GSA’s Workplace 2030 customer event looks at industry trends and space solutions

By Traci Washington, Supervisory Communications Specialist

The U.S. General Services Administration hosted a Workplace 2030 customer collaboration event at the agency’s Washington D.C. headquarters on December 6, 2022.

GSA took this opportunity to engage 35 customers from 17 federal agencies in conversations about emerging industry trends, tools, technology, and solutions that GSA can provide to assist with return to the office and the future of work.

Allison Azevedo, Deputy Commissioner for the Public Buildings Service (PBS) opened the event with a recap of the workplace initiative.

“Workplace 2030 is the next chapter in federal workplace innovation,” said Azevedo. “It was launched in the fall of 2020 as an effort to build on the shared pandemic experiences of 100 experts across 18 agencies and the private sector to imagine future, technology-leveraged work scenarios that prepare for new work realities post-pandemic and ultimately will continue to improve mission delivery.”

“We took your visioning and input, and we spent the last two years researching and developing plans, tools and services and putting in place contracts—all to help you, our customer agencies begin to solve the future of federal work puzzle,” she continued.

Nina Albert, PBS Commissioner, took the stage to present on industry trends and strategies for the workforce.

“We are now in a period of needing to establish the value proposition of office space, learning how to effectively manage a hybrid environment, and to develop metrics that help decision makers assess how their agency is performing,” said Albert. “In the past 2-3 months, we’ve seen a lot more being published by architecture firms, brokerage companies and other real estate trend watchers and many have developed some preliminary strategies to support employers with return to office strategies.”

A key objective of the customer collaboration event was to facilitate a two-way dialogue between GSA and federal agencies to better understand their progress, successes, and challenges as well as to gather feedback on GSA’s existing and emerging offerings which include:

• Workplace Engagements: Suite of GSA in-house and contracted studies and activities that holistically evaluate human, space, and technology needs.
• Commercial Coworking: Federal agencies use private sector coworking spaces via IDIQ.
• Workplace Investment & Feasibility Modeling Tool: A configurable tool comparing hybrid scenarios and the space-saving benefits of increased telework.
• Workplace Innovation Lab: A proving ground for the latest workplace technologies, equipment, and furniture set in a federal coworking space at GSA Headquarters.
• Fast Track Space: Agencies choose from pre-packaged space designs, concept models and square footages to fit their needs.
• Federal Space Listing: A web-based tool showing GSA’s vacant owned and leased space.
• Federal Coworking: On-demand coworking space in existing GSA leases and owned buildings, rather than in private-sector coworking environments.

As attendees separated into breakout sessions on the future offerings, agency representatives had an opportunity to hear directly from GSA’s Administrator Robin Carnahan and Deputy Administrator Katy Kale as they joined participants for a tour of the Workplace Innovation Lab.

The event concluded with a reminder that GSA is well-positioned and very committed to partnering with federal agencies on their next steps.

“We have an unbelievable cadre of experts in PBS on our Workplace Strategies team, and we have just rolled out a new Program Management Office that incorporates that group along with other areas of expertise we have to support return to office strategy development and implementation for customer agencies,” said Albert.

Moving forward, GSA will work to adjust its Workplace 2030 offerings currently under development based on the input received from customer agencies and will continue to seek out agencies who are interested in partnering in pilot programs and prototypes for future offerings.