The data showed that the quality of IT infrastructure and the provided support in Brussels is particularly appreciated (87%), whereas other big innovating centres came out with lower results. Amsterdam and Zurich (both ranking at 93%) do prove to be more convenient for starting a business, while Oslo (97%) and Stockholm (100%) rank first in this area.

A few challenges have yet to be overcome by the newly implemented companies, such as building a clientele, recruiting qualified personnel and accessing to capital. Only then can the Belgian capital be recognised as a entrepreneurship-starting centre on an international scale.

Far from them the idea to relocate their activities to an other country, as stated by 9 out of 10 (87%) of new entrepreneurs. This percentage far exceeds the European average of 59%.

This study was carried out by ‘European Start-up Survey and conducted by the consultancy agency PwC.

The post New entrepreneurs find Brussels more attractive than London, Paris or Berlin appeared first on Brussels Express.

How do we look at cycling races?

Almost all Belgians are familiar with the big French cycling race that started on 6 July in our capital (98%). And more than half (54%) also followed the race last year. They did this mainly via television (94%), the newspaper (28%) or the radio (24%). Only 2% said they started to encourage the riders in real life. It is striking that people under the age of 34 indicate that they follow the race twice as often via radio, news apps or social media than people over 34.

Most of us are sitting in our lazy seats (or on the rolls?). But that doesn’t necessarily mean that cycling fans are not sporty. On the contrary.

Who watches cycling?

We see that men more often follow the course than women (65% vs. 44%). This is not necessarily a surprise. Because cycling is still the most practiced by men. 27% of the Belgian men say they do cycling themselves compared to 9% of the Belgian women.

Men are more often the hard fans who invariably follow each stage (16%, against 6% women).

We also see that the Tour is very popular with the elderly people. No less than 71% of the 55+ riders follow the race. That’s almost twice as much as the Belgian who is younger than 34 years old, where 36% follows the Tour.

Finally, we notice that those who sport weekly, in the past, followed the Tour more often than those who did less sport (60% vs. 40%). Especially running and cycling are the sports that are often practiced by the loyal spectator of the Tour(2).  Fitness is the most popular sport with Belgians who do not follow the Tour(3).

Inspiration for the sportive cyclist

Garmin’s bike computers, including the Edge 530 and Edge 830, offer tons of inspiration for the cyclist who wants to go out this summer.  They feature a preloaded Garmin bike map, making it easy to discover new routes wherever you are.

Routing based on popularity allows you to choose from roads and paths that local cyclists travel most often. Those who want to deviate from the planned route to discover hidden places can do so as well. The Edge 530 and 830 will always lead you back to your route or starting point.

The figures also showed that mountain stages are most popular to follow. 64% of Belgians like it the most. Thanks to the ClimbPro function on the Edge devices (530 and 830), anyone who wants to experience them for themselves can automatically check the remaining ascent and angle of inclination. So you know what’s in store for you.

(1)Online research conducted by research agency iVOX on behalf of Garmin Belux between 3 May 2019 and 8 May 2019 among 1000 Belgians representative by province, gender, age and diploma. The maximum error rate for 1000 Belgians is 3.02%.

The post How did Belgian people follow the Tour de France? appeared first on Brussels Express.

According to the study, the top three reported reasons for becoming a free-lancer are 1) being your own boss (34 %), 2) doing what you love (31 %) and 3) getting more satisfaction from your job (29 %).

The financial aspect plays a much less important role, with only 13%.

The survey looked at what the self-employed perceived to be the positive aspects in the long-run. Being your own boss was once again the principal one. In third place, 29 % stated that customer satisfaction is rewarding and a motivating factor.

The overall satisfaction among the self-employed is high. In fact, 74% of all respondents give a score of at least seven out of ten when asked about their satisfaction.

When asked about  less satisfactory aspects, 53% report being least satisfied because of financial insecurity related to their status.  Then comes the heavy administrative burden they have to pay (49%) and the lack of free time (32%).

The post What are the advantages of becoming self-employed? appeared first on Brussels Express.

74% of the users gave STIB a score of 7/10 or higher.

According to 82% of the participants, mobility services have either maintained their quality or improved in 2018. Meanwhile, 43% stated that mobility in general in Brussels has deteriorated.

The metro network satisfaction score experienced a slight decline from 7.3 to 7.2/10 because of the congestion of the lines during peak hours.

In order to improve the metro line services, new metro trains are expected as of 2020.

The post STIB receives satisfactory scores from its users appeared first on Brussels Express.

« Monopoly Brussels remains faithful to the classic concept of Monopoly as you know it, only the streets are adapted to the places and monuments typically Brussels, » says Cedric Libbrecht, producer of Monopoly urban editions on Start Je Dag on Radio 2 Flemish Brabant. « The intention is of course to show the city as best as possible in all its facets, with museums, monuments and even pop concerts.« 

This version will contain the streets and famous locations of our capital city. However, there is a box on the board that has not been determined yet. What Brussels’ sight do you think should definitely be part of the game?

Among the options, there is a famous location from each municipality.

You vote, you decide: https://goo.gl/forms/hPSFFxDTTDF8szU93

You can vote until Sunday, March 31 at 23:59

The post Have Your Say: Help Design The Brussels’ Monopoly appeared first on Brussels Express.

