Despina Katsikais with Rachel Hodgdon at Putting “H” Health and Humanity into ESG Event at Nasdaq Marketsite on ESGNews

In this captivating segment Despina and Rachel break down key topics including:

• Direction things are going
• Conditions Returning to Work
• ESG Performance and Companies decisions around returning to the office

FULL COVERAGE

• Watch complete coverage of the Putting “H” Health and Humanity into ESG Event

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTS: Despina Katsikais is the Head of Occupier Business Performance of Cushman Wakefield and Rachel Hodgdon is the President and CEO at IWBI

Rachel Hodgdon, President and CEO, IWBI (00:00):

Hi, I’m Rachel Hodgdon, President and CEO of the International WELL Building Institute. And I’m really excited to be here with my friend, Despina Katsikais, the global head of total workplace at Cushman Wakefield. And we’ve all seen you Despina these past couple of months, because you’ve been one of the go to sources for media that are asking about changes that are happening in the workplace and the future of work in general. Um, you are a font of insight. And so I’m excited to ask you a couple of questions about where you see it all going with all the change that we’ve seen over the past couple of years, um, in terms of how we think about the, where of work what’s been the biggest surprise for you?

Despina Katsikais, Global Head, Cushman Wakefield  (00:47):

Well, it’s very interesting cuz the debate has been so wide, you know, about are people going back to the office, where are we working in the future? We definitely have taken a, a point of view in looking at our evidence that work is no longer happening in one building. It’s happening across an ecosystem of locations that include the home and third places. But the office, our office buildings become more important than ever before. And I think that’s probably the most interesting aspect of this because people still want to be back in a building where they feel connected to the culture of the organization. They can create that separation between work and life. So their wellbeing improves going back. But the building requires a certain amount of additional focus on becoming inspiring destination on supporting the health and wellbeing of people and making the right interventions that will make an impact to human performance. So that’s been a really significant shift in, in just really rethinking the role of place to drive human outcomes.

Rachel Hodgdon, President and CEO, IWBI (02:04):

Mm, Uh, Cushman has been doing some fascinating research on return to work. Um, and one of the things that I saw in, um, a, a presentation you all put together was that people want to be back in the office, but they really wanna be able to choose to be back in the office. And I think the conditions under which they a return talk, talk a little bit about that.

Despina Katsikais, Global Head, Cushman Wakefield  (02:25):

Yeah, this is, this has been very interesting because we we’ve seen a lot of mandates from companies and in having people come back to the office. And yet our data tells us that one of the most striking elements that happened during lockdown was that for the first time, 90% of people felt trusted by their managers to work remotely. And they want that trust to continue in having choice. And ironically, what we find is when people are given the choice, they actually choose to go to the office more because they like the experience of going in and feeling connected to the business and they are experience and engagement increases exponentially. So having that autonomy and choice and going to the office seems to be the sort of magic combination to give you that.

See Related Article: Mona Naqvi of S&P Global with Rachel Hodgdon of IWBI- Putting “H” Health & Humanity into ESG

Rachel Hodgdon, President and CEO, IWBI (03:22):

Yeah. And in many ways surprising. Absolutely.

Despina Katsikais, Global Head, Cushman Wakefield  (03:25):

Yeah. Counter.

Rachel Hodgdon, President and CEO, IWBI (03:26):

Yes. Um, it, it’s such a remarkable time for real estate a time when real estate is taking center stage and how businesses meet critical corporate goals as well as the outside role that it can play to help companies enhance ESG performance. Yes. Um, how are you seeing that play out? How is it affecting the decisions that companies are making around returning to the office?

Despina Katsikais, Global Head, Cushman Wakefield  (03:49):

Well, we’re seeing that play out at every level. So, um, we increasingly, we are creating green leasing strategies for our clients. Uh, we’re looking at the levels of specification of buildings to make sure they’re supporting the corporations that are choosing to go into them, their own ESG targets. So landlords that actually are stepping up and embracing more sustainability, more wellbeing, more connection with the community are able to help their tenants achieve some of their corporate goals as well. So all of those elements are being elevated to not just the nice to have, but much more of a priority, a critical priority for that decision making.

Rachel Hodgdon, President and CEO, IWBI (04:40):

Fantastic insights as always Despina, thank you so much for being with us. Thank you for traveling all this way to make it to the NASDAQ and be with us for this event. Really.

Despina Katsikais, Global Head, Cushman Wakefield  (04:49):

Thank you, Rachel. Thank you for having me. It’s been great to be here.