Employee wellness as intellectual capital: an accounting perspective

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify employee wellness as a further component of intellectual capital and to illustrate how it might be possible to account for it in ways that depart from accounting's traditional focus on costs and valuations. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is discursive in approach, considering a range of ideas relevant to visualising employee wellness as intellectual capital and how to account for it as such. Findings – Employee wellness a component of primary intellectual capital, being something that employees bring to their organisations together with their experience, expertise, know‐how, leadership skills, creativity, etc. It is also a component of secondary intellectual capital envisaged as initiatives designed to promote greater levels of health and fitness among employees. While it is not possible to place financial valuations on employee wellness, individual or collectively, it is possible to develop metrics that will communicate useful information to a variety of stakeholders. In addition, employee wellness is a suitable topic for the development of self accounts by organisational participants. Originality/value – The paper is an early contribution to a new field of enquiry and seeks to encourage further studies both empirical and conceptual.