How to Fulfill the Belgian Federal Learning Account Requirements With Azumuta

From April 1, 2024 at the latest, private sector employers in Belgium with at least 20 full-time employees (FTE) are legally required to provide at least 5 training days/year for each employee. Meanwhile, employers with 10-19 FTEs must allocate at least 1 training day/year.

Moreover, employers must submit their employees’ training details to the Federal Learning Account (FLA). Currently, the FLA website and application are not yet publicly accessible, as Sigedis is still developing it. It’s expected to be operational by April 1, 2024, at the latest.

Employers will be given a 6-month transition period from the regulation’s implementation date to comply. Nonetheless, preparing your organization to adjust to the new requirements as soon as possible is always a good idea.

In this article, we will cover the key requirements of this regulation, the importance of regularly training blue-collar manufacturing workers, and how Azumuta can help fulfill your FLA obligations and enhance your organization’s performance at the same time.

At the end of this article, we will also provide you with a freely downloadable skill matrix template that you can easily adjust with Excel or Google Sheets.

What Should Employers Know?

This regulation impacts workers in all sectors – including manufacturing. It applies to both white & blue-collar workers. Employers with at least 20 FTEs must provide at least 5 training days/year. Employers with 10-19 FTEs are required to provide 1 training day/year.

Meanwhile, employers with less than 10 FTEs are not required to provide any training day each year – unless stated otherwise by an existing collective work agreement, which varies depending on the industry.

The responsibility to adapt to these changes lies with the employer. The training must take place within the working days & hours of the employee – and not during their holidays.

Moreover, the training costs must be paid for by the employer. The employer is also responsible for keeping track of their employees’ training (including the duration and training type) and inputting the data to the FLA.

The details of the training activities are to be agreed upon by the employer and employee themselves. This guideline (in English) from Partena covers the key information about the FLA and its procedures.

The Types of Training Mentioned by the Regulation

Article 50 of this law stipulates 2 types of training:

Formal Training

This category consists of structured training programs – such as company-run courses and technical training. The employer or an external organization can arrange and organize this formal training – with the approval of the employee.

Informal Training

In general, this category covers training activities selected by the employee for their personal growth – but still related to their job. This includes participating in seminars & conferences, corporate mentoring, and other forms of individualized training.

The Importance of Regularly Training Blue Collar Workers in the Manufacturing Sector

Blue-collar workers are the backbone of the manufacturing industry. Unlike white-collar workers who typically work in an office setting, blue-collar workers are always present on the shop floor. They’re the front liners in any factory and are directly engaged in the production process.

Blue-collar workers interact with the shop floor’s production machinery daily. In addition, they also maintain them to prevent unwanted breakdowns. Examples of blue-collar jobs in manufacturing include:

• Machine operators and assembly workers
• Material handlers
• Industrial cleaners
• Riggers
• Machinery technicians

Blue-collar jobs are typically repetitive, skill-based, and task-specific. Therefore, their training mainly revolves around skills directly linked to their daily tasks, such as using a digital torque wrench or driving a forklift. Training for blue-collar workers is hands-on and focuses on practical skills.

Moreover, their key performance indicators (KPI) are generally individual and task-specific. For example, their individual cycle time of an assembly process or their percentage of inventory storage accuracy.

How Azumuta Can Be Used to Fulfill Your Organization’s FLA Obligations

Azumuta’s Skill Matrix & Training is a suitable employee training tool for fulfilling your organization’s FLA requirements. Here’s how:

Online Corporate Training Platform

In-house corporate training is aligned with the FLA regulation. Organizing in-house training has many advantages, as opposed to outsourcing it to a third-party organization.

For starters, you can tailor your training materials to fulfill your organization’s specific needs. Meanwhile, external trainers typically have more generic training materials. They might not sufficiently cover your organization’s needs.

In addition, having your training done internally will prevent any unwanted leak of sensitive corporate data & insights to external parties. Lastly, in-house training is cost-effective. The training organizers are your own employees, meaning you don’t spend extra on an external party.

Consider the time & effort that they spend as a long-term investment. The trainees of today will become the trainers of the future.

Our Skill Matrix & Training module covers all your internal training needs – from start to finish. With it, you can:

• Select the training participants from your organization.
• Create a training plan & schedule (which will automatically send notifications to the participants’ devices when training is due).
• Share the training materials.
• Conduct the training activities.
• Assess the skills of your participants.
• Visualizes their skill levels using our skill matrix.

All of these features can be accessed from any Android, IOS, or Windows-compatible device – anywhere at any time.

A Software to Keep Track of Employee Training

As an employer, you are responsible for keeping track of your employees’ training and reporting them to the FLA system. Our Skill Matrix & Training module will make this task an effortless one.

Our module keeps track of your employees’ training activities – and gathers them into individual employee reports. You no longer have to spend hours compiling this data and drafting an individual employee report for each employee. Our module automates it for you.

How Using Our Skill Matrix & Training Module Can Strengthen Your Organization’s Human Resources

Besides complying with the FLA regulation, our Skill Matrix & Training also provides other advantages for HR, among others:

Visualize and Objectively Assess Your Team Members’ Skill Levels

Our skill matrix visualizes your employees’ skill levels in a heat-map manner. Simply input the necessary data on our pre-existing field, and our module will do the rest. It will color-code and calculate each employee’s and your team’s average skill levels.

With it, your decisions are always data-driven. From arranging a weekly rooster – to deciding an employee’s compensation package.

Detect and Bridge Any Skills Gap

The ongoing skills gap phenomenon is a major threat to the manufacturing sector. A Deloitte survey predicted that 2.1 million manufacturing jobs in the US will be unfilled in the 2020-2030 period. A Eurofound report also conveyed a similarly grim outlook for the EU.

Consequently, it’s in your best interest to prevent any skills gap from ever happening in your organization. You can easily conduct a skills gap analysis with our skill matrix. There, you can visualize all your employees’ skill ranges and levels. Detecting any skill gap will be a walk in the park.

Keep Your Workforce Certified

In addition, you can also keep track of your employees’ existing certifications – including their expiration date. When a certification expiration is imminent, our module will automatically notify you.

This feature ensures your regulatory compliance. In some industries (e.g., pharmaceuticals), having properly certified employees on the shop floor is a part of the quality assurance process.

Additional Support for Your ERP Systems

Our module offers a wide range of integrations. From our other feature-rich modules to external systems. Our module will feed data to your existing ERP systems – further enhancing its human resources functions.