Only 46% of Belgian workers feel their employers value their wellbeing and employability

Deloitte Belgium today unveiled localised insights from its comprehensive 2024 Global Human Capital Trends report, shedding light on the unique challenges and opportunities facing Belgian organisations. The global report, which draws on the perspectives of 14,000 business and HR leaders across 95 countries, emphasises the importance of transparency, human sustainability, and the shift toward productive work environments without borders. This year’s analysis reveals that organisations making meaningful progress on these key issues are nearly twice as likely to achieve desired business and human outcomes.     

Belgian highlights:

• Although 86% of European leaders believe that increased organisational transparency enhances workforce trust, the relationship between trust and transparency is complex. Without proper management of processes and new technologies, further development of transparency could undermine trust. Organisations need to understand this relationship to make effective use of newly transparent data.
• Human sustainability was ranked as the second highest priority (55%), with 19% of Belgian organisations indicating that they excel at this criterion. However, Deloitte’s report reveals a gap between executives’ and workers’ perceptions of tangible progress in this domain, highlighting a continued need for further reflection and action.
• Over half of Belgian respondents (54%) say it is very or critically important to seek better ways to measure worker performance and value beyond traditional productivity. Yet, only 19% say their organisation is effective in doing so. Moving forward, there is a clear need for many organisations to work on closing this gap. 

Trust vs technology transparency

According to both Belgian leaders and workers, increasing trust among employees is the top priority for organisational success. A significant 86% of European leaders believe that organisational transparency enhances workforce trust and 87% of Belgian workers believe it to be an important trend. However, with the advent of new technologies, the relationship between transparency and trust has grown more complex. New developments in transparency, if not carefully managed, can make transparency an enemy of trust. Using newly transparent data effectively requires a sophisticated understanding of the relationship between transparency and trust. Internal and external constraints, along with a lack of understanding about the issue, currently hinder progress for Belgian organisations. 

Untangling this complexity, Belgian organisations have a powerful opportunity to redefine what it means to be a successful and responsible organisation in the digital age, built on a foundation of trust and transparent data practices.  

75% of Belgian leaders say their organisation focusses on human sustainability

Human sustainability—the degree to which an organisation creates value for its people, leaving them with greater wellbeing and employability—ranked as the second highest priority in this year’s report. Three quarters of Belgian leaders (75%) say their organisation is at least focussing on addressing key challenges related to human sustainability and close to half of them (49%) even report making real progress.

However, there is still a gap between leaders' and workers' perceptions of progress on human sustainability priorities. While leaders are becoming more aware of the importance of human sustainability, workers have yet to fully perceive these efforts with only 46% of them agreeing with the fundamental statement that their organisations have left them better off than when they started. This emphasises the need for a shared understanding and commitment to these efforts. 

Redefining productivity

The cross-functional, unquantifiable nature of work today makes traditional productivity metrics such as hours worked and time spent on tasks inadequate for capturing the full depth of human performance. At the same time, technology and data collection advancements are also leading to the availability of more meaningful metrics for organisations. Tied to that, as the availability of data increases, organisations will have to consider what information should be made transparent to which stakeholders.

Over half of Belgian respondents (54%) report finding it very or critically important to seek better ways to measure worker performance and value beyond traditional productivity. Yet, only close to one fifth of Belgian respondents (19%) say their organisation is very or extremely effective at evaluating the value created by individual workers in their organisation, beyond traditional tracking of activities or outputs.

Organisations that build workers’ trust in transparent data practices stand to benefit: When workers are confident that their organisation is using their data responsibly, they are 35% more likely to trust the business, but only 37% say they are very confident their organisation is using data in a highly responsible way. 

About the survey

Deloitte’s 2024 Global Human Capital Trends survey polled 14,000 business and HR leaders in 95 countries, supplemented by worker- and executive-specific surveys and interviews. In addition to the broad, global survey, Deloitte supplemented its research this year with worker- and executive-specific surveys to represent the workforce perspective and uncover where there may be gaps between leader perception and worker realities. The survey data is complemented by over a dozen interviews with executives from some of today’s leading organisations.

Methodology

The Belgian sample included all industries, with the key ones represented being the public sector, consumer, life sciences, and energy, which are significant sectors in the Belgian economy. The survey also included data from companies of all sizes, with smaller companies making up 60% of the Belgian sample, indicating the importance of studying trends in small and medium-sized enterprises. The larger companies made up 10% of the sample, providing insights into how large organisations approach human capital issues. This variety in the survey sample allows for a more comprehensive understanding of Belgian human capital trends and provides a globally diverse perspective.

For more insights or to download the full report, visit Human Capital Trends 2024 | Deloitte Belgium.