If you are an employee in the private sector with a contractual arrangement, remember to keep moving forward with self-belief.
Here, you will discover information tailored for your return to work and your support network. This information is specifically relevant if you were under contract in the private sector.
We categorise the information into two sections:
👉 Explore the questions for more details.
💡Please be aware: The content provided here is extensive. Some details may not be immediately relevant to you. Feel free to revisit for additional insights at a later time.
🚧 Challenge: when you return to work, it is possible that this will not happen naturally, e.g.
💪Opportunity: a reintegration measure that is often used is the partial performance of tasks in the workplace. This is called a ‘progressive return to work’.
⚠️Be aware that returning to work part-time does not mean you return to work 50% or half-time.
There are several possible scenarios.
You are partly responsible for your return.
Fortunately, it is a shared responsibility, in which you yourself are central and different players support you.
🚧Challenge: you yourself may not be able to properly assess the impact of your brain injury in the workplace.
💪Opportunity: this is why it is important to discuss your work-focused assistance needs with your treating doctor.
Depending on how you return to work, through an informal or a formal reintegration route, the steps to be taken and who takes them are fixed. In a formal reintegration route, the steps and those responsible are more fixed than in an informal reintegration route. For example, in a formal reintegration route, the occupational physician (or prevention advisor-occupational physician) is the central person. The doctor can support you and your employer where necessary.
You are not alone. Many professionals can help you: each with their own expertise.
🤝Together: these people need each other to walk the right path with you and find a good solution together.
🚧Challenge: it can be unclear who exactly takes on what role or what you can turn to whom for.
💪Opportunity: Key Players in the Return-to-Work Process:
⚠️ Note: Positive advice from the health insurance fund's advisory doctor is required for starting a GOB pathway while receiving incapacity benefits.
Returning to work, due to the invisible effects of a brain injury such as fatigue or stimulus hypersensitivity, often presents a complex process.Once you are back at work, maintaining your position can be an even greater challenge.
Know that there are several individuals who can assist you:
🔀There are several options:
💡Tips and tricks: check the website of your health insurance company and contact them to discuss your questions.
🤝Together
💡Tips & tricks that can help you prepare for your return to work.
💪Opportunity: the healthcare professional can support you to be prepared for the interview and attend the appointment with you.
⚖️ Legislation: Starting from October 1, 2022, the occupational physician or a nurse assisting the doctor is required to reach out to you after four weeks of work incapacity. This contact aims to provide you with information regarding potential return-to-work options.
Scheduling an appointment with the occupational physician (or prevention advisor-occupational physician) can be part of an informal reintegration process, either as a pre-return visit or an assessment upon resuming work.
You have the option to arrange an appointment within a formal reintegration process.
The occupational physician (or prevention advisor-occupational physician) has several tasks,
including checking whether you are medically fit to perform your duties (again).
Yes, if you are affiliated to a union.
💪Opportunity:
your local militant can advise and inform you about the possibilities of resuming work with your own or another employer.
the militant, if you want, sometimes joins a discussion with your employer.
🤝Together: you can also visit your union secretariat, for a free career counselling session.
A career counselor will work with you on your career question.
This system works through career guidance vouchers.
💡Tip: Every employee is entitled to career cheques every six years.
The advisory physician of the health insurance fund has several tasks: checking, informing and advising.
💡Tip: check your health insurance fund's website and contact the back-to-work coordinator to discuss your questions.
Yes, under certain conditions you can resume work part-time and keep (part of) your benefit.
💰Benefit: if you resume work and want to keep (part of) your benefit, you need the permission of your health insurance fund's advisory doctor.
🚧Challenge: resuming 'part-time' does not have to be directly half-time.
💡Tip: discuss the number of working hours and work content with your treating doctor, work doctor and employer.
💡Tip: you can ask your health insurance fund for a brochure on (part-time) work resumption.
If you start working as an employee, your disability benefit through the health insurance fund decreases depending on how many hours you resume work.
1. 💰Benefit: if you resume work part-time, through the system of adapted work, you will retain (depending on the number of working hours) all or part of your benefit.
Your health insurance fund can check and calculate for you whether and how much your disability benefit drops.
You must apply for the adapted work to your health insurance fund.
Pending the decision, you may start adapted work.
You have to make sure that the necessary application documents reach the health insurance fund at least one working day before you start.
