Tuesday, 10:40 pm. The owner is rereading a quote, spots a mistake and drops it into the team WhatsApp group with a quick "fix tomorrow". Nobody has to answer. Two people answer anyway, at 10:43 and 11:05. Three weeks later, everyone checks their phone after dinner.
I see this a lot in firms of five to thirty people. Nobody ever decided the team should be reachable in the evening. It crept in, one message at a time.
Since late 2022, Belgian law has required some employers to put rules in writing. Here is what it asks for, from what headcount, and how to turn it into one page people actually follow, the owner included. I'm not a lawyer: for your own case and your joint committee, your social secretariat is the right place to ask.
From a consultation duty to a written obligation
It started with the law of 26 March 2018 on strengthening economic growth and social cohesion. In its original form it only asked for regular consultation on disconnection within the CPPT, the workplace committee for prevention and protection at work. A CPPT is only mandatory from an average of 50 workers, so most small firms around Liège were never affected.
The law of 3 October 2022, part of the federal "jobs deal" and published in the Belgian Official Gazette on 10 November 2022, rewrote those articles. Since then, any private-sector employer with at least 20 workers must spell out how the right to disconnect works and how the use of digital tools is kept in check. That goes into a company-level collective agreement (CCT), negotiated with the unions, or failing that into the work regulations (règlement de travail).
The law sets a minimum content:
- practical arrangements for the worker's right not to be reachable outside working hours;
- instructions on using digital tools so that rest periods, holidays, and private and family life are protected;
- training and awareness on sensible use of those tools and the risks of being over-connected, aimed at staff and also at management.
So that last point covers the owner too.
Deadlines, who checks, and the sector exception
The statutory deadline was 1 January 2023. In practice, the Federal Public Service Employment gave three extra months: the agreement had to be filed, or the copy of the work regulations sent, before 1 April 2023. In its evaluation of 5 May 2025, the National Labour Council (CNT) notes that the obligation also applies to firms that reach the threshold later. If your twentieth contract gets signed this winter, the topic comes with it.
Who looks at it? A company agreement is filed with the registry of the FPS Employment's Directorate-General for Collective Labour Relations. Amended work regulations go to the Social Law Inspectorate within eight days of taking effect, which you can do online at reglementdetravail.belgique.be. Without a works council, the usual procedure applies: you post the draft, staff get fifteen days to write comments in a register, then everything goes to the inspectorate.
There is one big exception. If your joint committee has signed a sector-wide agreement on disconnection and it has been made binding by royal decree, the company-level obligation falls away. In 2025 the CNT counted 49 sectors, covering roughly 30% of workers. Joint committee 200, which covers many office staff in small firms, has no sector agreement on disconnection: the printing-industry federation Febelgra noted it in March 2023, and Securex's analysis of the 2025-2026 sector deal still says so. Ask your social secretariat where your sector stands today, for blue-collar and white-collar staff separately, because the answer can differ.
Under 20 workers
Below 20, nothing specific is required of you. I would still write the same page. In a team of eight, a single habit of the owner is enough to set the rule for everyone, and it sets fast.
Where the unwritten rule gets made
A policy pinned next to the coffee machine carries little weight if the boss sends email at 10 pm. People pay far more attention to the timestamps on your messages than to the wording of any policy.
WhatsApp. The team group lives on personal phones, between family and friends. Decide in writing what it is for, say a same-day schedule change, and what has no place there in the evening.
Outlook. Scheduled send exists in new Outlook and Outlook on the web, and classic Outlook has an equivalent delivery option. Write at 10 pm if it clears your head; the email goes out at 8 am. For an owner, that one setting probably does more for the mood of the team than anything else, and it costs nothing.
Teams. On mobile, anyone can set quiet hours that silence Teams notifications, and apply the same schedule to Outlook mobile. That only handles notifications, though. If the manager replies at 11 pm, the team will open the app anyway.
Your signature. Securex gives the example of a line in the email signature saying an immediate reply can't be expected outside working hours.
Real emergencies. A server down, a customer stuck, a delivery falling through. Name them, with two or three examples from your own business, and say which channel they come through (a phone call rather than a group message). If someone is on call, their name and hours are written down, and everyone else knows it isn't them. How on-call duty is organised and paid in your sector is one for your social secretariat.
The page to add to your work regulations
For a firm of five to thirty, this is what I would put in, in plain language.
Start with reference working hours and one unambiguous sentence: outside those hours, nobody is expected to read or answer work email, Teams or WhatsApp messages, or to pick up the phone. Then a short list of what counts as urgent, the channel to use, and the on-call person if there is one. Then a few tool rules: scheduled send for evening emails, no new requests in the WhatsApp group after a time you set, an out-of-office message during holidays.
Awareness doesn't need a seminar. Half an hour a year in a team meeting, owner and managers included, to reread the page and fix what isn't working. Treat that as a practical floor; your social secretariat can tell you whether your text calls for more.
Your social secretariat probably has a template (Securex offers one). Adapt it to the tools you really use.
It's the same thinking as the Pomodoro blocks I wrote about in this piece on interruptions: decide in advance when you can be reached, and tell the team.
If you'd like a second pair of eyes on your Outlook and Teams settings and your WhatsApp groups before you sign the page off with your social secretariat: info@z80.be, +32 494 111 041, www.z80.be.