Towards recognising workforce health as a constituent of intellectual capital: Insights from a survey of UK accounting and finance directors

To date workforce health and wellbeing have not been recognised as one of the key constituents of the human capital component of intellectual capital. In an era when workforces are widely acknowledged as being highly valuable assets, and therefore in large part worth retaining within the organisation by virtue of their contribution to the value creation and delivery process, a healthy workforce would seem to be a doubly important asset to cultivate. This paper presents and discusses the findings of an exploratory questionnaire survey of senior accounting and finance practitioners regarding some of the issues associated with recognising workforce health and wellbeing as an additional constituent of intellectual capital. The study was carried out in the UK, the site of a continuing, costly sickness absence problem.