Transfer of business to employees

This project focuses on SMEs whose manager reaches (or has reached) retirement age or is thinking of taking over, the so-called "aging SMEs. We would like to know if the company can offer an option to its own employees to take over the SME, in order to ensure the continuity of the business and the anchoring of local employment.

Objective

The project aimed to develop the following tools for service providers in the Flemish labor market:

• An innovative guidance path for company managers and employees that collectively and qualitatively deals with all aspects of the acquisition. This counseling program for aging SMEs, our final target group, focuses not only on the manager, but also on all or part of the employees. Central to this guidance path was the testing, shaping and working out of the takeover of the SME by its own employees. The aim was that all route counsellors could apply this methodology when it seemed a suitable route for the SME that came to them for guidance.

• An online platform to inform and sensitize the final target group.