Cida Ghosn
Doctor of Philosophy candidate
Architecture, Property
Biography
Cida Ghosn is a Brazilian licensed architect with 19 years of experience as a practitioner, managing her own architecture office, building and retrofitting residential, commercial, and urban design projects in São Paulo, Brazil. In addition, she has extensive experience in the private (entrepreneur), public, and academic sectors, nationally and internationally (Brazil, USA, and Australia).
She holds a master’s degree in Architecture from the University of São Paulo, Brazil, including a 6-month exchange at the University of Sydney, Australia, supported by the Endeavour Leadership Program. Cida Ghosn also worked as a lecturer on a postgraduate course in architecture in São Paulo, Brazil, teaching two subjects (i) Ergonomics and (ii) Managing architecture offices.
Currently, she is a Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Melbourne studying the role of healthy certification framework, and its impacts on occupants and organizations in corporate offices in Australia. She is also a member of SHE (Sustainable and Healthy Environments) Lab at University of Melbourne.
Thesis
What's working WELL in Australian workspaces?
People spend approximately 90% their time indoors and at their workplace, the value of investing in workers’ health has been fast becoming the epitome of the well-being movement. Data reported by the World Green Building Council shows that “people account for about 90% of business’ operating costs, suggesting that a minor improvement in health and productivity of the employees can yield significant value and, therefore, should be a major concern for organisations” (World Green Building Council (WGBC), 2014). Not surprisingly, leaders from the Corporate Real Estate sector increasingly adopting certifications in workplaces to improve workers’ health and well-being while improving the organization’s performance.
Consequently, the WELL Building Standard™, a leading global certification institute developed to address how the physical and social environment affects human health, well-being, and performance, has been increasingly implemented through Australian corporate offices. As per WELL normative claims, through the certification, organizations are expected to attract and retain talents and optimize their productivity, health, and well-being. Specifically, they accomplish these goals by reducing medical conditions, complaints, and the consequences of presenteeism and absenteeism.
However, despite the widespread adoption of WELL certification in Australia and worldwide, only nine peer-reviewed papers have been published with data collected from WELL-certified premises. This constitutes a significant gap when closing the loop between the expected and actual impact of WELL, preventing proper statistically-sound quantification of its benefits on people and organizations. To fill this gap, this research aims at investigating the normative claims of WELL certification in Australian corporate offices by understanding the expected and actual benefits perceived by tenant organizations using a theoretical model based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour. It will also explore the importance of health and well-being to the employees by analysing two secondary databases based on employees’ feedback from Australian WELL-certified and non-certified offices.
Findings will help inform organization’s decision-making when pursuing certification and validation of the normative claims made by WELL. It will also provide insights into the positive impacts, if any, on employees’ satisfaction, perceived productivity, and health arising from the certification implementation.