For the implementation of these training projects, CEFORA is collaborating with a network of specialised partners: from educational institutions and professional trainers with broad business experience to organisations that offer services in the area of project administration and project coordination. This networking therefore makes it possible for CEFORA to provide services that combine quality, flexibility, reaction speed, and professional know-how.

The service package offered by CEFORA consists of the following:

• Training programmes
• Campaign to elevate the activity factor
• Solving the problem of hard-to-fill jobs
• Industrial Apprenticeship Training
• Training allowances
• Price discounts at training institutions
• Information about the training programmes offered
• Studies about the CPNAE

Training programmes

1. For white-collar employees
   
   
   CEFORA develops and organises – in close cooperation with employers’ federations and organisations from within the sector – an open training programme for white-collar employees within the reference frame of the sectoral CLA. To this end, CEFORA has recourse to a number of pedagogical methods. Most of the courses are presented in the conventional way but a number of them are available in the form of distance education or as a combination of the conventional instructional method and distance learning. Interested parties can register for this programme through their employers. CEFORA further offers to enterprises that have registered a training plan the possibility to have these training programmes conducted as in-company sessions.
   
   
   In addition to the above, all employees from the sector are entitled to attend one complementary training day per CLA period. On their own initiative and outside office hours, they can participate in this training day at the CEFORA premises.
   
   
2. For instructors in charge of training programmes, trainers, and personal advisors
   
   The programme on training policy - ‘train the trainer’ - has specially been developed for the benefit of business managers, (first-time) training officers, and line managers in SMEs. The participants are taught how to determine the training needs of their personnel and to work out a training plan. In addition, a number of instructional courses are made available to trainers and personal advisors.
   After having participated in certain programmes, the business enterprise can request additional assistance to help solve specific training problems.
   
   
3. For job seekers
   
   CEFORA develops and organises training programmes that include practical in-service experience for (risk groups amongst) jobseekers to fill functions for which the enterprises cannot readily find qualified personnel within the sector.
   
   

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Campaign to elevate the activity factor

CEFORA assists enterprises to reclassify and/or maintain the work experience level of older employees (+ 45 years of age) by means of adapted training courses, and also promotes the recruitment of older jobseekers.

In addition, a competence-screening session in function of offering subsequent training advice is available to this target group (called “check-up 45+”). All employers within the CPNAE can have their 45-year old or older employees screened by CEFORA at no charge. Likewise, 45-year old or older jobseekers that are already part of a recruitment procedure can, prior to their entering employment, participate in this screening, and this also free of charge. Subsequently, CEFORA will offer training advice while, in consultation with the employee in question, a training programme will be worked out to ensure that older employees remain ‘up-to-date’ and retain complete employability.

Likewise, recently dismissed white-collar employees will find CEFORA helpful in providing lay-off assistance and guidance during their period of unemployment. Employees 45 years old and older will receive lay-off assistance for a maximum of one year, while employees of 35 years to 45 years of age can participate in a shortened programme called ‘Ready for a New Start’. This age limitation is not in effect in cases of collective lay-offs or plant closings. Specialists help participants in their search for a new suitable job and will offer training advice.

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Solving the problem of hard-to-fill jobs

CEFORA attempts to assist enterprises in their search for qualified personnel to fill hard-to-fill vacancies by offering job seekers appropriate vocational training that is always coupled to a practical in-service period. One unique feature of this programme is its concern to protect the interests of risk groups while, at the same time, having due consideration for the recruitment problems experienced by the enterprises.

Furthermore, CEFORA is trying to guide young people from a number of diploma courses towards the sector, and this by means of :

• traineeship programmes and guidance with the trainee’s final work project (networking with schools, creating a suitable rapport between school and business)
• student (summer vacation) employment
• vacancies (creating a traineeship. and vacancy. databank)
• representation at job fairs and get-acquainted days

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Industrial Apprenticeship Training

Within the sector, CEFORA is developing the Industrial Apprenticeship Training for white-collar functions. This system offers risk groups amongst youngsters the opportunity to learn an occupation as a white-collar employee in a system organised on the basis of alternating learning and working.

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Training allowances

1. For enterprises
   
   Enterprises that on their own initiative are organizing training programmes for their older employees (+ 45) are eligible to apply to CEFORA for training allowances.
   This kind of allowance is also available to employees below 45 years of age provided the enterprise has registered a training plan within the reference frame of the sectoral CLA.
   
   
2. For employees: training programmes outside of CEFORA
   
   In cases where employees have decided, on their own initiative, to participate in and self-finance a training programme, they are under certain conditions eligible to apply to CEFORA for a reimbursement of part of their registration fee.
   
   
3. For employees: training programmes through CEFORA
   
   Employees that are taking advantage of their right to participate in an additional training day (see A.1) at CEFORA are entitled to a fixed allowance of 40 euro as a reimbursement of their travel and training expenses.
   
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Price discounts at training institutions

Enterprises that have registered a training plan are entitled to price discounts at a number of training institutions (Formstimul). These discounts are in effect at both a number of private and public training institutions.

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Information about the training programmes offered

Enterprises can without charge consult via CEFORA an extensive databank (Formbase) that provides an overview of the training market.

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Studies about the CPNAE

CEFORA operates a study centre that conducts research in collaboration with the Social Fund of the CPNAE, other research centres, federations, social secretariats, outsourcing agencies.... This is considered necessary in order to be able to anticipate on the training needs and to inform the principal education actors about developments within the sector.
CEFORA monitors the employment evolutions and conducts studies about hard-to-fill occupations, new functions, professional and qualification profiles, training needs, the available training programmes, and new trends evident domestically and abroad, and this for the entire CPNAE as well as for the sub-sectors.
These kinds of studies serve an extremely useful purpose in that they provide a scientific base of support for the content of the CEFORA training programmes.

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