Since 25 May 2024, preventing musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) is no longer a grey area of Belgian occupational well-being law. The Royal Decree of 19 March 2024, published in the Belgian Official Gazette on 15 May 2024, restructures Book VIII of the Code on well-being at work, now titled "Ergonomics at work and prevention of musculoskeletal disorders". A matter that had been only very partially regulated becomes a full component of every employer's prevention policy — a shift the Federal Public Service Employment justifies by the high number of workers absent, often long-term, because of MSDs.
Four concepts finally defined
The Code now defines four concepts: ergonomics at work, musculoskeletal disorders, musculoskeletal risks at work and the prevention advisor-ergonomist. This is more than housekeeping: it gives the employer, the internal prevention service and external services a common vocabulary, and anchors ergonomics across all well-being domains rather than in the historical question of seating alone — the former Title 1 on work seats and rest seats moves, tellingly, to Title 4 of the same book.
A broader risk analysis
The decree requires ergonomics to be considered from the design and layout of new workstations, and whenever existing workstations are adapted. The risk analysis must cover the biomechanical risk factors the text enumerates:
- the use of force and contact force;
- repetitive movements, their duration and frequency;
- working postures and movements.
The approach is holistic: findings from risk analyses in other well-being domains — vibration, for instance — must be read together with musculoskeletal risks. The resulting measures form a prevention policy the employer must evaluate and update regularly.
Informing and training: an explicit duty
The decree clarifies the roles of the internal prevention advisor, the prevention advisor-ergonomist and the prevention advisor-occupational physician. Above all, it requires that workers and the committee for prevention and protection at work be informed and trained on musculoskeletal risks and on the prevention measures. For employers, that duty translates into training engineering: initial awareness sessions, refreshers, and traceable attendance. This is the kind of follow-up a platform such as Remind-R supports: renewal deadlines flagged at D-90, D-60 and D-30, and a consolidated compliance matrix per department or site.
Fedris as a second line
Downstream of primary prevention, Fedris, the Belgian federal agency for occupational risks, runs a low back pain prevention programme for workers with work-related lumbar complaints: multidisciplinary rehabilitation of up to 36 sessions, combined with ergonomic interventions and workstation advice, to prevent complaints from becoming chronic and to support a lasting return to work. A similar programme addresses early signs of burn-out. Fedris is clear, however, that these programmes complement the company's prevention policy and do not replace the employer's legal obligations.
Ergonomics is therefore no longer an optional good practice but a structured, documented and evaluated obligation. Organisations that embrace it early — in workstation design as much as in the training plan — turn a regulatory constraint into a lever for lasting health.