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 WELL Health-Safety Rating for Facility Operations and Management is an evidence-based, third-party verified pathway for addressing acute health threats, including COVID-19 and beyond. 

Informed by the WELL Building Standard and more than 600 experts from the Task Force on COVID-19, the WELL Health-Safety Rating helps buildings and organizations address the health, safety and well-being of their most valuable asset—people. A visible indication of confidence and trust, 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:

• Keep spaces clean and sanitized

• Provide essential health benefits and services

• Communicate health and safety efforts

• Prepare for an emergency

• Assess air and water quality

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

The WELL Health-Safety Rating is an adaptable, flexible solution that can help every space reopen with confidence in a post COVID-19 environment.

Designed to be implemented at scale, the WELL Health-Safety Rating can be applied to various sectors and building types, including:

• Office buildings

• Residential and retail spaces

• Schools and educational institutions

• Restaurants and bars

• Healthcare facilities

• Hotels

• Stadiums and concert venues

• and more...

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.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the critical role that buildings play in supporting people’s health, safety and well-being. Transmission of COVID-19 largely occurs within indoor and enclosed environments, where people spend approximately 90% of their time. While longer term design strategies are important in reducing the risks of infectious disease spread, the urgent need to meet high health and safety standards in existing buildings prompted this rating to focus on strategies that can be implemented immediately within the scope of facility operations and management to protect stakeholders from acute threats.

Developed by experts

The WELL Health-Safety Rating was created by IWBI, the organization that oversees the world’s premier framework for advancing health in buildings and spaces of all kinds, the WELL Building Standard (WELL), which is in use by thousands of projects world-wide and represents eight years of bridging health science and building science. 

The genesis of the WELL Health-Safety Rating was feedback from the IWBI Task Force on COVID-19 and Other Respiratory Infections, a group of nearly 600 public health experts, virologists, government officials, academics, business leaders, architects, designers, building scientists and real estate professionals, which was established in late March 2020 to inform IWBI’s response to the pandemic. This group identified an important need for a third-party designation that would help guide owners and operators towards evidence-based best practices for mitigating the spread of COVID-19 and for getting through this crisis and beyond.

While developed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the strategies contained within the WELL Health-Safety Rating are broad-reaching and apply to numerous health and safety issues. Through annual renewal, the rating can help organizations continue their efforts to protect the health of their people over the long-term.

Rooted in strategies that matter

Cleaning and Sanitization Procedures help address the spread of COVID-19 and many other infectious diseases through cleaning protocols and hand washing promotion, with a focus on low-hazard cleaning products that reduce negative impacts on indoor air quality and the health of those performing cleaning duties.

Emergency Preparedness Programs are essential for ensuring that organizations are equipped to immediately confront and recover from crises like the COVID-19 pandemic, slow the spread of infectious disease and minimize secondary mortality. Plans created to support business continuity, remote work readiness and project re-entry after extended remote periods help support business resilience and individual well-being during and after longer-lasting emergencies.

Health Service Resources help organizations encourage individual actions that support everyone's health and safety: vaccinations, education on good health habits, paid sick leave, improved access to healthcare and support for smoking cessation. The COVID-19 pandemic has illustrated how the behaviors of one person can negatively impact others in severe ways—and interventions in the workplace can help address that. Consider, for example, that studies estimate 20 million Americans and 37% of UK employees go to work sick because they lack adequate sick leave, infecting their colleagues as a result—reducing overall productivity and profitability for the impacted organization.

Air and Water Quality Management interventions focus on reducing exposure to pathogens and infectious diseases like COVID-19 by mitigating indoor air pollution, avoiding air stagnation, implementing proper air filtration and maintenance, as well as monitoring water quality.

Stakeholder Engagement and Communication is critical to instilling confidence, improving coordination and supporting actions that can help keep people safe during and after emergencies. Learning from the past by looking at the effects of previous SARS outbreaks, COVID-19 is predicted to have lasting physical and mental health impacts. Providing people with access to health-promotion strategies, education and resources can help them to cultivate resilience in response to physical and mental health stressors.

A visible mark of confidence

The WELL Health-Safety seal is a recognizable mark of your commitment to health for anyone who walks through the doors of your facility. Seeing the seal outside means you can feel safer going inside.

Backed by comprehensive review

Third-party document review and annual verification of policies, protocols and strategies instills confidence in stakeholders, customers and employees that evidence-based health and safety measures have been put in place.

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.