Driving, securing, accompanying, informing, maintaining, repairing, cleaning, but also welding, sewing, painting, recruiting, training, drawing, writing... More than 300 different professions keep the STIB network running. The employees who carry out these jobs are proud to enable more than a million travellers to get around Brussels in a sustainable way every day.
The STIB has renewed its Top Employer label, which it has held for 12 years. This recognition highlights its ongoing commitment to excellence in human resources management and its dedication to the well-being of its employees.
With the International Day for Tolerance on 16 November, SNCB, LETEC, De Lijn and the STIB launched a joint campaign to remind everyone how important it is for staff and travellers to respect each other. The campaign highlights twelve employees from the various operators who have been confronted with aggression in the course of their work. It puts a face to the figures.
The number of full-time equivalents remained stable in 2025, falling from 10,274 in 2024 to 10,269 in 2025. In accordance with the moratorium in force in Brussels institutions, replacements and recruitment focused on operational functions, with priority given to internal mobility.
Talent management at STIB is based on three pillars:
Various processes support these missions, such as mid-year reviews, talent reviews and succession management.
Technical profiles, which are highly sought after on the job market, are essential for the operation, development and maintenance of the Brussels public transport network. To attract them, the STIB organises specific job days and develops partnerships with technical schools.
Of the three series of job days organised in 2025, the first was specifically aimed at recruiting bus technicians, the second at recruiting Metro technicians, and the third was devoted to technical profiles of all kinds for vehicle and infrastructure maintenance. The STIB has been organising job days since 2011, at a rate of one or two per year, depending on recruitment needs. These special days enable candidates to learn about the STIB and everything it has to offer as an employer, while simplifying and speeding up the recruitment process for “critical” roles.
As part of the Entr'Apprendre project, the STIB opened its doors for two days of technical immersion. Workshop managers and teachers from Brussels were able to discover the working environment, the different professions and the current technical requirements in the company. This day enabled them to better understand the reality of the field, so that they could then adapt their courses to the needs of the job market.
The percentage of women at the STIB reached 10.7% at the end of 2025. The STIB would like to see this figure rise, especially in technical, driving and safety professions. In order to recruit more women, it is essential that more women apply for jobs. In 2025, only 23% of all resumes received were from female applicants.
With its “Women@STIB” campaign, the STIB states: “Jobs have no gender. Dare to dream!” This initiative aims to break down stereotypes and encourage more women to consider a career at the STIB. To embody this ambitious message of inclusion, the STIB was able to count on female employees who are proud of their careers, posing alongside their daughters, nieces or other female relatives who already dream of following in their footsteps. It is indeed from an early age that clichés are broken down.
The STIB is collaborating with Actiris to offer young job seekers their first professional experience. After a one-year contract as a multimodal agent, they have the opportunity, if the experience is successful, to apply for a permanent position within the company. In 2025, 115 people were hired as part of this partnership and 34 signed a permanent contract at the end of their trial year.
Internships are also an effective gateway. In 2025, the STIB welcomed 117 interns from technical secondary schools and bachelor's and master's degree programmes in technical fields. The STIB also organised guided tours of its depots and workshops, meetings with its employees and participated in several job fairs and workshops in schools. It will continue this dynamic in 2026, with a more precise targeting of schools in order to best meet its recruitment needs.
The STIB co-develops and co-organises the “electromechanical engineer” training programme with the Institut Cardinal Mercier. It offers a comprehensive course combining theoretical modules, practical work at school and an internship at the STIB. This training covers all key areas of electromechanics and aims to consolidate learning and encourage practical application. It also includes internships in garages and workshops, as well as field visits. The 10th intake will begin in September 2026.
The Training Centre Surface, for bus and tram drivers, provided approximately 180,000 hours of training in 2025. 264 new recruits were trained to drive buses and 103 people were trained to drive trams. The centre also provides continuing education to maintain and strengthen the skills of existing staff.
The arrival of new trams and the gradual decommissioning of older models require the upgrading of driving personnel to enable them to obtain the authorisation to drive the different types of trams operating on the network. For buses, refresher courses are compulsory every five years.
A new module focusing on hazard perception, blind spots and sharing the public highway (vehicles and vulnerable users) has been introduced. Numerous refresher courses and coaching sessions have also been organised to prevent accidents and promote defensive driving.
The Metro Training Centre organises training for metro drivers, security and multimodal agents, and KIOSK and BOOTIK staff.
