In Partnership with FIESC SESI and supported by Aetna International

The Global Centre for Healthy Workplaces (GCHW) Awards programme has been recognising the world’s finest employers in their delivery of employee health and wellbeing programmes. The programme recognises the best from small and medium-sized enterprises, to large employers and multinationals, and the twelve winners thus far have included GSK, Unilever, IBM, Shell, Vitality, Lans Spar Bank, Toyola, etc. (see appendix for full listing). Almost all Global Award winners have stated that their healthy workplace programmes contribute to the productivity and profitability of their business and for most it was a primary reason for developing such initiatives.  As a result of years of such observations, the GCHW has been confident in its assertion that ‘Good Health equals Good Business’.

Successful healthy workplace programmes all have one thing in common, namely the full support of the chief executive and leadership team of the organisation. Successful CEOs understand the important role employee health, wellbeing and happiness plays in ensuring employees are engaged, motivated and fully productive. In a survey commissioned with Conduent / Buck Consultants, improving performance and productivity was defined by almost 60% of employers as the number one reason why they support health and wellbeing programmes.

The case for aligning employee health and wellbeing with business performance is clear. What is less clear is how such alignments are understood by investors and to what extent it influences their decisions on valuing their portfolio and in allocating investments. There is growing interest and activity in the financial community with regard to incorporating health-related criteria in investment analysis, often under the umbrella of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) and Sustainable & Responsible Impact (SRI). This study seeks to better understand workplace wellbeing from the perspective of investors and financial analysts – to examine the extent to which they appreciate the link between employee wellbeing and performance, the priority they attribute to it and how does it affect their decisions – and to advance the inclusion of healthy workplace criteria in future analysis.

This first report summarizes existing publications, which cover:

1. The relationship between good practices in workplace health promotion and financial performance
2. Global drivers for health and well-being programs (with regional variations)
3. Inclusion of health and safety criteria in investment portfolios (examples of existing ESG funds and related reports)

The report will be presented for consultation at the 2^nd Roundtable of the Global Alliance for Healthy Workplaces in Singapore on 3^rd September 2017.

To read the full report download here: https://www.globalhealthyworkplace.org/documents/Healthy-Investments.pdf