Women and the digital revolution- What impact? What role can they play?

What is needed for you to thrive in the digital economy?

The digital disruption is impacting us all and re-shaping the job market. What’s the impact on women? How do you feel about it? By completing this survey, you will:
– Gain insights on how the digital age could impact you as a woman and your career
– Get some ideas on opportunities/challenges for career success in the digital age
– Help organisations offer adequate and appropriate support for you and other women in digital transformation

A few definitions

– By digital age we mean the age of technological disruption that expands into all areas of our lives, providing new tools that are revolutionising the way we live, the way we buy, the way we work, and the way companies and society operate and communicate.

– By digital skills we mean skills that enable people to create and share digital content, communicate and collaborate, develop new ways of working using digital channels, and solve business problems using digital solutions.

Confidentiality: 
All data will be analysed and reported in aggregate to ensure strict confidentiality and anonymity.

You make complete the survey by following this webpage.

The post Empowering career women for the digital future: Take part appeared first on Brussels Express.

The post Brussels is changing thanks to you – BXL2021 citizen survey appeared first on Brussels Express.

According to the Tempo-Team, « since the #MeToo campaign, twice as many companies are re-framing ‘out of place’ behavior at work ».

A similar survey in 2016 showed that only one fourth of companies had a code of conduct which would determine what tolerable behavior in the workplace means.

According to the survey results, four out of ten companies are taking measures today in order to « define more clearly the limits of inappropriate behavior and sexual harassment ».

However, there is still a lot of room for improvement as one out of two workers does not really know whether his/her company allows closer relationships between colleagues.

About 4 in 10 employees stated that they do not mind a colleague flirting with them, and 1 in 4 admit to having already flirted with a colleague.

On the other hand, the percentage of those who categorically refuse this type of rapport at work has increased from 37% in 2016 to 45% in 2018.

The post 4 in 10 employees do not mind a colleague flirting with them: Codes of conduct at work after #MeToo appeared first on Brussels Express.

If you are a job-seeker you will be familiar with this scenario: week after week of sending in job applications, you don’t hear back from employers. You might have a few automatic emails, courteously reminding you that you should not expect to get any feedback, or even a rejection from the employer. You are not alone: according to Stepstone, one of the main job boards in Belgium, less than 1 in 4 job-seekers receive a response regarding their application, despite 85% of them finding themselves to be a good fit for the job. Belgium fared better than France, where only 15% of applicants got a reply, but significantly worse than the Netherlands (35%) and Germany (52%).

In this extremely competitive age this dynamic leaves job-seekers at loss. Having no feedback means that you do not know whether you were directly rejected, made it into a first shortlist and were dropped out of the interview stage, or if the job was not filled by anyone. Considering that it took an average of 18 applications to get an interview, and that it took on average 3 interviews to get a job, this can be quite a frustrating process. The job funnel gets very narrow very fast: around one in twenty got an interview and less than 2% received a job offer.

This could be either that the gap between employer and applicants’ understanding of the right profile for the job is huge, or that the job market is a buyer’s market and so many people are looking for jobs that the competition is huge. The truth probably lies within a bit of both. More feedback would certainly help job-seekers to better understand why they are not a good fit and improve their skills to be more successful in future applications. As Eva Ba, product manager at Stepstone says: «We encourage customers to put themselves in a job-seeker’s shoes. That way we help them being more transparent in the recruitment process & providing feedback to candidates systematically.  We even facilitate personalized feedback in our StepStone application management tool. Companies should rethink the full application experience to be simple and accessible. »

So if you are hiring, remember, don’t make applicants input the same information as the CV you requested in an online form, prepare an automatic reply that will clearly state what the candidates can expect from the selection procedure, and if you can, provide some valuable feedback at least to those that came close.

The post The job-seeking hassle in Belgium appeared first on Brussels Express.

Vias Institute, which releases reports on road safety in Belgium, has pointed out improvements when it comes to the number of road fatalities. In a recent report, it indeed highlights a decrease of fatal road accidents in Belgium over the 9 first months of 2018:  – 4.6%.

Belgium might have reached the best number over the last ten years in 2018, after the 2017 report revealed an historical decrease of road fatalities last year.

During the three first quarters of 2018, 333 people lost their life on Belgian roads (before the victim goes to the hospital). A year before, this figure reached 349.

While we could be happy about those statistics, this is not the end of the story. The goal, both at the national and the EU level, has been to halve the road fatalities from 2010 to 2020. The Belgian authorities aim to reach the target of 420 deaths in 2020, while 620 people died last year, the Vias’ statistics pointed out.

This global picture also reveals different realities. The bike-users and motorcycle-users have faced more fatal accidents than they faced last year.

Good news, however, when it comes to the youth. The number of accidents involving a young driver (18-24 years-old) has decreased by 8% if you compare this 2018 report with the 2017 report.

It is also worth underlying the fact that the number of injured people has never been as low as it is now over the past ten years (35,725 during the three first quarters of 2018).

While that news is quite positive for Belgium, the trend should be accelerated if the Belgian authorities want to achieve their goals by 2020.

The post Road fatalities in Belgium continue to show a significant decrease appeared first on Brussels Express.