Why is this important?
It is time for Corporate Health Accountability to become part of the backbone of any strong enterprise. It will be truly transformational if human capital, measured as workforce and organizational health, takes its place in the shared value system. That will require development and standardization of metrics that are material to the financial performance of companies. Further, the metrics need to be used in an integrated manner. The transformation will be realized only when CEOs, CFOs, and shareholders understand that workforce health is an investment in future profitability, not an expenditure to be minimized.
Pathways
Develop effective health reporting metrics through a credible collaboration among key, respected stakeholders.
Incorporate health performance into existing integrated reporting and sustainability reports.
Generate evidence-based recognition that the health and well-being of workforces is a key metric for long-term successful business performance.
Measures of Success
Short Term (2017)
- Meetings have been convened for companies committed to integrated health metric reporting o develop an initial set of metrics to be piloted and iterated over time, in consultation with major reporting bodies, such as the Global Reporting Initiative and Dow Jones.
- Early adopter companies have begun to incorporate standardized workforce health metrics into corporate financial and sustainability reporting.
- Small, medium, and large companies have formed a task force to pilot reporting metrics on the health of their workforce, and have issued a report to the broader community.
Medium Term (2020)
- Several hundred small, medium, and large companies across industries have published the health status of their workforce alongside corporate financial and sustainability reports.
- Global reporting agencies such as the Global Reporting Initiative, Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies, and Sustainability Accounting Standards Board have adopted and called for health and associated metrics to become an integrated component of corporate financial reporting.
- Corporate boards and investors have begun to demand and use information on workforce and organization health alongside corporate financial and sustainability metrics to drive strategy and inform valuation models.
Long Term (2025)
- Standard metrics for health reporting have been widely adopted throughout the business sector.
- The Dow Jones Sustainability Index has incorporated workforce health as a core metric.
- Recognition of the value of workplace health leads to a 50 percent greater investment in workplace programs that tackle major contributors to the burden of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs).
Supporting Research
Infographic
Making health metrics an integral part of corporate reporting (Infographic)
Getting companies to report on employee and organizational health alongside sustainability metrics and financial results will reposition health as an investment and help build a culture of health.
Paper
Making the workplace a more effective site for prevention of major chronic diseases in adults.
Research study recommends five steps for businesses and Americans to benefit from workplace disease prevention programs.
