What is the situation ?
TNO and CBS report that 72% of Dutch employees in 2025 say their tasks often or always require close attention, down from 75% in 2015.
At the same time, burnout complaints rose to 21%, up from 13% in 2015. High-attention work is now concentrated at the top of the labor structure: 85% in complex specialist roles, versus 38% in routine physical roles.
Workers under 25 are far lower at 52%. The real signal is not that work became lighter.
It is that sustained focus work is clustering in fewer roles while exhaustion still rises.
This NEA dataset covers employees, so ZZP and founder reality may differ.
The data, sourcing, and analysis behind this article were conducted by Paolo Maria Pavan. AI was not used to identify sources, build the factual basis, or produce the analytical judgment contained here. AI was used only as a drafting aid. The final English text was personally reviewed, edited, and approved by the author before publication. Any translated versions are AI-generated from the original English text.
Analysis
For micro and small firms, this points to workflow fragmentation rather than simply excess workload.
TNO says most employees can generally keep their attention on work, but a small group struggles, especially in creative, ICT, marketing, and technical roles.
Separately, DNB finds Dutch workers spend about 20% of their working time on non-core tasks, mainly meetings, administration, and email.
That is where the blind spot sits. The labor cost is not just salary.
It leads to lost focus, rework, delays, and attrition when admin, coordination, and compliance are assigned to the wrong roles.
Protecting attention is now an operating-model issue, not an HR slogan.
Impact
H1
Identify who currently handles recurring non-core work such as VAT returns, wage reporting, privacy paperwork, inbox triage, and internal coordination. If these tasks fall on your highest-focus person, take concrete steps to shift some of this work to other roles to reduce output delays and error risks.
H2
Review your current role structure. Before adding another senior hire, actively pilot structured task elevation for junior staff to see if they can absorb workload from high-focus roles. Monitor results and adjust your hiring or delegation plans accordingly.
H3
The structural advantage will go to firms that reduce context-switching, simplify internal admin, and reserve specialist attention for work that actually needs it. In a tight labor market, focus discipline becomes a retention and productivity asset.
Daily operational takeaway
Within 72 hours, create a list of all recurring non-core tasks by role. Select and transfer or remove at least one task from the most attention-intensive position. Track the results to assess impact on focus and output.
