Investing in AI Training vs. Hiring Talent: A Guide for Flemish SMEs

Understanding the Dilemma: AI Training or Hiring Talent?

Every SME in Flanders is grappling with a crucial question: Is it smarter to invest in AI training for existing employees or to hire AI-ready talent? The answer varies, but it ultimately hinges on a numbers game.

Two key factors influence this decision:

• Scarcity and Wage Pressure: Flanders faces ongoing structural shortages. The VDAB’s 2025 “knelpuntberoepenlijst” highlights 251 shortage roles, indicating a persistent tight labor market.

• Skill Premiums Are Real: European data shows 5–11% wage premiums for roles requiring AI skills, with even higher figures in certain markets. Recent global studies suggest that these premiums are increasing as demand rises.

  
  

So, where does this leave SMEs when deciding between upskilling and hiring?

Making the Right Choice: An Investment Decision Framework

To make an informed decision, consider three critical dimensions:

1. Total Cost of Capability: This includes not just course fees or salaries but all associated costs.

2. Time-to-Impact: How quickly will you see tangible business value?

3. Execution Risk: Consider potential bottlenecks, employee turnover, cultural fit, and dependency risks.

   
   

Below, we will quantify each option for a typical SME and provide a practical, step-by-step playbook.

Step-by-Step: A Grounded Comparison for Flemish SMEs

1) Baseline: What Does AI-Skilled Labor Really Cost in Belgium?

• Market Salary Levels (AI Specialists): Benchmarks indicate that an AI/ML engineer in Belgium earns around €87k–€96k gross per year, before employer costs (salaryexpert.com and erieri.com).

• Employer Social Contributions: Expect approximately 25–27% on top of the gross salary for employer social security costs.

• Recruitment Fees: For specialized IT hires in Belgium, agency fees typically range from 22–27% of the first-year salary.

  
  

Illustrative First-Year Hiring Cost (Specialist):

Salary €90k + employer charges (≈25%) €22.5k + recruitment fee (say 25%) €22.5k → ≈€135k total cash outlay for the first year (ex-VAT).

This does not include onboarding time and productivity ramp-up.

In contrast, Statbel reports the average full-time gross salary at €4,076/month (≈€48.9k/year), highlighting the premium for technical AI talent.

2) Training Costs in Flanders—and How to Reduce Them

Short, hands-on AI courses for professionals typically range from €250 for topic workshops to €1,200–€1,500 per person for multi-session programs offered by recognized providers.

Importantly, the KMO-portefeuille subsidizes eligible training: 30% for small and 20% for medium enterprises, with an annual cap of €7,500. This directly reduces cash outlay for approved courses.

Illustrative Upskilling Cost (Team Cohort):

10 employees × €1,200 list price = €12,000

– 30% subsidy (small KMO) = €8,400 net (or €9,600 for a medium KMO at 20%).

3) ROI Timelines: How Fast Until You See Value?

• Hiring Route: Filling a specialized AI role can take weeks to months, followed by a 3–6 month ramp-up period for new hires in mid-to-senior roles. This timeframe can be longer for highly technical positions.

• Training Route: If you focus on process-level use cases (such as automation in sales/operations, AI-assisted marketing, and faster reporting), trained employees can apply new skills immediately. Often, measurable gains can be seen within the same quarter.

  
  

A useful mental model:

• If a trained employee saves 1 hour/week through AI (prompting, automation, drafting, analytics), that’s approximately 50 hours/year reclaimed. Multiply this by their fully loaded hourly cost (wage + employer charges) and the number of trained staff to calculate annualized value.

• Because time-to-impact is immediate and cash outlay is modest (and subsidized), training often generates positive ROI in weeks to months. In contrast, hiring a new specialist typically requires a longer break-even period due to acquisition and ramp-up costs.

  
  

4) Salary Premiums: What Are You Really Paying For?

Evidence varies by dataset and region:

• EU/Europe Studies: Typically find 5–11% AI skill premiums within the same job title or firm—higher for niche freelancers.

• Belgium Context Commentary: PwC (2024) notes up to ~25% wage premiums in some markets as demand scales.

• Global 2025 Update (PwC): Cites a higher average premium across occupations as AI adoption accelerates.

  
  

Implication: In Flanders’ tight market, hiring AI-ready talent means absorbing both scarcity risk and a skills premium—not just on salary, but also in fees and time. Upskilling, on the other hand, spreads capability across your team at a lower unit cost and quicker time-to-value, especially for non-deep-tech use cases.

