, such as Syntra Brussels, Solvay Entrepreneurs, BECI, ICHEC-PME, Conclusion

There are various affordable options to train (future) employees, whether to improve their language skills or offer them a course tailored to your company. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us. We will be happy to assist you.