Misalignment of expectations of the WELL Building Standard adoption in the APAC region

Healthy environments has gained increased attention in the property industry, especially in the wake of the COVID19 pandemic. The refocus has seen organisations prioritise employee’s health and wellbeing, in efforts to outperform competitors and maintain and attract long-term talent. The WELL Building Standard (WELL) has emerged as a leading global tool that links human health and the built environment, it has rapidly gained traction in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region in recent years, with estimated certified space reaching nearly 80 million square meters. Despite this growth, limited research has examined the expected and actual perceived benefits of WELL adoption in the APAC region, particularly whether the standard delivers the expected returns for organisations. This study addresses this gap by exploring the motivations driving organisations to adopt WELL and the actual perceived outcomes of its implementation. Through 10 semi-structured interviews conducted with decision makers from organisations that have adopted WELL, a thematic analysis revels a misalignment between the motivations driving WELL adoption and the main perceived benefits leveraged from its implementation. While most stakeholders agreed that the strength of WELL lies in providing an evidence-based blueprint for health and well-being strategies to be implemented in practice, there is still a lack of financial estimations being performed to assess the return on investment within organisations. Indeed, none of the participants interviewed reported being involved in and/or aware of cost-benefit analysis being performed in practice within organisations adopting WELL. Further, interviewees indicated that the likely return on investment remains non-tangible and difficult to measure. Findings from this research offer critical insights for organisations considering WELL implementation, highlighting the need for industry-wide efforts to better quantify the benefits and enhance support to expand the implementation of healthy workspaces and places.