July 30, 2025

Love an afterwork drink? Move to Belgium

With everyone on holiday we felt, we needed to take care of ourselves as well. So we enjoyed a nice afterwork drink at the Dutch office (called VrijMiBo in Dutch; a name totally unknown to our Belgian colleagues: culture eats strategy for breakfast, as they say…). And as consultants are curious about everything, we were also curious about how many employees actually have these afterwork drinks and what they think about it and obviously, if this could entail an opportunity for you, our beloved (near future) clients 😊. So we checked this together with our friends at Dynata. Representative sampling in both The Netherlands and Belgium. My instinct would say that Belgians are more Burgundian but what do the numbers say?

Mixed work modus just as big as only office

Well, let’s start at the beginning. We were also interested how full-time employees work nowadays. Looking at total level, mixed working (remote+at the office) is now just as big as at the office only. There is no difference between countries.

We also see that prefamily (18-35) tends to mix working from home with working at the office more than the older working population (51-65). This direction is clear and evident in both countries.

And ‘yes’ my instinct was right! In Belgium an afterwork drink is significantly more common than in The Netherlands. See the graph. And even more striking: practically everyone indicates to attend these afterwork drinks (at the office) from time-to-time. Also, a strong clue for the relevance this occasion has.

Afterwork drinks at the office more common for males

More interesting from a possible brand activation point-of-view is the following difference. Amongst male workers afterwork drinks are significantly more common: 56% males, 40% females. This probably has to do with the type of jobs but it would be great to have it at least at the same level no matter the job, for social cohesion…

And it obviously is more of an urban-area thing than a rural one.

Afterwork drinks: Crucial to get to know one another differently

And what are reasons why employees find afterwork drinks, so important?

Well, it is important to hear something new (the informal chatter within the team). 56% On total level agrees with this and this is even larger amongst the prefamily group. There are no differences between The Netherlands and Belgium.

Of course, for prefamily, their job is a big part of their ‘life’. Never to be underestimated. More interesting is that especially the people who mix remote working with working in the office stress the importance of the informal chatter, a whopping 67% of this group agrees with this statement.

And this is topped by ‘getting to know one another differently’: Teams/Zoom can only bring that much. We just occasionally crave face-to-face: 74%.

Still, a quarter only attends because their bosses expect them to, this is similar across country, age, gender and way-of-working: certain people just don’t have this need.

Foods and drinks served are quite predictable in Belgium!

And as some of us are working in the Food and Beverage space we were also curious about what the participants felt about the selection of drinks and foods at these afterwork drinks. Well, 42% finds this rather predictable on a total level. When we zoom in on country differences something really interesting happens. The Dutch youngsters (18-35) are more okay (38%) with the foods and drinks served, we have our unprecedented bitterballen of course 😉, whereas in Belgium the foods and drinks served are considered really predictable (65%).  So clearly room for improvement there!

In The Netherlands, the VrijMiBo is more often on a Friday, 68% of the time (could the name have more power than we would allow ourselves to admit: YES, IT DOES),whereas in Belgium, where the name VrijMiBo does not exist and people refer to it as ‘afterwork drinks at the office’ it is more spread over Thursday and Friday, with 52% on a Friday.

Finally, in Belgium the afterwork drink starts usually after work (17:00 hrs) and in The Netherlands around 16:00 hrs. Starting earlier, hmmm there is a Burgundian in those Dutch somewhere, you just have to look very hard. 😉

On a final note we thought it would be fun to have our participants indicate how they see themselves on such an occasion. When summing up the Explorer and Risk-Taker scores there seems to be definitely room to explore more exciting foods and drinks!

We’re obviously open to explore these opportunities together with you, with consumers, our AI-enabled Virtual Audience, experts etc. etc. We also would love to improve our own afterwork drinks, right. 😜

Cheersand enjoy your summer!

P.S. Please get in touch with your Haystack representative, if you want to receive more information about discussing the results of this survey and receiving the complete datafile.

Reach out to our expert on the matter

Ronald Laan
Strategic Advisor
ronald.laan@haystack-consulting.com