In 2025, this centre provided 94,000 hours of training to 27 security agents, 113 junior multimodal agents and 32 metro agents (driving and technical). Staff at the dispatching centres also received training related to the replacement of the metro signalling system with the new CBTC system and the new ATS real-time management software.
The MTC also organises ‘900-volt’ training courses, which are essential for people who need to access the metro tracks, for example for technical work or in the event of an intrusion onto the tracks. It totalised nearly 1,000 training courses in 2025.
Talents are one of the three pillars of the Business Plan, hence the importance of a cross-functional training centre that supports this ambition. Despite the tight budgetary context, the STIB Academy has continued its activities to provide staff training in a wide range of subjects, such as safety, prevention, customer orientation and people management.
Some of the courses in the catalogue have been internalised and online training is becoming increasingly widespread, offering a practical, dynamic and tailored solution to certain development needs. Business experts from all entities are actively collaborating on the creation of new training content.
The STIB Academy added 85 new courses to its catalogue in 2025, organised 967 face-to-face training sessions, recorded 27,918 participants, 71% of whom were online, and achieved particularly high satisfaction scores: 91% of employees believe that their training is directly applicable to their job and 94% would recommend the training they received.
Ahead of the anti-harassment campaign launched in the autumn, the training centres and the Societal Projects team, in collaboration with the non-profit organisation CEMEA, developed modules for staff in contact with customers. The aim is to empower STIB staff to respond effectively to situations of harassment, in particular by welcoming and guiding victims.
These modules are now an integral part of the basic training for staff in contact with customers (driving, security and sales staff, etc.). A total of 418 people were trained during 45 sessions.
At the STIB, the right to disconnect is governed by a collective labour agreement (CLA), in accordance with the legislation in force since October 2022. It applies to all employees, both administrative and operational. The right to disconnect aims to preserve the balance between professional and private life and to encourage rest outside working hours. It also contributes to greater employee efficiency on a daily basis: well-rested employees are more focused, perform better and work more safely, which benefits the service provided.
In 2025, several actions and tools were deployed to provide concrete support for this right: the EAP's Fit for Life preventive programme, a guide dedicated to the right to disconnect, explanatory videos, thematic webinars (stress management, concentration, workload, sleep) and a series of video clips on sleep, energy and stress management. Practical instructions (planning emails, disabling notifications) were also made available. Managers, social advisers and the EAP are key intermediaries in helping employees maintain a healthy and sustainable work-life balance.
Driving professions expose STIB employees to stressful situations on a daily basis. Beyond operational constraints, they may be confronted with assaults or accidents, sometimes severe, involving death or serious injury.
These events can have a profound impact on psychological health, feelings of safety and the ability to continue working in a stress-free environment. Aware of this reality and its responsibilities in terms of well-being at work, the STIB has set up a discussion group dedicated to serious accidents since 2024.
This group allows participants to talk about their experiences, break out of isolation and find support from colleagues who have been through similar experiences. This initiative, which complements existing individual support, helps them to get through these difficult times and gradually regain their personal and professional balance.
In order to remain competitive in a tight job market, the STIB undergoes an annual external audit, which assesses its entire human resources policy.
The Top Employer label distinguishes companies that are committed to providing the best possible working environment for their employees through clearly defined processes and innovative human resources practices. Among the criteria examined by the Top Employer Institute are the welcome given to staff, training and skills development for employees, and the benefits offered by the company.
The STIB stands out in particular for:
In the space of three years, the STIB has improved its overall Top Employer score by 15%.
The four Belgian public transport companies recorded 5,908 cases of physical and verbal assaults against their staff in 2024, an average of more than 16 cases per day, compared to 15 per day in 2023. The figures are just as high in 2025, showing that the phenomenon is still ongoing. Just over a quarter of the assaults involved physical violence. The other cases involved insults or threats. Regardless of the type of assault, the employees who were victims never came out unscathed. In 2024, 780 employees were absent from work following an assault, representing 23,686 days of incapacity.
Organised during the summer, mid-year reviews aim to better understand employees' development and career needs. This year, the Drivin'STIB model, which aims to strengthen and standardise the skills expected in terms of leadership, has been integrated into HR processes.
The talent review is used to assess employees' skills, potential and performance in a structured manner in order to identify those who are capable of moving to another position and those who need support to develop.
Finally, succession management planning ensures the transfer of skills and knowledge that are essential to the continuity of public transport services. The aim is to anticipate and secure the future of the STIB by identifying, preparing and developing individuals who are capable of taking on critical positions when they become available.
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