Risk management is the process of identifying, analysing, accepting, mitigating or transferring uncertainty in investment decisions. Fund managers apply risk management by analysing and attempting to quantify the potential loss of an investment and then acting accordingly.

The KDD tool (KDD stands for Knowledge Discovery in Databases) is an application developed by the data science team of the Central Control Service (CCS) of the National Employment Office (NEO). The tool was developed in cooperation with the social inspectors to (1) improve fraud detection, (2) be able to prepare and treat their investigations more efficiently and faster, (3) improve follow-up on their results for reporting purposes and (4) to improve the feedback cycle for the data science team so their fraud detection models can be ameliorated.

The challenge addressed by the Federal Pensions Service (Service fédéral des Pensions – SFP) and its partners was the outdated pension application tool, prompting the integration of an online pension demand system into mypension.be, Belgium’s official online pension portal.

Due to the increasing number of pensioners, the rising cost of individual contacts and in order to benefit from automation, the Federal Pensions Service (Service fédéral des Pensions – SFP) and its partners are promoting online self-service.

Institutions are being transformed thanks to the integration of new technologies. This vision represents a corporate change with a social impact, reducing costs, simplifying processes and procedures, and raising awareness of the importance and benefits of this transformation.

Due to the armed conflict in Ukraine, the Social Insurance Institution (Zaklad Ubezpieczen Spolecznych ‒ ZUS) of Poland has been obliged to provide financial support to refugees from Ukraine. This support is provided within the framework of government programmes: Good Start 300+; Family 500+; Family Care Capital; Co-financing of Nursery Fees.

The expected large number of benefit claims, the heavy burden of social responsibility, as well as the tight timetable to prepare for the processing of new claims, forced ZUS to take quick and efficient measures.

The Dopflux procedure is an innovative approach developed by the National Employment Office (NEO) – Office national de l’emploi – ONEM – of Belgium to address the challenges posed by evolving career trajectories and their impact on social security programmes. This procedure enables the collection and analysis of comprehensive longitudinal data on employment situations and related socioeconomic factors among benefit recipients, offering valuable insights into the effectiveness of social security policies.

In times of increasing digitalization and dependence on IT, we see a war for talent in tech, while budgets are simultaneously facing ever-increasing pressure. Because of this, the efficient use of money and resources becomes increasingly important to allow for further growth in the realm of digitalization.

Article 12 of Law No. 5508 on the Promotion, Protection of Maternity and Support for Breastfeeding establishes that maternity allowance should be paid to employed women by the social security scheme of Paraguay’s Social Insurance Institute (Instituto de Previsión Social – IPS). This amount is equivalent to 100 per cent of her salary at the time of delivery, and is paid for the prescribed months of rest. This used to be given to women in a single payment.

After a legislative change, the Social Insurance Institution (Zaklad Ubezpieczen Spolecznych − ZUS) took over from 1 July 2021 a government programme for families in Poland called Dobry start (Good start) 300plus, aimed at parents of children attending school.

The issue of population growth and social security planning is one of the biggest challenges facing governments today, and is a key part of a good social security system that instils confidence in its members.

The Retirement and Pension Fund for Employees of Banks and Related Institutions (Caja de Jubilaciones y Pensiones de Empleados de Bancos y Afines) (Bank Fund, hereinafter) is in constant communication with its members. It therefore continuously updates its databases, in order to have a better understanding of members’ current realities, experiences and needs.

Digital transformation is happening in institutions through the integration of new technologies. This vision represents an institutional and social change, optimizing available resources, reducing costs, shortening processes and procedures, and raising awareness of the importance and benefits of this transformation.

The solution implemented by the Social Insurance Institution (Zaklad Ubezpieczen Spolecznych − ZUS) in the form of digitisation of files is a key element in the era of universal access to documentation in electronic form. This ensures an efficient and comprehensive support for ZUS customers as well as priority task performance by employees. In view of the experience gained so far and based on the high results of digitisation, ZUS plans to extend the process further to other areas of activity.

By virtue of the amended legislation and new legislation enacted, the Social Insurance Institution (Zaklad Ubezpieczen Spolecznych ‒ ZUS) has been obliged to handle a number of programmes to support families. These are the government programmes: Good Start 300+; Family 500+; Family Care Capital; Co-financing of Nursery Fees.

The huge, multi-million number of benefit claims, the heavy burden of social responsibility, as well as the tight timetable to prepare for the processing of new claims, forced ZUS to take quick and efficient measures.

