Indicator 28 — Workplace-based training and alternation
When the service includes workplace-based training periods, you must mobilise the company's actors to organise those periods and ensure their training value.
Applies to: OF · CFA
What the auditor actually checks
Indicator 28 only applies if your services include workplace-based training periods: apprenticeship, internships integrated into the pathway, or AFEST schemes (workplace-based training actions). Without these formats it is not applicable — the case for most short continuing-education providers.
If you are concerned, the auditor verifies that the time spent in the company is not a pedagogical blind spot:
- Who does what: are the roles of the trainer, the tutor or apprenticeship master and the beneficiary defined and communicated?
- Preparing the actors: is the company tutor informed, equipped, even trained for the mission?
- Pedagogical articulation: are the activities entrusted in the company tied to the pathway's objectives (alternation logbook, AFEST scenario plan, activity sheets)?
For an AFEST, the auditor knows the scheme's requirements: prior analysis of the work activity, a designated companion, prepared work situations, and reflective phases distinct from productive work, all traced.
Achieving compliance, step by step
1. Map the roles
Write an "alternation organisation" sheet: who follows the beneficiary on the provider side, who supervises on the company side, how they communicate (visits, calls, shared logbook) and how often.
2. Equip the tutor
Systematically send the tutor a short kit: pathway objectives, expected in-company activities, an observation or evaluation grid, contacts. Keep the dispatch proof. Offer a framing call at the start of the period — a ten-line summary suffices as evidence.
3. Tie company and pathway together
Set up an alternation logbook or liaison sheet: activities carried out, skills worked on, tutor observations, points to rework at the centre. It is the first document the auditor will request.
4. For AFEST, trace the reflective phases
Date and document each reflective session: what was analysed, with whom, what came out of it. Without that trace, an AFEST is indefensible in an audit.
Field advice
If you deliver 100% classroom or virtual-classroom training, simply prepare the "not applicable" answer and know how to justify it in one sentence. If you have a single work-linked pathway, do not downplay it: the auditor will sample precisely that one. One genuinely completed alternation logbook in a trainee file beats ten blank templates.
The evidence the auditor expects
- P.1Alternation or AFEST organisation sheet (roles, frequencies, communication circuits)
- P.2Tutor kit or guide sent to the company, with dispatch proof
- P.3Alternation logbooks or liaison sheets completed on real files
- P.4Summaries of exchanges with tutors (visits, calls, meetings)
- P.5For AFEST: prior activity analysis, designated companion, dated traces of reflective phases
Common mistakes in audits
- Declaring the indicator applicable out of zeal when no service includes a company period
- Presenting blank alternation logbooks, with not a single completed copy
- No proof of contact between the provider and the company tutors
- Running an AFEST without reflective phases distinct from productive work, or without tracing them
- Letting the company define the activities alone, with no documented link to the pathway's objectives
FAQ — indicator 28
+Does Qualiopi indicator 28 apply to my organisation?
Only if your services include workplace-based training periods: apprenticeship, integrated internships or AFEST. A provider delivering only classroom or standard distance training answers "not applicable".
+What does Qualiopi require for an AFEST?
The scheme's fundamentals: a prior analysis of the work activity, a designated companion, prepared work situations and reflective phases distinct from production — all traced in writing and dated.
+What evidence for coordination with the company?
A completed alternation logbook or liaison sheets, the kit sent to the tutor with dispatch proof, and exchange summaries (visits, calls). The auditor favours genuinely used documents over blank templates.