Scheduling Agency Workers in Logistics: The Rules

A lorry arriving at the dock two hours late, a customer sending through 400 extra orders at 4 pm, a peak around Black Friday: in logistics you rarely know a week in advance how many pairs of hands you'll need tomorrow. That's why warehouses, distribution centres and transport companies rely heavily on agency workers.

The catch: agency work in Belgium is tightly regulated. You can't simply have a new daily contract drawn up every single day, you need a valid ground, and since 2023 excessive use of daily contracts can cost you money through a special NSSO contribution. Below we set out what you need to know as a user undertaking — and how to organise your scheduling so that you stay flexible without taking risks.

Who is the employer, and what remains your responsibility?

Agency work involves three parties: the agency worker, the temporary employment agency (the legal employer) and you as the user undertaking. The agency concludes the contract, files the Dimona declaration, pays the wages and handles the social security contributions.

That does not mean you have nothing to do. As the user undertaking you are responsible for, among other things:

• the ground on which you call on agency work (and the evidence for it);
• compliance with the working time rules on the shop floor: rest periods, breaks, daily and weekly limits, night work;
• well-being at work: workstation record, induction, personal protective equipment, safety instructions;
• the correct recording of hours worked, which you report back to the agency;
• the information and consultation procedures with the works council or trade union delegation.

In short: payroll sits with the agency, the scheduling and the burden of proof sit with you.

The grounds: when may you use an agency worker?

Agency work is only permitted in the cases listed by law. The classics in a warehouse or transport environment are:

• temporary increase in work (seasonal peak, extra volume from a customer);
• temporary replacement of a permanent employee (illness, leave, suspended contract);
• performance of exceptional work (a warehouse relocation, a one-off stocktake);
• inflow ("instroom"), with a view to permanent recruitment.

Each ground has its own rules on maximum duration and the procedure with the trade union delegation. For a temporary increase in work, for instance, companies with a trade union delegation need prior agreement, both on the number of agency workers and on the period. You'll find the full list and the conditions on the FPS Employment website.

The practical consequence for your scheduling: the ground attaches to the shift, not to the person. Someone who appears in your roster as a replacement for a sick order picker keeps that ground for as long as the situation lasts. So note it in your schedule, allowing you to retrieve it later.

Consecutive daily contracts: are they still allowed?

Yes, but not unconditionally. Consecutive daily contracts are agency work contracts with the same user undertaking that each last a maximum of 24 hours and that immediately follow one another — or are separated only by a public holiday or your company's usual days of inactivity. So if you never work weekends, a contract on Friday and one on Monday also count as consecutive.

They are only allowed if you, as the user undertaking, can demonstrate a need for flexibility. That need must arise from one of the following situations:

• your workload depends largely on external factors (weather, fluctuating customer demand, unpredictable deliveries);
• your workload fluctuates sharply, for example because you only find out in the afternoon how many orders go out tomorrow;
• the nature of the assignment is short-lived.

For an e-commerce distribution centre that only knows its order flow at 5 pm, this is demonstrable. For a production line that has been running the same volume for months, far less so.

If you have a works council or trade union delegation, you must inform them every six months of the number of consecutive daily contracts, the number of agency workers involved and the — statistically substantiated — evidence of your need for flexibility. On top of that, an annual consultation on the use itself follows.

The accountability contribution: work out what it costs

Since 2023 there has been a special NSSO contribution payable by the user undertaking when the same agency worker has too many consecutive daily contracts with you within a single six-month period. The threshold is 40. From that point on you pay on all consecutive daily contracts in that half-year, on a progressive scale:

• 40 up to and including 59 contracts: €10 × the total number;
• 60 up to and including 79 contracts: €15 × the total number;
• 80 up to and including 99 contracts: €30 × the total number;
• 100 or more: €40 × the total number.

An example: if you deploy one agency worker for 72 days on consecutive daily contracts, you end up at 72 × €15 = €1,080 for that one person, for that one half-year. Do the same with ten people and you're talking about more than €10,000 in extra wage costs that were nowhere in your hourly rate. The details and the exceptions can be found in the NSSO administrative instructions.

The lesson isn't "no more daily contracts", but: keep count. If you maintain a counter per agency worker, you'll see well in advance that someone is heading towards 40 and you can switch to a weekly or multi-day contract.

How to keep your scheduling watertight

Most problems in logistics companies don't arise from unwillingness, but from fragmentation: the schedule sits in Excel, the hours go to the agency by email, and the ground is in the team leader's head.

A few practical measures:

1. Schedule agency workers in the same roster as your permanent teams. That's the only way to see at a glance whether your 6 am–2 pm shift is staffed and whether someone isn't rostered for two shifts back to back.
2. Link every agency contract to a ground and a period. It takes ten seconds when scheduling and saves hours of searching during an inspection.
3. Record actual hours digitally, not on a paper sheet at the dock. That way what you pass on to the agency matches what was actually worked — and you don't pay for hours too many.
4. Build a counter per agency worker. Number of days, number of consecutive daily contracts, cumulative per half-year.
5. Capture your evidence as it arises. Daily order volumes, loading schedules, sickness notifications: that is exactly the "statistically substantiated evidence" you'll be asked for later.

With digital staff scheduling and linked time registration, most of this happens automatically: you schedule a shift, the hours are recorded, and the follow-up per employee rolls out without anyone having to tally it up by hand.

A permanent core, a flexible layer

Companies that come out of this well almost all do the same thing: they first determine how much volume is genuinely structural and staff that with their own people or long-running agency contracts. Only the top layer — the unpredictable peak — do they absorb with short contracts and other forms of flexible work.

Do that exercise once a quarter using your figures from recent months. In many warehouses it turns out that a large share of the volume is predictable and that the daily contracts have mainly become a habit. Every day you shift from a daily contract to a weekly contract lowers your counter and your admin burden.

For more on shift scheduling in an environment with unpredictable volumes, read our article on shift scheduling in the port. And if you want to know which documents you should have ready when the inspectorate comes calling, take a look at this checklist.

In summary

Agency work remains an indispensable tool in logistics, but it is no free pass. Make sure every contract has a ground, that your need for flexibility is demonstrable, that your hours are recorded digitally and that you know per agency worker how many consecutive daily contracts have already been used. Then you stay flexible — without surprises on your NSSO statement.