Technical debt – the extra work and costs involved in correcting poorly designed or suboptimal source code – is an inevitable part of any Information Technology (IT) project.

Used sparingly, it is a way of delivering added value to clients more quickly. However, allowing technical debt to get out of control and ignoring the issues involved are the main causes of both short- and long-term failures of Information & Communication Technology (ICT) projects.

Good practice in health – service quality.

As health-care systems have evolved to become more complex and due to the resultant increase in patients coming to harm in health care settings, patient safety has emerged as a health-care discipline.

The needs of end users are at long last being prioritized in digital projects. Those of intermediate users, on the other hand, are all too often neglected. Through its dedicated team of service designers, the Belgian National Employment Office (Office national de l’emploi – ONEM) is gradually remodelling the interfaces of the tools used by its employees. And since a public service can only be complete if internal applications deliver the same level of user experience as end-user applications, ONEM decided to involve employees from the very beginning of the design process.

The Actuarial Advisory Office (Asesoría Actuarial) of the Social Insurance Institute (Instituto de Previsión Social – IPS) carried out an actuarial valuation of the Common Retirement and Pension Fund (Fondo Común de Jubilaciones y Pensiones). The valuation looks to comply with international best practices and observe the guidelines and standards of the International Standards of Actuarial Practice 2 (ISAP 2), and the ISSA-ILO Guidelines on Actuarial Work for Social Security, with technical support from the International Labour Organization (ILO).

The pace of development of the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on social and economic life took everyone by surprise. Lockdown of entire sectors of the economy and restrictions in everyday functions caused serious disruptions of economic processes and had a significant impact on the condition of many enterprises and the labour market situation. To minimise the negative impact of the pandemic on the economy, the government introduced the aid programme known as the Anti-Crisis Shield (ACS).

The labour market has been hard hit by the coronavirus crisis. In 2020, Belgium’s National Employment Office (Office national de l’emploi – ONEM) compensated some 2.3 million people, that is, one in every three workers. It also provided support to two in every three employers, some 70 per cent more than usual. Many workers found themselves temporarily unemployed for the first time and needing to make recourse to unemployment benefits.

Like most of the world’s countries, Paraguay has adopted lockdown measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19. These steps taken by the government have impacted the productive sector, leading to mass suspensions of employment contracts for persons insured with the Social Insurance Institute (Instituto de Previsión Social – IPS) of Paraguay.

The coronavirus crisis has opened the floodgates to a tsunami of requests for the services of Belgium’s National Employment Office (Office national de l’emploi – ONEM). Following the closure of the ONEM offices to the public in March 2020, the organization’s contact centre was quite literally bombarded with requests from employers and jobseekers.

In Belgium and France, our social security systems were built to protect ourselves against unforeseen events in life. A common purpose at the heart of the International Social Security Association (ISSA): to allow everyone to live better.

In 2020, the Polish government introduced a new form of support for Polish families and the tourism industry due to the difficult economic situation caused by the COVID-19 epidemic. This was the Polish Tourist Voucher, a benefit of 500 złoty (PLN) for each child and an additional PLN 500 for a disabled child. The electronic voucher is intended to finance hotel services or tourist events in Poland.

Thanks to a concerted effort of the main actors in the Belgian health system, and with input from their partners, the Unit Audit Hospitals was able to answer important questions from responsible government actors about the impact of the subsequent waves of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Both the dispersion of patient load throughout the Belgian landscape, as well as the adherence to prioritisation guidelines, and the backlog caused by the additional care required for COVID-19 patients, were thoroughly analysed using integrated data coming from these different actors.

In October 2020, the Social Insurance Institution (Zaklad Ubezpieczen Spolecznych − ZUS) of Poland provided its customers with the possibility of “e-visit in ZUS”, a consultation with a ZUS expert through a video call.

e-visit is a safe and convenient form of contact with a ZUS employee. Without leaving home, customers can talk to an expert to help them with their case. During an e-visit, the customer can obtain general information on the legislation, submit applications and obtain personal data recorded in his or her individual ZUS account.

The condition for efficient performance of tasks, especially important from the point of view of a public trust institution like the Social Insurance Institution (Zaklad Ubezpieczen Spolecznych − ZUS), is constant development of knowledge and skills of each employee and continuous improvement of professional qualifications. Supporting the employee development process by the Employer is also a sine qua non condition.

