Since the beginning of 2024, many employees have the right to receive five days of training per year through their employer under the Labour Deal, but the enthusiasm among employees for five full training days per year is not that great.
Over four in ten (43%) employees did not receive any training last year and less than half want to take advantage of at least five training days from this year. People over 55 in particular are currently following fewer courses than average, shows a study by HR specialist Acerta Consult among more than 500 companies and more than 2,700 employees.
"By the end of this month, companies with 20 or more employees must also have a training plan ready. But five days per year per employee is not feasible and useful for every position and every activity," said the experts at Acerta Consult.
Nearly half of companies (45%) already offered more than five training days to their employees last year, before it was mandatory. Only 8% did not foresee a single training day. Two in three companies (66%) offer training to those employees who request it.
Additionally, receiving a promotion appears to be a time when employees are offered training (36%). A quarter of companies (27%) consciously offer training to employees who might want to leave the company. In most cases (83%), all employees in a company are given the same opportunity to follow training courses.
Little enthusiasm for five mandatory days of training
Even though the individual training right has been in force for some time, there is still little interest among employees to actually take up five training days per year through the employer. 43% of employees have not attended any training in the past year, and a quarter (25%) have already attended for five days or more.
Blue-collar workers and older employees in particular follow fewer courses than average. 56% of workers received no training last year, half of those over 55.
And even in 2024, it seems that employees will not really be interested in extra training days: just under half (47%) want to make full use of their individual training entitlement of (at least) five days this year. Three in ten want to take fewer than five training days this year. The remaining 23% do not yet know how many courses he/she wants to follow.
"The results of our survey show that employees only want to follow training if they find it useful. Training courses are best suited to the work that someone does or will have to do in the future," said Annelies Baelus, training expert at Acerta Consult.
Credit: Belga
"Training is also sometimes necessary to enable employees to take on new positions in the organisation or simply to remain relevant in the light of a rapidly changing business environment," she added. "If organisations can highlight this and build their training policy around it, the training will also be experienced as useful and the willingness to follow that training will be greater."
Employers with at least 20 employees must include their training policy in a training plan. The deadline for this is approaching (31 March). An Acerta survey among SMEs at the end of 2024 showed that four in ten SMEs have a training plan ready, a third is working on it, but three in ten still had to take the necessary action.
"The amount of training that is useful and/or necessary can vary considerably depending on the position of the employee or the sector and the type of company," said Baelus. "Everything is changing very quickly in the business world, and training is often necessary to continue to do the job properly or to meet the challenges of digitalisation, automation, etc."
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However, in some phases of the career or in some positions, these training courses are less useful or urgent. For her, the challenge will mainly be to find out how employees themselves can become the requesting parties to follow some form of training.
"This is also the purpose of the training plan, which must create a learning environment and provide a range of training courses that are relevant and necessary," Baelus said. "And this differs per position, per activity and must also fit in with the career path of employees and the organisational objectives. Training courses yield best if they meet a real need of the employee to be able to do his job well, today but also tomorrow."
