Nearly 1 in 3 Belgian employees is at risk of burnout. Start with the pointless work.

Almost one in three Belgian employees (31%) now shows a raised burnout risk, according to a survey of 1,333 workers published by the research network UGent@Work on 6 October 2026. The same survey found that 47% do tasks that are unnecessary, or that could be done more simply if work were better organised. That matters: a 2026 meta-analysis of 145 studies found that this kind of work goes hand in hand with burnout. Before you add another wellbeing initiative, look at what you ask people to do.

What the research found

The Belgian numbers

UGent@Work measured burnout risk with the Burnout Assessment Tool (BAT), a validated 12-item questionnaire.

17% of employees are at elevated risk and 14% at very high risk.
Risk is higher in Brussels (44%) and Wallonia (36%) than in Flanders (28%). It peaks at 36% among 35 to 49 year olds.
Earlier Securex figures, cited in the brief, put the share at 24% in 2018 and 29% in 2021.

The survey also asked what gets in the way of good work:

58% say their organisation has a lot of bureaucracy, with every decision approved higher up.
53% describe a heavy load of registration and reporting.
47% do tasks that are unnecessary or could be simpler.
27% say they don't have enough time to finish their work.

Time pressure, the classic workload complaint, is the smallest of the four. Friction is bigger.

The research link

Researchers have a name for this kind of work: illegitimate tasks. These are tasks that break the norms of what an employee can properly be expected to do, because they feel unnecessary or unreasonable for the role. Think double registration, a report nobody reads, a sign-off that adds nothing.

A 2026 meta-analysis in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology pooled 145 studies and 66,387 people. Illegitimate tasks had a corrected correlation of 0.57 with burnout. The authors describe the links with wellbeing and attitudes as moderate to large.
The same tasks went with lower job satisfaction (-0.53), stronger intentions to quit (0.44) and lower job performance (-0.27). The performance link was stronger in studies that measured it later (-0.40).
Unnecessary and unreasonable tasks were linked to burnout to a similar degree.
An earlier set of studies led by Norbert Semmer found that illegitimate tasks predicted burnout even after accounting for other stressors. In a two-month follow-up, they predicted later resentment and irritability, while strain did not predict later illegitimate tasks.

The researchers' explanation: these tasks threaten professional identity. A pointless task does not only cost time. It tells people their skills don't count. It is a close cousin of another organisational stressor we covered: unclear roles.

What it costs the organisation

Long-term absence. At the end of 2025, 155,360 people in Belgium had been unable to work for more than a year because of depression or burnout, according to INAMI/RIZIV figures. Burnout alone accounted for 55,802, up 59% since the end of 2021. And coming back is fragile: see our post on return to work after burnout.
Performance and turnover. The same meta-analysis links illegitimate tasks to lower performance and stronger intentions to quit, costs that absence figures do not capture.
Legal exposure. Belgian employers must take the measures needed to prevent psychosocial risks at work. The law names work organisation and work content among their sources. Approval chains and pointless reports are work organisation. A risk analysis that ignores them misses a source the law names.

Why the usual fix misses

When a survey shows high burnout risk, the usual reflex is to offer the individual something: a webinar, a resilience course, a wellbeing week. Individual support matters. It helps people handle the demands that cannot be removed. But it cannot delete a useless report.

The opposite reflex, a big participatory change programme, is no guaranteed fix either. A 2026 meta-analysis of 8 cluster randomised trials of participatory organisational interventions found no average effect on mental health. The authors noted that the studies with good results had active, structured participation, matched workers' real needs and paid attention to context.

Employees seem to sense this. In the UGent@Work survey, adjusting tasks and hours came first among the measures they believe help (60%). Yet only 4 in 10 say their employer offers anything to prevent mental health problems, and many don't know whether it does.

The lesson: be specific. Name the tasks. Remove them. Check back.

What HR and leadership can do this quarter

1. Measure friction in your psychosocial risk analysis

Add the unnecessary-tasks question to your next survey, next to a validated burnout measure such as the BAT. UGent@Work's question, translated: "I have to do tasks that are unnecessary or that could be done more simply if things were better organised." Report by team, never by person, and only above a minimum group size.

2. Run a stop-doing review

Ask each team: which tasks, reports or approvals would you drop or simplify? Pick three. Remove or simplify them within 90 days, then tell the team what changed. Start where the Belgian data point: approval chains and reporting.

3. Make adjustments easy to ask for, before absence

Under the reintegration rules revised in December 2025, a worker at risk of becoming unable to work for health reasons can ask the employer to check whether an adapted workstation, or adapted or other work, is possible. The aim is to prevent the absence. Make sure people know this route exists and that managers say yes to the conversation. For the wider picture, see our post on Belgium's work incapacity reform.

4. Tell people what support exists

Support nobody knows about helps nobody. Say what is on offer, how to reach it and that it is confidential. Repeat it through managers, not only the intranet.

The fine print

The UGent@Work figures come from one survey of 1,333 employees aged 18 to 66 working at least half-time. It used an approximate random sample, checked against gender, age, education, status and region. It is self-reported, measured at one point in time, and was commissioned by the Helios Foundation. The brief does not give fieldwork dates.
A BAT score is a risk signal, not a diagnosis. The brief does not cite the source of its cut-offs, and the BAT developers describe their own published cut-offs as tentative.
The 2018 and 2021 figures come from Securex samples, not from the same survey, so read the trend as indicative.
The UGent@Work brief does not test whether unnecessary tasks relate to burnout risk in its own data. That link comes from the meta-analysis, where most evidence is correlational, more than half the studies come from China, and the authors say it cannot establish cause.
We are not aware of a trial that tested cutting unnecessary tasks as a burnout intervention. The actions above follow from the risk evidence, not from a tested programme.
The preventive request for adapted work comes from the Royal Decree of 17 December 2025, which we read through a social secretariat's summary. Check the details with your prevention service or legal adviser.
INAMI/RIZIV's 2025 figures are provisional, and long-term incapacity numbers reflect more than working conditions.

FAQ

What is the burnout risk in Belgium in 2026?

According to UGent@Work (October 2026), 31% of employees are at risk of burnout: 17% at elevated risk and 14% at very high risk. The risk is higher in Brussels and Wallonia, and among employees aged 35 to 49.

What are illegitimate tasks at work?

Tasks people feel they should not have to do, because they are unnecessary or unreasonable for their role: double registration, reports nobody reads, approvals that add nothing.

Do unnecessary tasks cause burnout?

They are strongly linked to it. Across 145 studies, the corrected correlation with burnout was 0.57, and a longitudinal study suggests the tasks come before the strain, not the reverse. Most of the evidence is correlational, so "strong risk factor" is the honest term.

Is a psychosocial risk analysis mandatory in Belgium?

Yes. Belgian employers must identify situations that can lead to psychosocial risks, include them in the risk analysis and take prevention measures, with the help of a prevention adviser specialised in psychosocial aspects.

Evoluno supports the people side, with psychologists, coaches and a self-care app, while you fix the work itself. Talk to our team.

Sources

‍