Belgium’s National Employment Office (Office national de l’emploi – ONEM) has been facing an unprecedented situation during the coronavirus crisis. On 16 March 2020, some 92 per cent of its workforce found themselves teleworking full time. As the ONEM continued to fulfil its social mission, maintaining the well-being of its staff became a priority.

For this reason, a number of initiatives were launched in March 2020:

Given the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Belgium’s federal crisis centre needed real-time information on its social and economic consequences for the population, particularly for vulnerable groups.

To this end, the Federal Public Service for Social Security (Service public fédéral Sécurité sociale – FPS), the FPS Employment, and the Public Planning Service (PPS) Social Integration, were requested to take an initiative to meet this monitoring need as soon as possible.

Paraguay’s Social Insurance Institute (Instituto de Previsión de Social – IPS) used to make sick leave payments at its administrative offices, which had associated administrative costs and meant beneficiaries had to visit the IPS service counter in person.

The coronavirus crisis has had a major impact on Belgium’s National Employment Office (Office national de l’emploi – ONEM). On the one hand, the measures taken at a government level have triggered a high volume of work relating to unemployment benefits, among others. On the other, ONEM’s staff were forced, virtually overnight, to rethink how they work in order to be able to continue to fulfil the institution’s remit and provide insured people with the same quality of service.

Dynamic and inclusive social security systems rely on prompt and informed decision making, based on reliable current and historical data. The online open data platform developed by the Belgian National Employment Office − NEO (Office national de l’emploi – ONEM) was crucial in achieving this goal.

The platform resulted from a series of strategic decisions.

The Social Insurance Institution (Zaklad Ubezpieczen Spolecznych − ZUS) has made available to customers of its IT system – the ZUS Electronic Services Platform (Platforma Usług Elektronicznych − PUE) – the possibility to self-create electronic documents based on select data from their ZUS accounts. Confirmations that bear a qualified electronic seal of ZUS have the same force as ZUS paper certificates, and can be used in the processes of other institutions.

My Vision Zero Youth Short Film Competition of the Agricultural Social Insurance Fund (Kasa Rolniczego Ubezpieczenia Społecznego – KRUZ) of Poland. The aim of the competition is to promote safe work-related behaviour on farms among school and university students, particularly those with an agricultural focus, and to popularize Vision Zero in agriculture.

My Vision Zero Competition is aimed at young people aged between 13 and 21, who are tasked with producing a short film promoting a healthy and safe system of work on the farm.

Workplace atmosphere is one of the key factors influencing our well-being, efficiency and quality of performed duties. It is much more pleasant to spend time in a place where there is mutual understanding, respect and trust, where we can count on help from co-workers and superiors, where we do not experience unhealthy rivalry, hostility or unequal treatment. In a friendly environment, we willingly take on new challenges, thus increasing efficiency and improving the quality of performed tasks.

Human Resources (HR) departments are tasked with keeping up with business, being a partner that responds to needs, meets expectations and provides a sense of security through professional, efficient service and management.

The transformation of the Department for Employee Affairs (DEA) into the Human Resources Management Department (HRD), apart from its traditional HR and payroll functions, appointed HR Business Partners dedicated to a specific area and created the HR Controlling area together with the remuneration policy and the care of the employees’ professional development.

The new rules for payment and settlement of contributions collected by the Social Insurance Institution (Zaklad Ubezpieczen Spolecznych – ZUS) have come into force since 1 January 2018. Payers pay all contributions due for all types of insurance and to all funds by means of one payment, using a regular payment document.

Payments are marked with the payer’s Individual Number of Contribution Account (NRS) and then posted and settled to cover proportionally the contributions due, as indicated by:

The Social Insurance Institution (Zaklad Ubezpieczen Spolecznych – ZUS) strives to maintain the highest standards in public fund management and fund security. The challenge in this area is fraud which is among the types of risks affecting the ZUS. We analyse actions in this risk category which, through intentional concealment of truth, may result in obtaining a benefit or in avoiding the payment of contributions. These activities are often carried out in apparent compliance with the law but are in fact in contradiction of the law.

Towards the end of 2018, the Auxiliary Unemployment Benefits Fund (Caisse auxiliaire de paiement des allocations de chômage – CAPAC) introduced a number of IT modules using deep learning aimed first at improving its quality control on unemployment file compilation activities and the payment of unemployment benefits; and second, at increasing the productivity of staff engaged in this work. The results are only recent but are excellent, with very low levels of investment and very short development cycles.

