As from 1 July 2015, there is a legal obligation for employees in connection with professional development.  What does this training obligation entail?

According to the statutory training obligation, the employer must, in short, enable the employee to:

• follow training that is necessary for the performance of his duties;
• follow training that is necessary for the continuation of the employment agreement if the current position of the employee is made redundant (in the event of a reorganisation);
• follow training when an employee is no longer able to perform his duties under his old job (unsatisfactory performance of the employee).

For employers and employees, the question is whether this legal training obligation will in fact make a large change in practice, since already before the entry into force of the law, an employer was expected to enable an employee to following training. In the event of redundancy of a position of an employee, certain measures in terms of training were expected in connection with the redeployment effort as well. Also a dismissal due to unsatisfactory performance was in general only possible if training had been offered to the employee.

It is not yet clear as to how courts will deal with non-compliance of the statutory training obligation; it may be that more initiatives will be expected from the employer.

I highly recommend to document training efforts in the personnel file of the employee. In particular when the employee is not open to the offer to follow training, it is advisable to record this offer and the reaction to it in writing, so that it cannot be enforced against the employer later that the employee has not followed the training.