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FORTUNE.COM// JA N.1 .19WHEN WORKERS
AND INVESTORS
SHARE THE WEALTH
Being stingy with pay and benefits can boost profits
in the short term. But companies—and their
stocks—may do better when they’re generous.
By Ryan DerousseauINVESTING WITH THE HEART,while
still earning a strong return, is
the equilibrium that every socially conscious
shareholder aims for. To achieve that balance,
investors are in constant search of strong
data—specifically, environmental, social, and
governance (ESG) metrics that can help them
screen out bad actors and identify the good.
For some of those metrics, the data has
steadily improved. There is now research
that shows a correlation between reduction
of waste and stock returns, for example. The
same depth of data has been elusive, however,
for many social issues—including how com-
panies treat their employees. That’s a conun-
drum in a society marked by growing wealth
inequality, in which some investors
are eager to back companies whose
leaders share the fruits of success
with the rank and file.
One group striving to close the
worker-treatment data gap is Just
Capital. Just, a nonprofit founded
in 2013 by a group that includes
billionaire investor Paul Tudor
Jones, has surveyed some 81,000
people since then to determine
which corporate-behavior issues
the public cares most about. It
ranks the companies in the Rus-
sell 1000 based on their perfor-
mance on those issues. (The rank-
ings are available online; they’re
also the basis for theJust U.S. Large
Cap Equity ETF, which launched in
June.) In Just’s surveys, worker pay
and benefits consistently rank at
the top of respondents’ priorities.
To develop a rating system for
employee well-being, Just looked
beyond salary and perks, says CEO
Martin Whittaker; training and
career development opportunities,
health care, retirement plans, and
other factors all fall into this buck-
et. Layoffs don’t necessarily count
against a company if it provides,
say, good severance and access
to job-placement services. Just
Capital also measures work/life
balance, gathering data through
outside groups and giving credit to
companies that actively encourageINVEST
ILLUSTRATION BYMICHAEL GEORGE HADDAD