In order to continue to provide quality services in a changing and more demanding environment, the National Employment Office (Office national de l’emploi – ONEM), which manages unemployment insurance and career breaks, invests in innovation, change management and risk management. These three elements must be managed in a rigorous and integrated manner. It is therefore crucial to have the right people with the right skills in the right place. It is necessary to invest in the development of employee skills in order to make them agile and resilient so they can cope with change.

The mission of the National Employment Office (Office national de l’emploi – ONEM) is to manage unemployment insurance schemes and career break schemes (parental leave, etc.). ONEM staff are in contact with various sectors of the public. In particular, 20.3 per cent of the Belgian population is said to be “at risk of poverty or social exclusion”. The training course is intended to raise poverty awareness among ONEM staff so that they properly manage clients who are in situations of vulnerability.

The career break programmes offer workers the chance to interrupt their careers temporarily or reduce their working hours by half or to four-fifths of the time to achieve a work-life balance, and receive replacement income from the authorities in the meanwhile. More than 400,000 people or about 10 per cent of all employed workers in Belgium use these schemes every year.

Since 1 December 2018, the Polish legal system has made it a statutory obligation to issue medical certificates of incapacity for work only in electronic form (e-ZLA). One week after the regulation came into force, more than 99 per cent of medical certificates of incapacity for work were issued electronically.

The achieved result is a huge success, considering that only 6.4 per cent of certificates were issued electronically in the previous year.

A project that provides (i) the customers of the Social Security Institution (Zaklad Ubezpieczen Spolecznych – ZUS) with a dedicated service that informs them of factors and variables that affect the decision on when to retire, and (ii) the counsellors with a retirement calculator tool that allows estimating the pension amount under various options, has delivered its expected outcomes and related benefits.

For the first time in the history of the Social Insurance Institution (Zaklad Ubezpieczen Spolecznych – ZUS), a comprehensive action plan on customer service was prepared, namely, the “Customer service policy at the Social Insurance Institution for 2017–2020”.

In 2017, the Social Insurance Institution (Zaklad Ubezpieczen Spolecznych – ZUS) established four regional councils comprising 43 ZUS branches and ZUS headquarters, as a mechanism to supervise the implementation of ZUS objectives and tasks as well as key strategic projects, including legislative changes implemented in 2017–2018 (the Acts reducing the retirement age, e-contribution, and e-ZLA, respectively), and to monitor of the implementation of optimization projects and changes in the organization.

The eKRUS is an IT system of the Agricultural Social Insurance Fund (Kasa Rolniczego Ubezpieczenia Społecznego – KRUS) of Poland made available to the public via the Internet, dedicated to people insured with KRUS: farmers, farmers’ spouses and household members subject to social or health insurance, and members of their families reported by KRUS to health insurance.

The National Employment Office (Office national de l’emploi – ONEM) is responsible for managing unemployment insurance schemes and career break schemes (parental leave, etc.). Like most social security institutions, it is confronted by a great diversity of customers and staff.

The Social Insurance Institution (Zakład Ubezpieczeń Społecznych – ZUS) introduces plain language standards to communicate with customers.

We have:

Collection of contributions that finance social insurance benefits is one of the basic tasks of the Social Insurance Institution (Zaklad Ubezpieczen Spolecznych − ZUS). Due to financial problems of payers resulting from economic turmoil, pandemics and natural disasters, the reliefs and remissions accompanying the process of collecting contributions have become particularly important in recent years. Forced recovery of debts is very costly for debtors and can result in bankruptcy. ZUS also recovers unduly paid benefits e.g. to non-eligible persons.

Thanks to a huge business re-engineering process involving 3,000 actors in the Belgian social sector, a maximum number of social benefits and subsidiary rights is granted automatically, thus dispensing with the need for citizens and their employers to make any declarations, and drastically reducing the administrative burden for citizens and companies.

Based on a common and concerted vision, the actors in the Belgian social sector are taking full advantage of new technologies to improve and re-organize radically their mutual relationships and processes.

In the turbulent, constantly changing environment achieving ZUS' strategic objectives requires (among others) modifying the organizational culture by increasing employee satisfaction. For this purpose, the coherent human resource management system based on the model of competence will be implemented.

The project “Classes with ZUS” is addressed to secondary schools. It aims to raise awareness of young Poles on the role of social security in their lives.

The project presents: social solidarity principles, practical knowledge on the functioning of the system, obligations of employers towards ZUS, employer-friendly solutions - e-ZUS.

