What are the Bronze, Silver, and Gold tiers of Well-Being Excellence?

Bronze requires all 20 Foundational Elements. Silver adds 12 of 16 Advanced Elements. Gold adds a validated employee well-being survey that must clear set favorable-response and participation thresholds. All three run on a three-year term.

What does ANCC Well-Being Excellence cost and how long does it take?

Registration is $1,000 and non-refundable. The main appraisal fee is separate and scales with organization size and tier. Organizations register roughly 8 to 12 months before a submission cycle (March 1, July 1, or December 1). Document review takes about four to six weeks, with the full decision timeline running a few months.

ANCC Well-Being Excellence (WBE), in plain English

Q: How does CODE YOU help with Well-Being Excellence?

CODE YOU runs a 36-element gap analysis, maps the Pathway-to-WBE crosswalk for organizations that hold Pathway, generates the first-person narrative evidence the Foundational Elements accept through its retreats and programming, and prepares Gold-tier applicants for the employee survey using validated well-being measurement.

Well-Being Excellence™ is the American Nurses Credentialing Center's organizational credential for how well a workplace supports its people. It launched in December 2024, and the category is still new enough that most write-ups get it wrong.

This page explains what the credential is, how the three tiers work, and what earning it actually takes. If your organization is weighing it, CODE YOU helps nursing teams get appraisal-ready. And if you already hold Pathway to Excellence®, a good part of the work is done. More on that below.

What Well-Being Excellence is

ANCC's Well-Being Excellence credential measures whether workforce well-being is built into how an organization runs, rather than whether it holds the occasional wellness event. Appraisers look for well-being inside strategic planning, leadership, safety culture, recognition, scheduling, and mental and physical health support.

The credential runs on a three-year term. It applies to any organization that employs nurses: hospitals and health systems, schools of nursing, pharma and medtech, insurers, health-tech companies, professional associations. ANCC designed it to be cross-industry on purpose.

It is built on 36 evidence-based elements: 20 Foundational and 16 Advanced. The credential comes in three tiers.

ANCC Well-Being Excellence tiers: Bronze, Silver, and Gold, with the requirements for each

The three tiers

Bronze. Meet all 20 Foundational Elements, reviewed through documentation. No Advanced Elements required. This is the entry tier.

Silver. All 20 Foundational Elements, plus 12 of the 16 Advanced Elements, reviewed through documentation.

Gold. Everything Silver requires, plus a validated employee Well-Being Survey. Gold has to clear two survey thresholds: a favorable-response bar (at least 12 of 17 survey items at 75% favorable) and a participation bar that scales with organization size (51% for orgs up to ~5,000 eligible respondents, 41% up to ~10,000, 31% above that). An organization that falls short can re-survey once, or accept the Silver credential instead.

The 36 elements, grouped

Every tier requires all 20 Foundational Elements. Silver and Gold add 12 of 16 Advanced Elements. Grouped by what they cover:

Strategy and leadership: well-being written into the strategic plan; leader well-being assessed on a regular cadence.
Belonging and voice: a shared decision-making structure staff can actually take part in; a diverse workforce; zero tolerance for racism and discrimination.
Safety and trust: physical safety, freedom from verbal and physical abuse, and a just culture where people report mistakes without fear.
Recognition and growth: meaningful recognition, annual professional-goal support, and learning plans beyond onboarding.
Mental and physical health: scheduling flexibility, protected meal breaks, a mandatory-overtime policy, mental health resources, and physical-health support.

A Foundational Element can be met two ways: documented evidence the organization already keeps, or a general description paired with a first-person narrative of how the practice was lived. That second option matters. It is where most organizations get stuck, and where CODE YOU's work fits.

ANCC Well-Being Excellence application timeline: register, submit, appraiser review, Gold survey, and credential decision

What earning WBE takes

The process runs on a predictable clock:

Register: roughly 8 to 12 months before your target submission, with a $1,000 registration fee and the Executive Sponsor's CV. ANCC confirms eligibility.
Submit: in one of three cycles a year (March 1, July 1, December 1). Bronze applicants submit Foundational evidence; Silver and Gold add the Advanced evidence.
Appraiser review: a team of at least two ANCC appraisers reviews the documents over about four to six weeks and may request more.
Survey: Gold applicants only, the validated employee survey.
Commission decision: the Commission on Pathway to Excellence votes on the award.

Two roles have to be in place before you apply: an Executive Well-Being Sponsor (a senior leader who ties well-being to strategy) and a Well-Being Champion (who runs the program day to day and is your line to the ANCC office). The main appraisal fee is separate from registration and scales with organization size and tier; ANCC publishes a calculator.

Documented evidence, or a story that proves it

Here is the part most guides skip. For the 20 Foundational Elements, ANCC accepts a general description plus a first-person narrative as an alternative to formal documented evidence. A named nurse describing how a practice actually played out during a real event can satisfy the element.

That is exactly what CODE YOU's programming produces. Our Brave Healing Spaces™ retreats and Nurturing New Healers work generate first-person, named, story-based accounts of well-being practices in action, the kind of narrative the manual accepts. For a team that runs good programs but keeps thin paperwork, that difference is the difference between eligible and not.

Pathway to Excellence to Well-Being Excellence crosswalk showing the elements a Pathway organization can carry over toward WBE

Already have Pathway to Excellence?
You have a head start.

