Job shadowing: Unlocking Belgium's untapped talent
Here is a number that should stop every Belgian employer mid-coffee: only around 23% of people who are severely limited in their daily activities are in employment in Belgium. The disability employment gap — more than 33 percentage points — is among the widest in the entire European Union. Behind that statistic are thousands of motivated, capable people who never get the chance to show what they can do. Our new Skills+ 3.0 national report on job shadowing in Belgium asks a simple question: what if the first chance only had to be one day long?
What the Belgium report found
As part of the Skills+ 3.0 project (WP4), we assessed the potential of job shadowing for people with disabilities and long-term health conditions in Belgium. The legal foundations are solid — the Anti-Discrimination Act of 2007, the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and since 2021 even the Belgian Constitution all protect the right to inclusion. Yet practice lags far behind law. Employers — especially SMEs — report limited knowledge of reasonable accommodation, uncertainty about workplace adaptations, and confusion navigating support schemes that differ across Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels. The result: positive attitudes, little action.
Why SMEs are the key to the whole puzzle
SMEs make up 99.9% of Belgian businesses. If inclusion doesn't work for SMEs, it doesn't work — full stop. And that is exactly why job shadowing is such a promising tool: it is practical, low-risk and low-cost. One day of observing a workplace asks almost nothing of an employer, yet it lets both sides discover what is possible. Belgium's own DUOday initiative proves it at scale: born in Flanders in 2010, it now pairs jobseekers with disabilities and company employees for a day of shadowing nationwide — in 2018 alone, more than 600 companies took part and over 650 duos were formed, with many leading to internships and contracts. Employers repeatedly discover talents they would never have considered on paper.
From one day a year to a habit: practical guidelines for SMEs
The report doesn't stop at analysis — it includes step-by-step guidelines for SMEs that want to host job shadowing: how to plan a placement of one to five days, appoint a mentor, cooperate with regional services (VDAB, Forem, Actiris and specialised partners like GTB, AViQ and PHARE), arrange reasonable accommodations (partly reimbursable through regional schemes), and turn a good first day into an internship, training or job. It is the kind of concrete, do-this-Monday guidance that turns willingness into practice.
Next stop: the Skills+ 3.0 European Competitions
The report is one piece of a bigger movement. Skills+ 3.0 — a partnership of eight organisations across eight European countries — is building toward its flagship moment: the Skills+ 3.0 European Competitions on 4–5 November 2026 in Burgh-Haamstede, the Netherlands, led by our partner Pro Work. There, people with a labour disability will showcase their professional skills on a European stage — turning the abstract idea of "untapped talent" into something no employer can unsee. Expect much more on this in the coming weeks.
Is your SME ready to open its doors for a day? Hosting a job shadowing placement is one of the simplest, most concrete inclusion actions a company can take — and we can help you do it well, from preparation to follow-up. Contact us at liliana.carrillo@collectiveup.be and we will get you started.
Skills+ 3.0 (Project No. 2023-1-NL01-KA220-ADU-000156772) is co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Commission.
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