The International WELL Building Institute (IWBI) has released its 12 Competencies for Measuring Health and Wellbeing for Human and Social Capital. Designed to help any organization ready to commit to integrating health and humanity into their culture, strategy and reporting, the 12 Competencies provides a holistic framework that allows organizations of all types to better integrate dimensions of human and social capital into their decision-making.
IWBI cites that now more than ever, investment in people and the places where they spend their time are under intense scrutiny, leaving building owners and managers the need to demonstrate not just their efforts, but the tangible impact of that effort. Given the current patchwork of approaches to ESG and CSR reporting on health and well-being, IWBI states a more holistic framework addressing multiple scales of influence will be important moving forward.
“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.”
IWBI Targets 5 Scales of Impact with New Building Competencies
The 12 Competencies focus on scalable metrics within an organization to follow prioritization of human and social capital. The scales cover Individual, Organizational, Environmental, Community and Global impact and are meant to provide more tangible reports on a company’s varied health, equity and sustainability initiatives.
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.
“We are at a great inflection point when companies around the globe are rethinking what it actually means to prioritize their most valuable asset, their people,” said Kyle Bolden, US-East Real Estate, Hospitality and Construction Market Segment Leader, Ernst & Young US. “But how we do that – how we collectively shape and elevate the role of human and social capital – will have a profound impact on the future of corporate success and performance.”
For more information, visit wellcertified.com or download the 12 Competencies directly at 12competencies.wellcertified.com.
