White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients sent an email to Cabinet officials urging them to "aggressively execute" plans to have more federal employees work from their offices, many in Washington, D.C., starting in September.
The move marked a turnaround from three-and-a-half years ago when the government began directing employees to work from home to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Since then, downtown Washington at times has seemed relatively quiet. Sandwich shops, high-end restaurants, convenience stores and other businesses felt the fallout as a portion of their customers stayed home.
As word of the email spread last week, business owners and their landlords across the country cheered the move. Not only is the federal government a huge employer, but many hope its actions will spur others to bring their employees back to the office. For these reasons, the White House chief of staff is the Person of the Week.
WHO: Jeff Zients, White House chief of staff
STREET CRED: Zients founded investment firm Portfolio Logic that invested in healthcare companies and other businesses. Under President Barack Obama, Zients served as director of the National Economic Council and twice served as acting director of the Office of Management and Budget. He was serving as CEO of London-based investment firm Cranemere when he resigned to serve as co-chair of Joe Biden's presidential transition team. Biden initially picked Zients to oversee the country's COVID-19 response. In February, Zients replaced Ron Klain as the White House chief of staff and a member of the Cabinet.
WHAT HAPPENED? Earlier this month, Zients told Cabinet officials in a widely reported email that increasing the time federal employees worked in their offices is a priority of Biden's. “As we look towards the fall, and with the end of the COVID-19 public health emergency, your agencies will be implementing increases in the amount of in-person work for your team," he wrote, according to an Axios report. “This is a priority of the President — and I am looking to each of you to aggressively execute this shift in September and October.”
WHY IT MATTERS: The federal government owns 500 million square feet of office space, and its agencies "spend about $2 billion a year to operate and maintain federal office buildings regardless of the buildings' utilization," according to a July report from the Government Accountability Office, or GAO. Federal agencies also spend approximately $5 billion each year to lease office buildings. The pandemic and remote-work policies have left much of the federal government's office space empty. In fact, 17 of the 24 agencies reviewed for the GAO report used an estimated average of 25% or less of their headquarters building's capacity during a sample three-week period across January, February and March. For its report, the GAO reviewed usage at agency headquarters in Washington; Alexandria, Virginia; Baltimore; and Rockville, Maryland.
Editor's Note: CoStar News has launched a feature called Person of the Week, highlighting someone whose actions, statements or issues affected the commercial real estate industry. If you'd like to nominate someone for consideration, please email news@costar.com.