11.3 Occupant Survey (C04), Enhanced Occupant Survey (C05) & Diversity and Inclusion (C12)
Key Takeaways
C04 Occupant Survey is a precondition applying to projects with ten or more eligible employees, satisfied by a pre-approved third-party survey or a custom survey covering the Appendix C1 topics.
C04 Part 2 requires annual invitation of all eligible employees, protection of participant-identifying data with aggregated reporting, and analysis by a qualified survey professional.
C05 Enhanced Occupant Survey is worth 4 points and adds at least three customized questions on Appendix C2 topics, enhanced statistical analysis beyond descriptive statistics, and pre-occupancy surveying using the same provider.
C12 Diversity and Inclusion is worth 3 points, awarded either through an approved third-party program with publicly available results, or through a custom program meeting three, four or five requirements for 1, 2 or 3 points.
The C12 custom program requires diversity representation goals covering at least four diversity types, and a policy including a ban on requesting salary history and blind resume reviews.
11.3 Occupant Survey (C04), Enhanced Occupant Survey (C05) & Diversity and Inclusion (C12)
Core Exam Takeaway: C04 Occupant Survey is a precondition that applies only to projects with ten or more eligible employees. C05 Enhanced Occupant Survey (4 pt / Core 2 pt) is tied with C06 as Community's largest optimization. C12 Diversity and Inclusion (3 pt / Core 3 pt) uses a three / four / five requirements → 1 / 2 / 3 points ladder. Do not confuse C05 (Enhanced Occupant Survey) with C09 (New Mother Support).
Feature C04: Occupant Survey — Precondition
Intent: evaluate the experience and self-reported health and well-being of building users through occupant surveys.
C04 Part 1 — Select Project Survey
For projects with ten or more eligible employees, one of:
Option 1: Third-party survey. A survey selected from one of nine pre-approved providers:
- Occupant Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) Survey™ — Center for the Built Environment, UC Berkeley
- Building Evaluation Survey Use Studies (BUS) Wellbeing Survey
- Sustainable and Healthy Environments (SHE) survey — University of Melbourne
- Space Performance Evaluation Questionnaire (SPEQ) — High Performance Environments Lab, University of Oregon
- Leesman Index
- Occupant Comfort & Wellness Survey — Institute for the Built Environment, Colorado State University
- Comfortmeter
- Healthy Building Index (HBI) — bba indoor environment & DGMR
- Occupant Wellness Survey — Well Living Lab China
Option 2: Custom survey. A survey covering the topics listed in Appendix C1.
C04 Part 2 — Administer Survey and Report Results
Option 1: Survey administration
- (a) All eligible employees are invited to participate annually, with regular reminders.
- (b) The survey protects all participant-identifying data through appropriate measures such as anonymous reporting and safe data storage. Any communication of results should be on an aggregated basis, such that no participant can be identified.
- (c) Analysis of responses is conducted by a qualified survey professional.
Option 2: Result reporting. Annually, submit through the WELL digital platform:
- (a) Project and survey data: total number of employees invited and number who completed; date survey started and finished; project location; project type; level of WELL Certification; and sociodemographic information (age and gender at minimum)
- (b) Aggregated, anonymized survey results
WELL Core guidance: direct staff.
Important
The ten-eligible-employee floor is a genuine scoping rule. Below ten eligible employees, no survey can be anonymous in practice — colleagues would identify one another from the responses — so WELL exempts small populations rather than forcing a privacy failure. Compare T02, which sets minimum response thresholds by population size (35% above 45 occupants, 15 responses for 20–45, 80% below 20) rather than exempting anyone.
Tip
Requirement (c) — analysis by a qualified survey professional — is easy to overlook and hard to retrofit. Collecting responses is not enough; the precondition requires competent analysis. This is also why C05 Part 1 Option 2 can pay a point for enhanced analysis: the baseline already assumes professional descriptive statistics.
Feature C05: Enhanced Occupant Survey — Optimization (4 pt / WELL Core 2 pt)
Intent: build on minimum occupant survey requirements with enhanced and customized questions to comprehensively evaluate and respond to the experience and self-reported health and well-being of building users, both before and during occupancy.
C05 Part 1 — Utilize Enhanced Survey (1 pt / Core 0.5 pt)
For office spaces, projects with ten or more eligible employees.
Option 1: Enhanced survey administration
- (a) Meet C04 Part 1 using Option 1 — i.e., the project must use a pre-approved third-party survey, not a custom one.
- (b) Address at least one of the topics listed in Appendix C2 through at minimum three additional survey questions, working with one of: the pre-approved provider selected in C04 Part 1, BeWellLeadWell, OHFB-Afriforte, or The Thrive XM Index.
Option 2: Result analysis and reporting
- (a) Conduct enhanced analysis beyond descriptive statistics — e.g., correlations, inferential statistics such as multivariate analysis.
- (b) Annually submit aggregated, anonymized results for the additional Appendix C2 topics and the results of the enhanced analysis.