The project includes 4 lessons with the materials for teachers and for students (multimedia presentations, videos, exercises and texts to deepen the knowledge): 

The Polish Social Insurance Institution (ZUS) is by law obliged to prepare forecasts of the spending and revenues of the Social Insurance Fund (FUS) (i.e. the pension fund, the disability fund, the sickness fund and the work injury fund). A cohort model built to fulfil this requirement was sufficient to forecast aggregate spending and revenues, but, being based on average cohort values, it does not provide information on the benefits’ structure.

The National Employment Office (ONEM) has been using an integrated management model for a number of years.

This model is upgraded constantly and includes the vision, mission, values, strategic plan, operational plans, dashboards, the cost price calculation of and the of productivity measurement.

This management model has been materialized in the form of a management cockpit.

Over the past several years the National Sickness and Invalidity Insurance Institution (Institut national d’assurance maladie-invalidité (INAMI)) has been developing an active policy of occupational reintegration for persons receiving benefits under the invalidity insurance scheme.

It is an ambitious goal which involves close collaboration with fourteen independent family allowance funds, two special family allowance funds and 22 government agencies that, together, pay out EUR 3,700,000,000 per year for 2.1 million children in more than 1.2 million households.

To monitor the system, the Office:

In 2013, the National Employment Office (Office national de l’emploi – ONEM) launched a strategic project, “New Way of Working” (NWOW), in order to adapt its organization and working methods to the new world of work. The strategy was to try and transpose a global concept of NWOW.                           

Due to the wide scope of its statutory activities, the Social Insurance Institution (Zaklad Ubezpieczen Spolecznych − ZUS) has huge information resources and conducts numerous statistical surveys that allow for cross-sectional analysis of phenomena in the field of social insurance. The results of ZUS studies, analyses, forecasts and widely available statistical information are used by many public institutions, research institutions and private recipients.

In 2012–2013, the Social Insurance Institution (Zaklad Ubezpieczen Spolecznych – ZUS) commissioned a research to apply the Mystery Shopping method in the area of customer service. As a fully objective method to assess customer service, the research enabled ZUS to check whether applicable customer service standards were being observed. It also allowed ZUS to issue clear guidelines aimed at improving the quality of customer service. In addition, the research report provided strategic information to the ZUS Management Board.

Electronic Services Platform (PUE) is a set of advanced services for all ZUS' customers who contact ZUS through electronic means, by phone or directly, visiting a ZUS unit.

The web portal pue.zus.pl is its heart. It gives 24/24 h access to information available on a ZUS account and allows someone to deal - via Internet - with many social security issues without leaving home.

The good practice is aimed at optimizing the process of referrals to medical rehabilitation. Various actions have been taken to increase the effectiveness of rehabilitation, such as the introduction of a dedicated IT tool enabling the referral procedure to be decentralised to ZUS branch offices.

As a public institution with competence in the social field, the National Employment Office (Office national de l’emploi – ONEM) places great importance on its social responsibilities, including its ecological footprint. Sustainable development is also a concern for ONEM staff, as has been shown by employee surveys.

Since 2011, ONEM has developed a system of environmental management and implemented it progressively in all its buildings.

In December 2009, ZUS customer service standards and procedures were elaborated, together with their implementation timetable. Those standards and procedures were refined in subsequent years.

In practice, one aspect of this approach entails initiatives aimed at increasing customers' trust in ZUS as an institution. Increasing the level of acceptance of ZUS activities has two dimensions. The first relates to the acceptance of ZUS as a state institution fulfilling tasks in the field of social insurance, the second - to ZUS' role as an employer. The ZUS Development Strategy for 2013-2015 is a continuation of the transformation process initiated under the previous strategy implemented in 2010-2012. The Balanced Scorecard is applied as a Strategy structuring tool.

It targets jobseekers under 26 years of age with at most a secondary education certificate who have been unemployed for at least three months, unemployed workers aged at least 50 who have been unemployed for at least six months and unemployed workers receiving benefits who have been looking for work from one to two years. A subsidy (active unemployment benefit) which varies between EUR7501 and EUR1,100 per month is provided to encourage their recruitment. This subsidy is allocated for two years if they are taken on in 2010 and for one year if in 2011.

This scheme was reinforced in 2009 to assist enterprises and reduce layoffs during the crisis:

• access was extended to all workers including office (white collar) workers, temporary staff and agency workers;
• the amount of the partial unemployment benefits was significantly increased;
• partially unemployed workers were allowed to undertake training.