In late 2025, ANCC published a crosswalk showing that a large share of its Pathway to Excellence Elements of Performance line up closely with Well-Being Excellence elements. If your organization holds Pathway, you can carry that evidence over.

A Pathway-designated organization can satisfy approximately 5 of the 36 elements automatically at Bronze, and approximately 10 of 36 at Silver and Gold.
CODE YOU's crosswalk analysis estimates this cuts the Silver-tier narrative workload by roughly a third. We confirm the exact overlap against current ANCC guidance for your specific designation before we scope the work.

There are more than 600 Magnet-recognized and 200 Pathway-designated organizations in the U.S. If you are one of them and you are looking at Well-Being Excellence, the crosswalk is your shortest path, and mapping it is one of the things CODE YOU does.

Where
CODE YOU
plugs in

CODE YOU is a nurse-founded nonprofit built around nurse well-being. We help nursing organizations get Well-Being Excellence-ready without starting from a blank page.

Gap analysis. We map your current practices against all 36 elements and tell you which tier is realistic, what is already covered, and what is missing.
Pathway-to-WBE crosswalk. If you hold Pathway to Excellence, we mark the elements you can carry over and the narrative relief that comes with them.
Appraisal-ready evidence. Our retreats and programming generate the first-person narrative content the Foundational Elements accept, and we help you organize the documented evidence you already have.
Gold-tier survey readiness. Our well-being measurement, built on the Harvard Flourishing/Well-Being scale, gives you a read on where your survey numbers sit before the ones that count.

The result is a credential effort grounded in real programming for your nurses, not a documentation sprint.

CODE YOU co-founders Tamara Ramirez and Phyllis Morton, both registered nurses and Spiritual Directors

Who we are

CODE YOU is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit co-founded by two practicing nurses and trained Spiritual Directors, Tamara Ramirez, MASFSD, BSN, RN, and Phyllis Morton, MSN, RN, SD. Our mission is resuscitating and strengthening the heart and soul of nursing. We run CE-accredited retreats and self-paced courses, and our approach is trauma-informed and evidence-based. Our work on Brave Healing Spaces™ and active listening as a stress-injury intervention was presented at the Texas Nurses Association Conference in 2024.

Thinking about Well-Being Excellence for your team?

By leveraging CODE YOU’s bridged evidence, your Magnet/Pathway coordinators can reduce the total narrative requirement for WBE Silver by nearly 30%. Download CODE YOU's detailed crosswalk matrix specifying exactly how our offerings align with specific WBE core elements.

Download CODE YOU's WBE Crosswalk Matrix

WBE FAQs

What is ANCC Well-Being Excellence?

Well-Being Excellence is an organizational credential from the American Nurses Credentialing Center, launched in December 2024. It measures how deeply an organization has built workforce well-being into its strategy, leadership, safety culture, and day-to-day operations, against 36 evidence-based elements, at three tiers: Bronze, Silver, and Gold.

What are the Bronze, Silver, and Gold tiers?

Bronze requires all 20 Foundational Elements. Silver adds 12 of 16 Advanced Elements. Gold adds a validated employee well-being survey that has to clear set favorable-response and participation thresholds. All three run on a three-year term.

Who can apply for Well-Being Excellence?

Any organization that employs nurses, with a minimum of 10 employees across all sites and an Executive Well-Being Sponsor and Well-Being Champion in place. It is explicitly cross-industry: hospitals, schools of nursing, pharma, medtech, insurers, health-tech companies, and professional associations are all eligible. International organizations may apply with English-language submissions.

How is Well-Being Excellence different from Magnet or Pathway to Excellence?

Magnet Recognition and Pathway to Excellence are also ANCC programs, focused on nursing excellence and the practice environment. Well-Being Excellence focuses specifically on workforce well-being, uses a Bronze/Silver/Gold tier structure, and leans on documented evidence rather than survey self-reporting (except for the Gold-tier survey). If you already hold Pathway, a crosswalk lets you carry a portion of that evidence over.

Can a Pathway to Excellence organization get credit toward Well-Being Excellence?

Yes. ANCC's 2025 crosswalk found many Pathway Elements of Performance line up with Well-Being Excellence elements. A Pathway-designated organization can satisfy roughly 5 of 36 elements at Bronze and about 10 of 36 at Silver and Gold. CODE YOU maps that overlap for your specific designation.

What does it cost and how long does it take?

Registration is $1,000 and non-refundable. The main appraisal fee is separate and scales with organization size and tier. Plan to register roughly 8 to 12 months before your submission cycle (March 1, July 1, or December 1). Document review takes about four to six weeks, with the full decision timeline running a few months.

How does CODE YOU help with Well-Being Excellence?

We run a 36-element gap analysis, map your Pathway-to-WBE crosswalk if you hold Pathway, generate the first-person narrative evidence the Foundational Elements accept through our retreats and programming, and prepare Gold-tier applicants for the employee survey using validated well-being measurement.

Disclaimer + sources

CODE YOU is an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit. We are not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC). Well-Being Excellence™, Pathway to Excellence®, and Magnet Recognition® are trademarks of the ANCC. For official program information, see ANCC's Well-Being Excellence page and the current list of credentialed organizations.