U.S. federal companies are underneath stress to optimize their actual property portfolios, cut back prices, and create extra environment friendly workplaces for workers navigating the return to workplace.
A brand new directive from the Division of Protection (DoD) requires day by day occupancy monitoring, pushing companies to take decisive motion in rightsizing their workspaces. This isn’t only a compliance mandate — it’s a possibility to modernize federal buildings, minimize operational prices, and enhance the office expertise for presidency staff.
However with out the precise instruments, companies danger making space-planning choices based mostly on outdated assumptions slightly than real-time knowledge.
Many federal companies are sustaining workplace area that far exceeds precise utilization. Some headquarters function at lower than 20% capability, costing taxpayers tens of millions in underutilized actual property. With return-to-office mandates rising as the way in which ahead for presidency organizations, companies want a wiser strategy to area planning — one which aligns with precise workforce behaviors.
Rightsizing begins with data-driven decision-making, and that requires real-time visibility into how workspaces are getting used.
The position of workplace area administration techniques in rightsizing areas
How authorities companies can implement efficient area planning methods
As federal companies optimize their actual property footprints, workplace area administration techniques are a important device for monitoring and analyzing occupancy tendencies. Businesses can leverage these techniques to routinely gather and course of real-time area utilization knowledge for insights into how staff use workspaces, when peak occupancy happens, and the place inefficiencies exist.
By figuring out underutilized workplaces, assembly rooms, and shared workspaces, companies could make evidence-based choices about reconfiguring layouts or consolidating amenities to align with precise workforce wants.
To take motion, companies ought to:
- Make the most of clever occupancy monitoring options, resembling Archibus’ area planning and administration instruments, to seize real-time area utilization knowledge slightly than counting on estimates. By leveraging IoT-enabled sensors, automated occupancy monitoring, and area utilization analytics, companies can acquire correct insights into how workspaces are used, enabling extra strategic actual property choices.
- Use AI-driven analytics to establish patterns in how staff use workplace area and modify layouts accordingly.
- Undertake versatile area insurance policies based mostly on real-time demand, reallocating underutilized areas slightly than sustaining extra area.
Addressing the return-to-office problem
The emergence of return-to-office mandates presents new challenges for federal companies. With work insurance policies evolving, predicting how a lot area is actually wanted is troublesome. By leveraging area administration instruments, companies can take a responsive strategy to occupancy monitoring, slightly than making everlasting choices based mostly on non permanent tendencies.
For instance, companies can:
- Automate day by day attendance patterns to find out which workplace places are most in demand. Clever reserving options resembling Eptura’s will routinely assign and launch areas in the event that they aren’t getting used to always hold utilization info present.
- Regulate workspace layouts based mostly on precise utilization knowledge, slightly than assuming pre-pandemic configurations will nonetheless work.
- Use versatile seating preparations to accommodate fluctuating in-office attendance with shift and hourly utilization monitoring whereas decreasing total sq. footage wants.
- Conduct an area stock by 3D mapping buildings to make strategic choices about repurposing and creating multi-use areas.
The return to the workplace will not be a one-time shift — it’s an ongoing adjustment. Businesses that leverage data-driven area planning will be capable to make knowledgeable choices in actual time and as mandates evolve.
House planning challenges and options
Many authorities companies lack the instruments to precisely observe area utilization, making it troublesome to justify reconsolidation and resulting in wasted assets and inefficiencies. The Using House Effectively and Enhancing Applied sciences (USE IT) Act of 2023 instantly addresses this subject by requiring the Workplace of Administration and Price range (OMB) and the Common Providers Administration (GSA) to implement standardized methodologies and superior monitoring applied sciences to evaluate constructing utilization extra precisely.
Nevertheless, monetary constraints stay a barrier — companies have struggled to acquire dependable presence knowledge, usually resorting to workarounds like cellphone monitoring. To make sure companies can implement efficient area planning techniques, the White Home has proposed giving the GSA better monetary flexibility, together with entry to Federal Buildings Fund income and authority to approve as much as $10 million in funding with out congressional approval.
To successfully meet these new requirements and overcome the restrictions of conventional monitoring strategies, companies ought to search for scalable area administration instruments that get rid of guesswork by enabling them to:
- Determine underutilized areas to make choices about whether or not to cut back or repurpose actual property.
- Make evidence-based reconsolidation choices that optimize area utilization with out disrupting operations.
