The onthaal is the Belgian legal obligation to receive and instruct every new worker on welfare at work, entrusted to a member of the hierarchical line and evidenced by a signed document. It is a duty with a named owner and a paper trail, not a hospitality gesture.
Two articles, and what each one adds
Codex art. I.2-15 requires the employer to organise the onthaal of every worker and to entrust it to a member of the hierarchical line. That fixes responsibility on a person in the line, not on HR and not on a folder.
Art. I.2-11, second paragraph, 9°, adds the parts that most organisations discover late. The employer must organise the onthaal of every beginning worker and designate an experienced worker charged with accompanying that newcomer. And the designated member of the hierarchical line signs, under his own name, a document showing that the necessary information and instructions on welfare at work were given.
Three hard elements sit in that sentence: every beginning worker, a designated buddy, and a signed document per person. This is an evidentiary obligation. It is not a best practice you can implement in a lighter form.
What it looks like on an actual Monday
A Flemish distribution centre takes on eleven people for the seasonal peak, spread across three start dates and two shifts. For each of them, someone in the line has to be designated, an experienced colleague has to be appointed to accompany them, and the line manager has to sign a document per person confirming that the welfare information and instructions were given. Eleven documents, not one attendance list with eleven signatures on it.
That distinction is where most Belgian sites are exposed. A group session with a circulated signature sheet documents that people attended something. It does not show that the designated member of the hierarchical line certified, under his own name, what was given to each of them.
The Dutch situation is genuinely different
In the Netherlands there is no equivalent signature obligation, and it should not be claimed. Arbowet art. 8 imposes the duty to inform workers effectively about the work and its risks and to provide instruction adapted to their distinct tasks. It prescribes no form of proof at all.
The practical consequence is uncomfortable rather than comfortable: the duty exists, and the way you demonstrate it is entirely your own design. Without a record of your own, you have no way to show that article 8 was met for a specific person on a specific date.
Why this is the moment worth engineering
The onthaal is the only point in the employment relationship where the law in Belgium names a person, a buddy and a document in one paragraph, and where the Dutch duty starts running with no template to lean on. Our use case on new hire onboarding shows how to run it per person across sites and languages.
Bring your current onthaal form to a demo and we will show what the per-person record looks like.