GSA continues to champion an open-office layout where employees decide where they want to work regardless of their roles or position, replacing private offices with communal conference rooms – and in the case of GSA headquarters, quiet rooms where employees can retreat for heads-down work without the distraction of conversation or phone calls.
GSA administrator Dan Tangherlini noted in a post on the agency’s website that his workstation is in the middle of an open office and that the “free flowing layout gives me the opportunity to collaborate with the men and women that help this agency.”
The elimination of offices has created space for “smaller, isolated workspaces that are available to all employees, allowing for a democracy of quiet,” Tangherlini says, adding, “any GSA employee can take advantage of the available quiet rooms at our headquarters, whether it’s a contracting officer who needs to review an agreement or an IT specialist who is working on code.”