2. 💰Benefit: if you resume work full-time, resume work as you did before your disability or if you resume unemployment, you will no longer receive disability benefits.
In that case, notify your health insurance fund.
Depending on your health insurance fund, there are special documents to indicate this.
Yes, but...
1. 💰Benefit: if your workplace accident is not yet consolidated, you can partially resume work with financial intervention from the industrial accident insurer.
Your temporary incapacity for work is then no longer complete, but partial.
The compensation you receive from work accident insurance is then equal to the difference between your wages before the accident and your wages when you return to work.
2. 💰Benefit: If the workplace accident is already consolidated and your work disability is recognised by the health insurance fund, you can resume work part-time through adapted work.
You can resume work (partially) through an informal or formal reintegration route.
Yes, but...
During partial work resumption, you can only take holidays according to the effective working regime at that time, which means based on the number of hours agreed during the partial resumption of work.
During the first year of your work incapacity, your sick days are considered as days worked, and thus, you also accrue holiday entitlement. If you have not taken your holidays by the end of the year or cannot provide proof of this, your benefit for the month of December will be withheld in full.
The health insurance fund assumes that you will still take your remaining holidays during the month of December.
For more information on the calculation of your holidays and holiday pay, contact your employer, the National Office for Annual Holidays, or the FPS Social Security.If your work incapacity has been recognized for more than 12 months, the days of illness are no longer equated for the calculation of your holiday entitlement. As a result, you may only accrue a limited number of days' holiday in gradual employment after a longer period of work incapacity.
🚧 Challenge: if you can no longer perform your previous job due to your brain injury or see no opportunities with your current employer , there are several people who can support you:
💪Opportunity: it is important to consider what you want to achieve in terms of work.
🚧 Challenge: finding suitable work and a suitable employer , requires searching, patience and sometimes luck.
💪Opportunity: thanks to a job exploration (or job trial), you can experience
You are not obliged to inform your employer about your health or your medical history.
It is a personal choice, where you can identify the pros and cons for yourself.
However, you are obliged to tell your employer everything that is important to perform your job.
🚧Challenge: it sounds easy in theory, but in practice there is often a thin line between what you say and what you don’t.
💪Opportunity: think carefully beforehand about what you want to share with whom and how.
No, this is a personal choice.
💪Opportunity: if you return to work after a brain injury, you can be open with your employer, your supervisor and/or your colleagues by informing them about (the impact of) your brain injury.
However, this is not an obligation.
Explaining in an understandable language what (the impact of) your brain injury on the job is for you can help them to understand you better.
This will give your employer, supervisor and/or colleagues a better idea of what has changed for you and what is difficult. You can inform them about:
🤝Together: sharing the invisible consequences of a brain injury (e.g. reduced long-term concentration, hypersensitivity to stimuli or fatigue) can help your employer to think about options:
A fixed-term employment contract, the employer can terminate without compensation.
An employer is prohibited by law (discrimination law 10/10/2007) from terminating an employment contract of indefinite duration because of (long-term) illness.
However, the employer can still dismiss you during your period of illness for other founded reason(s).
Since April 2014, the founded reason(s) must be explicitly stated on your dismissal letter.
The dismissal must meet certain conditions to be legally valid.
It is possible for you to be absent for long periods of time due to the brain injury and still remain on your employer's payroll. Your employment contract is then suspended due to illness.
If you are affiliated to a trade union, they can support you with possible questions.
⚖️ Legislation: after you go through a formal reintegration process and are permanently unfit for the agreed work, your employer can still terminate your employment contract. A parliamentary procedure is now under way to separate a dismissal due to medical force majeure from a formal reintegration process.
To answer this question, it is important to know what 'consolidation' means.
💰Benefit: in case of partial resumption of work before consolidation, the wage difference will be topped up by the occupational accident insurance (so that you have no loss of wages).
However, this is a temporary arrangement until consolidation.
After consolidation, you can e.g. partially resume work through the health insurance fund, through an informal or a formal reintegration route.
🚧Challenge: appropriate timing to resume work after your brain injury remains a personal decision.
🤝Together:
💰Benefit: you report your incapacity for work to your health insurance fund.
You are entitled to full, accurate and timely information.
🤝Together: sometimes it is useful to pass on written information to other services.