5) Flemish Job-Market Realities You Should Factor In

• Persistent Tightness: Even as the cycle cools, VDAB’s spanningsindicator in April 2025 for East Flanders was 3.17, indicating roughly three active job seekers per open vacancy over the prior year. This is tight, though looser than in 2023–2024.

• Shortage Roles Remain Broad: With 251 shortage occupations on the 2025 list, SMEs face competition for profiles across various sectors, not just IT.

• Public Support Ecosystems Exist: Beyond KMO-portefeuille, regional initiatives (VAIA, Flanders AI EDIH) and recognized providers offer structured AI upskilling paths that fit SME schedules.

  
  

What the Numbers Say: Two Sample Scenarios

Scenario A — Train the Team (10 People)

Cash Outlay: ~€8.4k–€9.6k net (after KMO-portefeuille) for a focused, multi-session AI course targeting your most repetitive, high-friction processes.

Time-to-Impact: Immediate to same-quarter—employees deploy AI into daily workflows (drafting, summarizing, prospecting, reporting, support macros).

Risk: Low. You spread capability and reduce single-point-of-failure risk. Attrition of one person doesn’t eliminate your AI capacity.

Scenario B — Hire One AI Specialist

Cash Outlay (Year 1): ~€135k (salary + 25% employer charges + 25% fee on first-year salary).

Time-to-Impact: Recruitment lead time + 3–6 months ramp for mid/senior roles; longer for complex stacks.

Risk: Higher. You gain deep capability, but concentrate knowledge in one role; if they leave, you restart the cycle.

When Does Hiring Win?

• You need proprietary models, data engineering, or production-grade MLOps.

• You’ve exhausted “workflow-level” gains and require a technical owner for productized AI.

  
  

In these cases, hiring (or contracting) is essential—but expect to pay scarcity and premium costs.

When Does Training Win?

• Your pain points are process speed, quality, and consistency, not model building.

• You seek broad adoption (sales, marketing, finance, ops) with governance and templates.

• You want ROI in the same quarter and the option to layer in specialists later.

  
  

Results You Can Expect (by Quarter)

Quarter 1 (Training Route):

• 10 trained staff reclaim 1–2 hours/week through AI prompting, drafting, and automation.

• Faster proposals, cleaner reports, accelerated customer replies, improved prospecting lists.

• Documented time savings provide a baseline for ROI tracking; standards and prompt libraries reduce variance.

  
  

Quarter 2–3:

• The team transitions from “assisted tasks” to semi-automated workflows (e.g., enriched CRM notes, invoice query triage, social content calendars with guardrails).

• Managers embed AI SOPs and quality checks; pilot a governed internal “AI desk” for ad-hoc requests.

• Compounded Impact: The same team now delivers more without increasing headcount.

  
  

Quarter 4:

• Decide whether to add a specialist to productize the most valuable automations or expand training to new teams.

• If hiring, you’re bringing in talent to a ready organization with clear use cases and guardrails—reducing ramp-up risk.

  
  

A Pragmatic Playbook for Flemish SMEs

1. Start with a “Workflow Inventory.” List 20–30 recurring tasks across sales, operations, customer service, and finance where AI can assist (drafting, summarizing, extracting, classifying).

2. Train a Cross-Functional Cohort (8–12 People). Choose a course that blends hands-on generative AI with your documents and systems.

3. Codify Prompts and SOPs. Create shared prompt libraries, checklists, and security rules (what content is allowed; approval gates for external outputs).

4. Instrument ROI. Track time saved per workflow (before/after) and convert this into hours and euros; report monthly.

5. Decide on a Specialist Hire When the Backlog Justifies It. Once you have stable AI-enabled workflows and a queue of productization opportunities, then hire (or contract) an AI engineer—accepting the cost and time-to-impact realities in Belgium’s tight market.

   
   

Bottom Line: What’s the Smarter First €50,000?

For most Flemish SMEs today, the highest-return first €50k is structured training for existing teams, not a single specialist hire. You’ll deliver value faster, lower risk through capability diffusion, and maintain the option to hire deep technical talent later—when your roadmap, governance, and use-case backlog make the premium worth paying. The job market’s scarcity and fee structure clearly favor training for early ROI.

What’s Your Biggest Hiring Challenge Right Now? Training Your Current Team or Finding AI-Ready Talent? 👇

Ready to turn insight into action? New Way To helps Flemish SMEs upskill their existing teams with practical, hands-on Generative AI workshops and follow-up guidance—so you start seeing time savings and better output in weeks, not months.

👉 Curious what a tailored training plan would look like for your organization?

Book a free discovery call, and we’ll outline the best next steps—no jargon, just clear numbers and a roadmap you can share with your management team.