Federal workers have been slow to return to their workplaces despite efforts by administrators and lawmakers to get more people into offices more often. That could change next month when, according to brokerage JLL, more than 400,000 federal employees will be required to be in the office two to three days per week.
The new mandates cover about 120,000 more people than the total now under requirements to return to the office.
So far, 16 federal agencies have announced return-to-office mandates, but their policies have varied, JLL said in a recent report. In some cases, the only people who were required to be at their desks were managers and senior-level staff.
The government's adoption of hybrid work schedules means agencies likely won't need all 363 million square feet of space in 8,397 buildings they lease or own in 2,200 markets nationwide.
"Over the next several years, some government agencies will continue to shrink their office footprint to support lower overall demand for office space as they migrate to desk sharing solutions to support a largely hybrid workforce," Bob Hunt, group managing director of government and education, said in an email. "Much of this will be a migration out of leased space into federally owned space, but the degree to which this happens will vary around the country."
The bottom line, however, is that the amount of space the General Services Administration leases on behalf of agencies "will most definitely decrease in 2024," and might not stabilize until 2028, Hunt said.
Kameshia Freeman, a senior vice president on JLL's government and education team who worked at the GSA for 15 years, said landlords may try to push back.
Given the weakened state of the U.S. office market, JLL said, there's no guarantee landlords would accept offers from the GSA to buy its way out of leases because finding replacement tenants won't be easy.
"For those leases, if agencies decide to give back space, the GSA is still responsible for the rental payments. GSA can buy out the leases, but what is the motivation for the landlord to do that?" Freeman said in an email.
Despite the shift toward hybrid work and fewer in-office visits, federal and state governments are still hesitant to give up their desk space — for now, according to JLL.
In a recent JLL survey on hybrid work, only 10% of government clients said most workers would transition to shared seating, significantly lower than 41% of private-sector clients.
"Additionally, 41% of government clients don’t anticipate any shared seating, compared to only 13% of private sector clients," JLL said.