The government of the future will take up less space, get more done with fewer resources, and much of it may not even be located in the nation's capital.

General Services Administrator Martha Johnson closed this year's FOSE conference with a description of the future of government offices that shows just how narrow the gap can be between government and commercial enterprise. To those in government, Johnson's conclusions may have felt like a revelation. To those of us in private industry, they were more of a familiar trend.

"We're in the process of renovating our own offices at GSA," she explained. As part of that process, the agency tracked the number of employees present in its office each day, and found that "the building was never once more than 50 percent occupied," because of employees telecommuting, at off-site training, or in the field with clients.

"This forced me to ask – why do we support all of this space?" she explained. "If people need a private office, they should go to the most private office the government allows them – their home." This, she said, includes Johnson herself.

Taking Down The Walls

"I used to have the third-biggest office in Washington," she joked. In the new space, she will sit at a "medium-sized cube" with half-height walls.

The GSA's future building, in fact, will utilize an open floor plan without walls. "When you take down the walls and move to a space that is open, you see just how empty it is."

A building designed to house 2,000 employees will, when the renovations are complete, be able to serve more than 6,000. The GSA is exploring the change partly as a model for other federal agencies – but may go a step further. "We hope to persuade at least one other agency" to share the space, she explained.

Facilitating The Changes? Cloud Systems

To facilitate a more mobile workforce, Johnson said, the GSA is investing in cloud-based systems.

The GSA moved to a new Google cloud e-mail service just over a month ago, she said, and has so far been happy with the experience. She told the audience how, using Google Docs, she recently revised the agency's performance evaluation guidelines in just an hour, with the help of two employees working remotely.

The Goal: Zero Footprint

Johnson doesn't want employees to work entirely remotely, she said, noting that "people come into the office to be with other people, to strengthen collaboration." But, she said, that need could be met with hoteling – a system in which employees reserve desks as-needed and work remote most of the time.

"Our goal is to eventually have zero environmental footprint," she told the crowd.

Sean Tucker covers the federal government and the contracting industry for GovWin.com, the network that helps government contractors win new business every day. He can be reached at seantucker@govwin.com.