Reducing the need for office space is a commonly cited benefit, and goal, of telework but agencies are not reaping the full advantages, GAO has said.
In reviewing two dozen Cabinet departments and major independent agencies, GAO found that all “discussed telework in the context of space planning and achieving greater space efficiencies in either their space-planning documents or real property efficiency plans.” Examples included desk-sharing for employees who telework or increasing the number of staff working in an existing space without increasing its size.
However, they also “reported several challenges in using telework to reduce space including human capital issues, mission suitability, and measuring cost savings attributable to telework.” Further, they said they lack “adequate guidance to determine how best to reduce space or use it more efficiently, and how to assess the benefits and costs of using telework in space planning.”
The most recent guidance from GSA on that issue dates to 2006 and that guidance–along with that on GSA’s telework and space-planning websites–“was neither specific nor detailed and therefore of limited assistance to agencies.” Also, a GSA space-planning tool intended to help quantify the benefits and costs of telework, called the workplace investment and feasibility tool, remains under development after more than four years.
It said that GSA concurred with recommendations to develop and issue new guidance on how agencies can use telework as a strategic space-planning tool and to complete the space-planning tool and make it widely available.
