A new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report reveals that three-fourths of federal agencies are using their headquarters less than a quarter of the time, even more than three years after the COVID-19 pandemic. This comes as congressional leaders and the Biden administration have been urging federal employees to return to more in-office work.
The GAO report identified several barriers preventing increased in-office presence, including inadequate funding for modernizing office buildings for hybrid work, reluctance to share headquarters space and concerns about future changes regarding return-to-office mandates.
In response, The General Services Administration (GSA), which oversees federal office spaces called for additional funding to maintain and upgrade existing offices while also suggesting disposing of underutilized real estate could be a potential solution. Reduced daytime activity has led to restaurant closures and commercial defaults across America’s cities due largely in part from remote working arrangements during this pandemic period.