C05 Part 2 — Utilize Pre- and Post-Occupancy Survey (1 pt / Core 0.5 pt)
Option 1: Pre-occupancy survey administration. Administer a pre-occupancy survey using one of the pre-approved providers and use the same provider for the post-occupancy survey in C04 Part 1.
Option 2: Result analysis and reporting. Compare results from the pre-occupancy and post-occupancy surveys.
WELL Core guidance: direct staff.
Important
C05 Part 1 Option 1(a) closes a door: it requires C04 Part 1 to be satisfied via Option 1, the third-party route. A project that wrote a custom survey under C04 Option 2 cannot earn C05 Part 1 Option 1 without switching. That is a genuine strategic dependency worth spotting early in a scorecard.
Tip
"Same provider" in Part 2 Option 1 is the methodological point. A pre-occupancy baseline measured with one instrument and a post-occupancy result measured with another cannot be validly compared — different question wording, scales and norming. Requiring provider continuity is what makes the Option 2 comparison meaningful.
Feature C12: Diversity and Inclusion — Optimization (3 pt / WELL Core 3 pt)
Intent: promote an equitable culture through the implementation and disclosure of diversity and inclusion policies and initiatives.
C12 Part 1 — Promote Diversity and Inclusion
Option 1: Third-party program (1 point)
- (a) The project or organization participates in an approved third-party certification or reporting program listed on IWBI's website.
- (b) Results are made publicly available on-site and/or on the organization's website.
Option 2: Custom program. The project or organization meets at least three of the listed requirements through a custom internal program, reviewing policies and trainings annually to remove identified areas of bias:
| Number of requirements achieved | Points |
|---|---|
| Three | 1 |
| Four | 2 |
| Five | 3 |
The requirements include:
- (a) A comprehensive evaluation of current diversity representation, with goals for improvement established and annually tracked, including at least four of these diversity types: gender (assigned, identity and/or expression), sexual orientation, race/ethnicity, age, socioeconomic background, level of ability, or other metrics identified by the organization.
- (b) A comprehensive diversity, inclusion and non-discrimination policy established and made available to all employees that:
- Connects diversity and inclusion to the project or organization's goals and objectives, including the project's health-oriented mission, considering at minimum ethnic, racial, gender and gender identity, cultural, neurological, ability and age diversity
- Includes a hiring policy that bans the request of salary history and requires blind resume reviews — at minimum removing information such as name and home address that could indicate race/ethnicity, gender or socioeconomic background
- Establishes employee evaluation protocols with equitable and transparent performance criteria
- Further requirements address anti-bias training, wage equity, and employee resource groups.
WELL Core guidance: whole building applicability per the feature.
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| C12: WHY THE HIRING PROVISIONS ARE THE HIGH-YIELD DETAIL |
| |
| BAN ON REQUESTING SALARY HISTORY |
| Past pay reflects past discrimination. Anchoring a new offer to it |
| carries a wage gap from job to job for an entire career. |
| |
| BLIND RESUME REVIEW |
| At minimum remove NAME and HOME ADDRESS -- the two fields that most |
| reliably signal race/ethnicity, gender and socioeconomic background. |
| |
| Both are POLICY interventions at the single point where representation |
| is actually determined, which is why WELL names them explicitly rather |
| than asking generally for "inclusive hiring". |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Important
Option 1 caps at 1 point; only Option 2 reaches 3. Participating in an approved third-party program with public disclosure is the low-effort route worth a single point. To earn the full 3 points a project must build a custom program satisfying five requirements and review policies and trainings annually to remove identified areas of bias. Note the parallel with C05 and T02: WELL repeatedly prices external validation lower than demonstrated internal practice.
Tip
C12(b)(1) requires the diversity policy to connect to the project's health-oriented mission from C02 Part 2 — another instance of Community's features cross-referencing one another. And note that C13 Accessibility and Universal Design is a separate 2-point feature covering physical access, wayfinding, developmental and intellectual health, operations, technology and safety. C12 is policy and representation; C13 is design and usability. Candidates frequently merge them.
To which projects does Precondition C04 Occupant Survey apply?
All projects regardless of size
Projects with ten or more eligible employees
Projects with more than 45 regular occupants
Office space projects only
A project satisfied C04 Part 1 by writing a custom survey covering the Appendix C1 topics. Can it earn C05 Part 1?
No, because C05 Part 1 requires C04 Part 1 to be met through the pre-approved third-party survey route
Yes, because C05 builds on whichever C04 route the project used
Yes, provided the custom survey adds at least three questions from Appendix C2
No, because C05 applies only to projects with more than 100 employees
How many requirements must a project meet under C12 Option 2 to earn the full 3 points?
Five
Four
Three
All listed requirements
Which hiring provisions does C12's diversity, inclusion and non-discrimination policy require?
Mandatory diverse candidate slates for every open role
A ban on requesting salary history and a requirement for blind resume reviews removing at minimum name and home address
Publication of all salary bands on the organization's website
Anonymous interviewing conducted by a third-party recruiter
Sections you finish are checked off in the contents.