2025-2029 coalition agreement: What is changing to reduce the number of employees with a long-term illness and how can you prepare?

To reduce the number of employees with a long-term illness and bring the employment rate to 80%, the 2025-2029 coalition agreement introduces a comprehensive prevention and reintegration plan. The focus is on three pillars:

• Preventing people from getting sick
• Preventing people with health problems from having to stop working
• Quickly helping people who have to stop working get back to work (part-time), and supporting people who are seriously ill in their reintegration process

To achieve this, there will be stricter rules and a more active role for six key actors: employers, employees, treating physicians, health insurance providers, regional employment services and external prevention and protection services (such as Mensura).

Key changes:

• Stricter policies around absenteeism due to illness and reintegration
• More active role of employers, employees, healthcare providers, health insurance providers, and employment services
• Financial accountability for doctors and health insurance providers
• Faster and more rigorous labour potential assessments

• Evaluate your absenteeism policy (or get to work on it now if you haven’t yet developed one).
• Substantiate the opportunities, efforts, and results as much as possible.
• Stay committed to informal reintegration: engage in dialogue (as soon as possible) and make an action plan together.

We help organisations set up and implement an effective absenteeism policy.