The frequently asked questions about the Federal Learning Account (FLA) and the individual learning account

By 30 November 2024, every employer is required to register the training rights of his employees and the training courses attended since 1 January 2024 in the Federal Learning Account (FLA). What does this mean for you as an employer? Which kind of information are you required to register? Below is a list of the most frequently asked questions and clear answers to each of these questions.

What is the purpose of the FLA or the individual training account?

The FLA is intended to make tracking training courses and managing training rights simpler and more transparent. This ensures that employers and employees alike are better informed. 

What is the purpose of Labour Deal training days?

To achieve lifelong learning, the Labour Deal introduces 2 obligations for employers: 

• If you employ more than 20 employees, you need to prepare an annual training plan and
• set up a system of individual training rights. This means that you need to award your employees a number of training days on an annual basis. Exactly how many days you need to award depends on the size of your business, the sector in which you operate and each employee’s employment rate.
• In order to determine the remaining balance in training days or hours to which each employee remains entitled over the course of the year,  the employer:
  • Is to either keep an individual learning account, in which he is to record the number of training hours or days the employee is entitled to at the start, which training courses he attended and how many training hours or days remain. This is a paper or digital document that is kept at the company and which must be available to be consulted by the employee at any time.
  • Or use the FLA, into which a number of details regarding the training courses attended must be entered in order to be able to consult the remaining balance in training hours to which the employee remains entitled. The FLA is a platform set up by the government via careerpro.be.

The FLA stems from the Labour Deal but is being introduced through a different law.

The idea behind the FLA is to make tracking training courses and managing training rights simpler and more transparent. This ensures that employers and employees alike are better informed. 

1) Who needs to fill in the FLA or keep an individual learning account?

All private sector employees, including SMEs, are to register the training courses attended by their employees since 1 January 2024 in the FLA or keep these details in an individual learning account, even where the employee concerned has no individual statutory or sectoral training entitlement.

In other words, the right to training is not the same thing as the obligation to keep an individual learning account or the FLA.

2) Is the intention for the FLA to be scrapped in due course?

As specified above, employers are required to keep track of their employees’ individual training rights in an individual learning account or via the FLA.

Given the administrative burden the FLA entails, the associated obligation has been postponed. This means the tool is available on careerpro.be, but it is not mandatory. If the tool is not used, the employer is to set up an individual learning account himself.

However, the government coalition agreement goes one further and plans to scrap the FLA, which is to be replaced by a more straightforward alternative system. It is currently unclear whether the platform is to be scrapped in its entirety or whether it is to be further simplified or improved. In principle, the FLA will continue to exist until 1 January 2025 in its current form.

3) Which types of training courses are eligible for the FLA or the individual learning account?

The law specifies that both formal and informal training courses relating to the work or the job itself need to be registered. Exactly what does ‘informal training’ mean?

Example: are in-house training sessions on sales techniques or how to present competitive analyses to be considered informal training?

The law defines ‘informal training’ as:  "training activities directly relating to the work. These training courses are typified by a high degree of self-organisation by the individual learner or by a group of learners with regard to time, place and content, a content chosen to suit the individual needs of the learner at the workplace, and with a direct link to the work and the workplace, including participation in conferences or trade fairs for learning purposes."

As the law regulates the employer-employee relationship, the Administration considers that the training courses must therefore be related to the exercise of an occupational activity and aimed at advancing the transfer of knowledge and workers’ skills (= learning purposes).

So you need to ask yourself whether these presentations or informative sessions ensure:

• knowledge transfer;
• the advancement of skills.

The following may qualify as informal training:

• on-the-job training;
• mentoring, coaching, acquisition of know-how;
• training or education through job rotation, exchanges, study visits and secondments;
• participation in training or quality cycles;
• self-study and remote training (books, e-learning, courses by mail);
• attending conferences, workshops, trade fairs and lectures.

A strictly work meeting between colleagues is not considered informal training.

4) What if my employees do not want to enrol in training courses?

Most employers (depending on their sector) are under obligation to provide these five days of training, but for employees, attending training courses remains a right, not an obligation.

Which means you cannot force your employees to take training courses. Needless to say it is always a good idea to enthuse and encourage your employees to do so. For example, make sure your training courses are meaningful and actually contribute to growth and productivity. Our advice: create individual growth paths or career paths for your employees.