- Shift from reactive to proactive area allocation, making certain long-term effectivity and compliance with federal mandates.
- Improve strategic portfolio administration by aligning amenities with precise workforce calls for and cost-saving initiatives.
How a authorities healthcare community optimized area to enhance care and minimize prices
A multi-facility authorities healthcare community needed to ship one of the best normal of care whereas stewarding taxpayer assets throughout tens of millions of sq. ft of medical amenities. Attributable to rising healthcare prices, the company always appears to be like to cut back group care prices with out compromising high quality.
After creating an area stock with 3D constructing mapping, they monitored utilization and recognized some areas that have been solely getting used 30-50% of the time. As soon as they knew which areas have been underutilized, they might make extra knowledgeable choices about how one can reconfigure areas to extend capability as multipurpose remedy rooms.
For instance, they recognized a 330-square-foot room initially used for infrequent X-rays, which regularly sat empty. They transformed it right into a multipurpose infusion remedy area, saving $8.3 million yearly whereas additionally enhancing affected person care by conserving companies in-house.
By modeling the potential financial savings they might notice by enhancing utilization throughout their amenities, they discovered {that a} 2.5% enhance in area utilization might doubtlessly save them as much as $2 billion yearly in outsourced medical care prices.
Learn the buyer success story.
The significance of rightsizing in area optimization methods
Rightsizing authorities actual property portfolios goes past cost-cutting — it’s about establishing a extra streamlined, agile, and fiscally accountable authorities.
In keeping with the Public Buildings Reform Board’s discovery of underutilized federal headquarter buildings, implementing area planning options can assist organizations:
- Reevaluate area wants
- Keep away from pointless lease renewals
- Make extra knowledgeable choices about consolidating, retrofitting, or offloading properties.
Fortunately, strategic rightsizing initiatives are already underway. To handle wasted assets and pointless prices, the GSA is actively rightsizing the federal footprint, with plans to get rid of 23 properties totaling 3.5 million sq. ft, a transfer anticipated to save lots of taxpayers $1 billion over the subsequent decade.
By aligning workplace footprints with precise utilization, governments can cut back their environmental influence, minimize carbon emissions, and make sure that assets are allotted the place they’ve the best public profit.
The GSA’s position in deferred upkeep
The GSA can also be taking “acceptable corrective motion” to deal with the important backlog of deferred upkeep in federal buildings based mostly on suggestions made in a 2021 audit. It recognized $280 million in duplicative prices on account of errors in calculating deferred upkeep value estimates and concluded that the company’s nationwide upkeep technique was ineffective in decreasing its deferred upkeep backlog.
Strategic area administration performs a vital position in decreasing deferred upkeep backlogs by eliminating underutilized areas and optimizing federal facility portfolios. By deploying area administration techniques, companies can considerably cut back the sq. footage requiring maintenance, liberating up assets to proactively tackle important upkeep wants. This ensures that high-priority buildings stay secure, purposeful, and cost-effective whereas enhancing the general effectivity and reliability of presidency operations.
A smaller, well-managed footprint permits smarter upkeep investments, extends asset longevity, and enhances the working surroundings for federal staff, finally supporting a extra sustainable and fiscally accountable strategy to facility administration.
Creating smarter, extra responsive federal amenities
For presidency leaders, the problem is evident: How will you harness these instruments to drive significant change in your company?
The directive to make higher use of federal areas is a catalyst, however correct execution is the place actual change occurs. Businesses have the chance now to enhance their operational reliability by prioritizing assets the place they’ve the best influence.
As they consolidate and repurpose area based mostly on precise utilization knowledge via fashionable, scalable area planning instruments, they enhance vitality effectivity, cut back upkeep burdens, and create a extra sustainable long-term actual property technique. By shifting from a reactive to a proactive facility administration strategy, authorities organizations can make sure that each sq. foot of workspace serves a objective and delivers worth to the general public.
Get your copy of our e-book on rightsizing authorities actual property for extra methods to handle your amenities securely and effectively.
By Jonathan Davis
Jonathan writes about asset administration, upkeep software program, and SaaS options in his position as a digital content material creator at Eptura. He covers tendencies throughout industries, together with fleet, manufacturing, healthcare, and hospitality, with a concentrate on delivering thought management with actionable insights. Earlier in his profession, he wrote textbooks, edited NPC dialogue for video video games, and taught English as a international language. He holds a grasp’s diploma in journalism.
