The WELL Health-Safety Rating is an annual rating that empowers owners and operators across large and small businesses alike to take the necessary steps in order to prioritize the health and safety of their staff, visitors and stakeholders.

The rating provides a roadmap for organizations to anticipate what’s around the corner and put the necessary plans and protocols in place for resilience and response.

The WELL Health-Safety seal communicates to everyone entering a space that evidence-based measures have been adopted and third-party verified.

The WELL Health-Safety Rating includes strategies to help:

• Monitor and optimize air and water quality
• Communicate health and safety efforts with clarity
• Provide access to integral health benefits and services
• Demonstrate preparedness with emergency planning
• Ensure effective cleaning and sanitization practices

Learn more about the benefits of demonstrating your commitment to health with our quick program overview and in-depth presentation. You can also learn more about WELL Certification or applying WELL at scale with the comparison chart at the bottom of this page.

The WELL Health-Safety Rating is an adaptable, flexible solution that can fit any type of facility, including:

• Office buildings
• Residential and retail spaces
• Schools and educational institutions
• Restaurants and bars
• Healthcare facilities
• Hotels
• Stadiums and concert venues
• and more...

Any organization with one or more physical locations can pursue the rating. The rating is designed to be scalable–many strategies are policy-based and can be shared across your organization. The WELL Health-Safety Rating can be pursued as a standalone achievement or combined with WELL Certification or WELL at scale as part of your larger health and well-being strategy. If your project is pursuing both WELL Certification and the WELL Health-Safety Rating, see our alignment tool for more details on equivalencies across programs.

The WELL Health-Safety Rating is earned by implementing strategies, curated from the WELL Building Standard, that promote human health and safety.

Projects earn the WELL Health-Safety rating by following a few key steps:

1. Enroll: Sign up and share your annual commitment to achieving the WELL Health-Safety Rating. All enrollments receive access to our secure, cloud-based management tool designed to help you scale your efforts.
2. Assemble: Identify the key team members you will collaborate with to help bring your project across the finish line.
3. Customize: Select the features that are best for your project.
4. Document: Incorporate the features you have selected into your space and produce documentation that shows your work.
5. Review: Upload your documentation in your WELL Health-Safety account, and a third-party reviewer will either offer feedback or confirm you’ve successfully met the feature-specific intent and requirements.
6. Achieve: Earn the WELL Health-Safety Rating and promote your achievement.
7. Renew: Apply for your annual seal to demonstrate ongoing commitment to upholding operational policies, maintenance protocols, emergency plans and stakeholder engagement.

Process and Tools

Project Management Resources

All enrolled projects receive access to our secure, cloud-based management tools designed to help you scale your efforts.

• Elevated project management: Transform the way you work with digital scorecards, trackers and project management tools that make spreadsheets a thing of the past.
• Inspired education: Level up your health and safety efforts with curated articles, video tutorials and documentation templates created by the WELL coaching support team.
• Simplified communication: Engage with your team of subject matter experts with ease, keeping your project on task and on target.
• Streamlined documentation: Store and submit your documents directly in the digital platform, so you can spend time on what matters most–your people.
• Centralized reporting: Connect with IWBI and third-party reviewers to make adjustments to your submission and view your final report upon achievement.

Documentation, verification and review

Upon enrollment, you will define the features you seek to pursue and upload documentation for those features to your WELL workspace. A third-party review organization conducts up to two rounds of review of submitted documentation.

Each round of review is completed in under 25 business days. For WELL Health-Safety submissions with multiple locations, review timelines may be longer than the standard of 8-10 business days, with a maximum of up to 25 business days.

Communicate your achievement

Projects that have satisfied the requirements of the WELL Health-Safety Rating and have accepted the WELL Health-Safety report are officially designated as WELL Health-Safety Rated. IWBI encourages project teams to promote their achievement through a variety of means, and provides a suite of resources to support their marketing efforts, including:

• WELL Health-Safety seal (four complimentary seals per location, up to 1,600 seals).
• Digital, printable WELL Health-Safety seal.
• Digital certificate and signed letter of achievement.
• Promo toolkit with a sample press release and social posts
• On-site marketing collateral.

The WELL Health-Safety seal is a visible indication of confidence and trust, communicating to everyone entering a space that evidence-based measures have been adopted and third-party verified.

Renewal

To remain WELL Health-Safety Rated, projects must renew annually. The process for renewal is similar to what is required at the time of initial achievement. Projects must submit any new documentation and proof of on-going monitoring.

A healthy environment is a non-negotiable 

Put health and safety at the center of your business strategy to drive financial returns and maximize ESG performance.

• Enhance annual reporting 
• Take action and drive results in key areas that impact ESG performance 
• Differentiate your assets
• Outpace leasing and occupancy rates in a competitive market landscape 
• Attract and retain top talent 
• Create a culture where people are happier, healthier and more productive.

The WELL Health-Safety Rating instills confidence in tenants and visitors by validating that the base building meets rigorous standards for health and well-being. Spaces with healthy building certifications or ratings may experience higher rents, better lease terms and greater employee retention, while employees in these spaces can experience significant boosts to productivity among other benefits–see the Investing in Health Pays Back Special Report for more information about how leveraging WELL can provide a competitive advantage.
 

Every WELL Health-Safety Rating project starts with enrolling your property and sharing some key details to inform your project’s unique journey.

Enrolling new or existing projects (registered or certified) for the WELL Health-Safety Rating is easy—just follow this step-by-step guide below.  

1. Log into or create your WELL account.
2. Click Projects > WELL Health-Safety at the top of your screen.
3. Click +Start a New Project > Enroll Now.
4. Complete the Tell us about your organization section
5. Fill out organization and discount eligibility information.
6. Select the appropriate enrollment type: standard location(s) (includes single or multiple locations) or high-volume, multi-use location(s).
7. Describe your project, including the number of locations, the primary space type and combined total size.
8. View the price quote with relevant discounts applied.
9. Review and sign the program terms and conditions; confirm public enrollment status.
10. Complete your enrollment by submitting payment: you can pay by credit card, and generate or download an invoice. You can also edit your billing address details.

If you have existing projects (registered or certified) you can access WELL Health-Safety from within your existing project accounts. As a project administrator, you can opt in by navigating to your project and clicking WELL Health-Safety in the left-side menu. This ensures access to coaching support, sample documents and billing history, while enabling relevant discounts to be applied automatically.

Once you’ve enrolled your project, we recommend you:

• Review the evidence-based strategies of WELL that are included in the WELL Health-Safety Rating.
• Personalize your WELL Health-Safety Rating scorecard by selecting which features your project intends to pursue.