Work-life balance

Overview

Work-life balance covers the boundary between paid work and the rest of a life, and the instruments that hold that boundary in place. Belgian law provides several of those instruments: tijdskrediet under CAO nr. 103 for interrupting or reducing work, the right to request flexible working arrangements for care purposes under the law of 7 October 2022, and an employer duty to prevent psychosocial risks under the law of 4 August 1996. The collective four-day week has been available as a conventional measure in the Belgian private sector since 1 October 2001, and structural telework runs on CAO nr. 85. In practice the operators on the wiki set their own terms on top of that floor. Thomas Van Eeckhout, co-CEO of Easi in Nivelles, takes four weeks off every summer and is never called, at a company where around 100 of roughly 400 employees are shareholders. Ilse De Smedt keeps the work of Com&Co, a content agency of about 40 people in Ghent, inside normal business hours and treats employee satisfaction as the primary metric, while Gunther Ghysels ran get driven with no time clock and no leave policy and worked seven days a week himself.

Stated facts & numbers

• Entities tied to the theme on the wiki: 26, of which 15 people and 0 companies
• Videos discussing the theme: 57, across Belgian tech and business channels
• Shortest declared working week on the wiki: 32 hours, Edwin Vlieg at Moneybird, plus a four-month sabbatical
• Longest declared holiday block: Four weeks every summer, Thomas Van Eeckhout at Easi, without being called
• Opposite pole: Gunther Ghysels ran get driven with no time clock and no strict leave policy, working seven days a week
• Retention claim: Com&Co in Ghent, about 40 staff, near-zero attrition since 2018 with employee satisfaction as primary metric
• Belgian instrument: career interruption: Tijdskrediet under CAO nr. 103, private sector, motives include childcare, serious illness, palliative care and training
• Belgian instrument: flexible working for care: Law of 7 October 2022 and CAO nr. 162, transposing EU Directive 2019/1158
• Belgian instrument: four-day week: Collective, conventional measure since 1 October 2001; 38-hour week mandatory since 1 January 2003
• Belgian instrument: telework: Structural telework under CAO nr. 85 and the law of 3 July 1978; occasional telework under the law of 5 March 2017
• Employer obligation: Prevention of psychosocial risks at work, law of 4 August 1996 on worker well-being