Summary
- The new legislation is voluntary for both parties and aims to improve work-life balance and decrease burn-out rates.
- Employers can refuse a worker’s request, provided the employer has solid reasons for every refusal.
Belgium: Belgium approves the four-day work week
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As of the end of November 2022, full-time workers in Belgium, both white-collar as blue-collar, have the right to request a four-day work week.
Under this scheme, full-time workers can request their employer to work their usual full-time hours over 4 (longer) working days instead of 5. In practice, this means maintaining their usual 38-hour work week but working 9.5 hours for 4 days and having an extra day off to compensate, whilst maintaining their salary and benefits.
The scheme is voluntary for both parties, meaning that the employer can refuse a worker’s request, provided the employer has solid reasons for every refusal.
This new legislation aims to improve the work-life balance of workers in Belgium and to decrease burn-out rates, the latter being the highest it has ever been and one of the drivers behind this new legislation. Employment constituencies welcome this new flexibility, allowing customers to be served more hours per day than before, but also fear it will increase job-hopping. On the other hand, in the field, one in four employers believes that it is simply impossible to implement the four-day work week due to organizational issues. Finally, it remains to be seen if workers are going to be willing to sacrifice part of their work-life balance during their four-day work week, to have an extra day off. At least at the time of writing, there appears to be very little appetite.