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While we’ve all just witnessed the Paris 2024 Olympic Games with fervor, and are preparing to thrill once again with the Paralympic Games, this major sporting event at home has given us a fantastic opportunity to open up to the whole world and take a tour of Europe in vocational training (and a tour of the world soon!).
I’d like to share a personal anecdote with you. In front of every flag, in front of every athlete, my 5-year-old daughter kept asking me: Mommy, which country is this? And it’s a well-known fact that the truth comes out of children’s mouths, isn’t it?
In the field of professional training, too, Diligence Consulting has been curious about other countries around the world. Having worked for foreign companies, both European and non-European, I’ve heard on many occasions that France is a country apart. And I don’t think I’m the only one to have experienced this. Whether it’s our language, our culture, our administrative system, our HR policy or our professional training regulations, France is a country that can give our neighbors a hard time.
So how do you go about training for a new trade or skill elsewhere?
That’s what we’re going to find out from our initial research into 3 European countries. Are you all packed? I’m taking you on a trip!
We’re off to a gentle start for this first stage. If paella has replaced blanquette de veau on our plates, in terms of professional training, Spain is undoubtedly the country with the closest practices to France. As in France, the social partners and the State play a predominant role. Without going into detail, companies pay compulsory contributions and can then recover training costs, in much the same way as French companies can apply to their OPCO for certain eligible training courses to be reimbursed.
What makes us different, however, is that we operate in a much more centralized, community-based way, with a focus on co-investment between employer and employee.
Using the stick rather than the carrot technique, Spain holds the gold medal for access to vocational training. From Madrid to Barcelona to Andalusia, this is where employees take the most in-company training. France, for its part, has nothing to be ashamed of, coming in third!
Let’s continue our journey with the latest European – and probably even global – exception, Belgium. With the whole of Belgium, we share a love of chocolate, waffles and French fries. But that’s not all! We also agree on a mutualized vocational training system. And yes, France, Spain and Belgium are the only countries in Europe to practise this system to a very large extent, involving both the social partners and the State.
Belgium is also capitalizing on a form ofobligation to train company employees, and this seems to be working. Indeed, the Belgians are on the podium with the silver medal for access to vocational training.
As a result, we find Belgium in third place this time on another podium, that of the share of investments for companies. Belgium is the third country in Europe to devote the highest proportion of its wage bill to employee training, just behind France.
Let’s return to southern Europe for some pasteis de nata. This time, there’s a change of scenery. Vocational training is less mutualized. But unlike more liberal countries such as the UK, the Portuguese state controls access to vocational training. A law enshrined in the Labor Code obliges companies to provide a minimum of 35 hours of training per employee per year.
In theory, training can be provided by the company, a private training organization, or the public vocational training system. In practice, most training is carried out in-house. Portugal even holds the gold medal for this modality, with an overall average of 60% of training carried out in-house throughout Europe. A change of scenery guaranteed, from Porto to Lisbon to the Algarve! In France, the opposite is true. French companies often prefer to train elsewhere than on their own premises, with only 45% of training carried out in-house.
As with their Spanish neighbors, the state invests more in vocational training than companies. Spain and Portugal are therefore at the bottom of the podium in terms of corporate investment. However, public aid is only granted under certain conditions. It should be noted that public aid is not always financed solely by the State, but also by the European Union, which sets up a budget for its member states (notably the European Social Fund).
If you’d like to join us on our European tour of vocational training, we look forward to seeing you in September, with 4 new destinations on the program: Germany, the UK, Norway and Denmark.
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And if you have any questions about your certification projects within our borders, please contact us!
