IWBI Launches 12 Competencies for Measuring Health and Well-being for Human and Social Capital

NEW YORK, March 1, 2022 /3BL Media/ - The International WELL Building Institute (IWBI) today released its 12 Competencies for Measuring Health and Well-being for Human and Social Capital. Designed to help any organization ready to commit to integrating ‘H’ - health and humanity - into their organizational culture, strategy, and corporate reporting, the 12 Competencies provides a holistic, multi-scale framework that can help organizations of all types better integrate consideration of health, well-being, and other dimensions of human and social capital into their decision-making.

Organizations around the world face growing pressure from investors, regulators, and the general public to be more ‘purpose driven’, to commit to improving diversity, equity, and inclusion within their workforce, and contribute to broader public health issues. By applying the 12 Competencies – organized across five scales of impact: Individual, Organizational, Environmental, Community, and Global – organizations can showcase and measure a commitment to health and well-being as a strategic priority.

“When it comes to maximizing returns and boosting profitability in the near and long term, investing in people is the formula,” said Rachel Hodgdon, President and CEO, IWBI. “Smart organizations have long realized that even modest improvements in areas like productivity, health and well-being, absenteeism, cognitive performance, recruitment and retention can have a substantial effect on financial performance. The 12 Competencies will help organizations sharpen their focus on what matters most and what drives results, while also creating a more powerful reporting structure to communicate back to investors, regulators and the general public.”

The 12 Competencies focus on metrics that can scale with an organization's journey to prioritize human and social capital. They’re straightforward, yet broad enough to be benchmarked and integrated into organizational strategies and reporting processes. At the Individual level, for example, the ‘Employee Effectiveness’ competency tracks perceived focus, attention, performance, and job satisfaction. Meanwhile, at the other end of the spectrum through the Global level, the ‘ESG Transparency and Reporting’ competency tracks an organization’s ESG, corporate social responsibility, carbon disclosure and sustainability reporting and more. Based on their specific needs, organizations can identify competencies of interest and identify supporting metrics from the framework to track over time.

IWBI’s Research Team led the development of the 12 Competencies in consultation with IWBI’s network of Global Research Advisors and Pre-Approved Survey Providers over a 12-month period. Using an adaptive and transdisciplinary approach, IWBI used this combined expertise to identify key categories of health and well-being and other dimensions in human and social capital as well as performance criteria for related metrics.

“Companies like ours are at a pivotal point in ESG reporting on human and social capital. In a world where well-being and talent retention are front and centre on the agenda, we’re all grappling with what to measure, what to report, and what to manage,” said Natalie Devlin, Chief Experience Office of Charter Hall, who were one of the first companies globally to pursue WELL at scale through WELL Portfolio and report annual achievements on its WELL journey through their 2021 Annual Sustainability Report. “Clear metrics that measure health and well-being in a holistic and integrated way are what is needed. The 12 Competencies offers a framework to do this across multiple levels that speaks to all our stakeholders."

In a moment when investment in people and the places where they spend their time are being closely tracked and more critically examined, leading companies are recognizing the need to demonstrate not just their effort, but also the impact of that effort, especially in terms of supporting human and social capital. Given the current patchwork of approaches to ESG and CSR reporting on health and well-being, a more holistic framework addressing multiple scales of influence will be important moving forward.

For more information, please visit wellcertified.com or download the 12 Competencies directly at 12competencies.wellcertified.com.

About the International WELL Building Institute

The International WELL Building Institute (IWBI) is a public benefit corporation and the world’s leading organization focused on deploying people first places to advance a global culture of health. IWBI mobilizes its community through the administration of the WELL Building Standard (WELL) and the WELL Health-Safety Rating, management of the WELL AP credential, the pursuit of applicable research, the development of educational resources, and advocacy for policies that promote health and wellbeing everywhere. More information on WELL can be found here.

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