Experience@Work is an initiative by consultancy firm HazelHeartwood, AXA, KBC and Proximus. The idea behind it is as simple as it is brilliant: since we will all have to work longer, we need to ensure that everyone can stay healthy and motivated at work. And if possible, why not work to make a better world?

So Experience@Work is bringing experienced employees of organisations like AXA, KBC, Proximus, SDWorx and Arcadis in contact with social profit companies that have a vacancy within the employee’s sphere of interest or expertise.

Many companies are drawing up action plans concerning ‘sustainable employability’: including modifications to working hours and job content and stimulating vitality at work. But every organisation comes up against its own limits. If, for example, you have a lot of older welders working for your company who are finding the job too arduous, you can’t make them all supervisors. HazelHeartwood found that many of its clients needed a better solution. In that quest, the consultancy firm came into contact with AXA, KBC and Proximus who had already been looking for solutions to the challenge of working later in life for some time. Together they decided to set up Experience@Work, a platform that makes it possible to use workers in other organisations without losing the ties and the contract with their current employer.

Win⁴

In other words: candidates who are placed via Experience@Work continue working for their old employer. At the same time, they can use their experience on behalf of firms in the social sector who do not have the resources to pay for all that experience. “Everyone wins”, says Inge Janssens, Managing Director of Experience@Work. “The social organisations can bring in experience without paying the full cost that goes with that talent, while the original employer keeps his employees vital and motivated and recovers part of the HR cost. The employees find a new drive without losing the employment rights they have built up during their career and extra costs for society are avoided, because people keep working longer and in better health”.

Quest for vacancies

Experience@Work offers the platform to match up experienced employees with vacant positions for a prolonged or indefinite period with social profit organisations. At present, organisations using the platform include the Flemish nature and landscape association Natuurpunt, sickness insurance fund De Voorzorg, the contact point for business advice for artists and creatives Kunstenloket, NGO Caritas and many others. “But there are never enough”, laughs Inge Janssens. “We are always on the lookout for organisations that have vacancies and want to offer them via our free, non-commercial and alternative recruitment channel”.

In practice, it works as follows: when a position comes in that meets the conditions of Experience@Work, it is posted via the IT-platform of CVWarehouse on the intranet of member firms. Each company has its own platform on which its employees can see the jobs and apply online. After screening by their own employer, Experience@Work collects all the CVs and presents the candidates to the organisations that are offering the job. The candidates enter the same selection process as applicants via other channels. The only difference being that if they are chosen, a service contract is entered into and they remain under contract with their original employer.