After discovering in a latest research that 17 federal companies use a mean of 25% or much less of the workplace area at their headquarters, the Authorities Accountability Workplace is asking for a standardized benchmark for federal leaders to goal for.
In a report launched Thursday, GAO constructed on its Sept. 27 testimony to the Senate Surroundings and Public Works Committee and referred to as on the Workplace of Administration and Price range to assist develop new metrics to trace authorities use of workplace area. assist decide.
“The pandemic has lowered the usage of headquarters workplace area and elevated the quantity of underutilized federal workplace area,” the report mentioned. “Whereas all companies have resumed in-person actions, it’s clear that the federal office has developed as companies have embraced telework. OMB directed companies to make use of utilization knowledge to find out their area wants, however didn’t say how, and companies haven’t reached consensus on new benchmarks on their very own.”
In line with the report, companies presently use completely different metrics to justify their use, which may result in completely different measurements and capability “even for a similar constructing sq. footage,” necessitating the necessity for the standard rule.
The advice comes after GAO discovered that 17 of the 24 federal companies that make up the Federal Actual Property Council — an interagency group of senior officers representing companies that management 98 % of all federal actual property — use a mean of 1 / 4 of the workplace area on used their headquarters. with six companies utilizing 9%.
In measuring the usage of workplace area at companies’ headquarters, GAO divided the companies into 4 classes, or quartiles, which decided the usage of their constructing by calculating usable sq. toes based mostly on the variety of individuals working there throughout was current on the day.
Whereas workplace utilization has been a problem for federal companies within the pre-pandemic period – with GAO estimating that if all assigned employees occupied one of many lowest quartile headquarters places of work for at some point, this might nonetheless solely be 67% of the area would occupy. — teleworking has introduced much more consideration to the difficulty.
The GAO report mentioned all 24 companies surveyed mentioned their workforces nonetheless haven’t returned to pre-pandemic ranges and that for some, pre-existing telework flexibility is now getting used extra regularly.
The Biden administration has regularly allowed federal employees to return to the workplace, with Chief of Workers Jeff Zients calling for extra in-person work in August and the Workplace of Personnel Administration demanding higher knowledge on telework utilization earlier this month.
Nevertheless, the report states {that a} lack of clear benchmarks makes it troublesome for companies to adequately develop future workplace area planning, even in an developed telework setting.
GAO officers mentioned that within the absence of standardized metrics, some companies used sq. toes per particular person, whereas different companies added up workspaces. Attendance metrics have been much more various, making it troublesome to gauge capability.
“An ordinary methodology to measure utilization and benchmarks that account for increased ranges of telework may assist the federal authorities extra persistently determine underutilized area inside and throughout companies,” the report mentioned. “Having this info may assist higher align the federal actual property portfolio with future wants and scale back prices by liberating up pointless area.”
OMB officers agreed with the advice.