Previous forms of monitoring service quality were carried out internally, within ZUS and did not contain information on customers' expectations and prioritization of their needs, nor provide complete information on how the customers assess this across all channels of contact.

The National Employment Office (l’Office national de l’emploi (ONEM)) reduced its staff by 10 per cent between 2010 and 2014 and by an additional 5 per cent in 2015. The operating budget (material, premises and equipment) was reduced by 20% in 2015.

The volume of work nevertheless remained high since 2008 as a result of the continuing economic crisis and also because of additional tasks.

A programming team organized within the Social Security Institution (Zaklad Ubezpieczen Spolecznych – ZUS) independently provides a part of the IT systems functionalities.

By employing highly specialized software design and development professionals, the organization ensures the quality of the new products. Expertise in programming combined with knowledge of the institution’s operating rules and knowledge of the operational processes in force means that the products fit in well with the organization’s expectations.

Therefore, the National Employment Office turned towards the EFQM (European Foundation for Quality Management) approach, which included external assessment and, where applicable, awarded recognised accreditation in Europe.

The approach is comprised of various stages:

Ageing at work was a two year project (2007-2009) within the framework of the Leonardo da Vinci Lifelong Learning Programme 2007-2013 of the European Commission.

The project was led by Prevent in Belgium and has partners in Greece (EWORX), Ireland (WRC), the Netherlands (TNO and Hogeschool Utrecht) and Poland (NIOM).

Project Aims

The project aimed at producing, testing and promoting training for human resource professionals on age management with a particular focus on health (i.e. integrated workplace health management).

The target Risk for Value model is a part of the entity of general management practice of the organization and governance building in ZUS. It generates added value, introduces effectivenessbased way of thinking about management, based on the analysis of dynamically modeled indicators of risk value - Key Risk Indicators (KRI).

The perception of risk management shifts from systematic risk mapping based on Risk Registry (qualitiative methods) toward a risk management system based on Key Risk Indicators (quantitative methods).

KRIs will enable ZUS to:

The unit is composed of the employer, trade unions and sectoral bodies (training funds) and the regional employment service, which is responsible for its management.

As soon as redundancy is announced, workers are provided with support by the employment unit for a period of between three and six months during which they retain their wages and are exempt from the performance of their work.

This measure therefore transforms the "passive" period of notice or separation benefits into an "active" period of seeking employment, support and training.

A second phase of the prevention of violations has been implemented since 2010. A preventive system has been added which compares databanks before granting entitlement or before benefits are paid. Unwarranted benefit payments are therefore avoided at source.

The Social Security Institution (ZUS) employs certifying physicians (1st instance) and physicians who are members of medical committees (2nd instance) who issue certificates stating incapacity for work in order to determine the right to social security benefits and who control the correctness of issued medical certifications of work incapacity. These physicians specialize in different fields of medicine as Poland has no specialization in medical certification and all postgraduate courses have no single curriculum.

This system has been progressively applied since 2004 and has enabled many unlawful cases of concurrently claiming unemployment benefits and receiving salaried, self-employed or disability income or pensions or pensions to be detected. More than 22,000 unlawful cases were accordingly detected in 2008 amounting to EUR 25 million (for information purposes, 404,000 persons were registered as unemployed in Belgium in 2008).

The plan comprises two complementary sections:

Authorized work includes home help such as cleaning, household shopping, ironing and assistance with travel for users who have reduced mobility.

Individuals pay EUR 7.50 per service voucher corresponding to one hour's work. They are entitled to 30 per cent tax relief (which reduces the actual cost to EUR 5.25). The public subsidy is EUR 13.60. The company consequently receives EUR 21.10.

The cost of the scheme is high and amounted to EUR one billion and 370 million in 2010 but the direct effects (40 per cent) and indirect effects are considerable.

The aim of the project is to increase the level of satisfaction of its personnel, their integration of common values and their well-being at work. It is based on a democratic, participative and emancipating approach which involved the entire organisation in its design and implementation.

Its success led to the introduction of two further projects between 2006 and 2008.

This project saw the following developments:

Strong measures have made it possible to prevent full unemployment and to reintegrate the long-term unemployed, whose numbers have fallen by 40 per cent. The measures include:

To qualify, the self-employed worker must not earn any income from work or receive any other replacement income (residual benefit).

Bankruptcy insurance is a compulsory branch of social security.

Scope of application: