The Trump administration is requiring agencies to track whether federal employees are showing up at the office, and whether those return-to-office plans still leave them with underutilized office space.

In a memo dated April 21, OMB directed agencies to begin “utilization monitoring” at federal buildings.

The General Services Administration recommends that agencies capture data from employees when they swipe their ID badges at security checkpoints, or use data from their laptops or daily check-ins to approximate how many employees are working in federal buildings.

The OMB memo gives agencies until May 19 to start collecting building occupancy data. That data includes a summary of daily occupancy totals for each day of the week and the average occupancy of each building based on a two-week average. OMB expects full implementation by July 4.

“The Trump administration is committed to efficient use of taxpayer dollars and will shrink the federal real estate footprint to eliminate unused and wasteful federal office space,” the memo states.

Agencies, in an annual report, must tell OMB whether their buildings meet or exceed a 60% utilization target, assuming each employee gets 150 square feet of office space.

The OMB memo goes beyond what was required by law under the Utilizing Space Efficiently and Improving Technologies (USE IT) Act.

Former President Joe Biden signed the USE IT Act in January, requiring GSA and OMB to reduce or consolidate space if federal building utilization rates fall below 60%.

“Implementation and reporting of occupancy data are priorities to allow swift action to reduce wasteful spending and ensure compliance with return-to-work policies,” the memo states.

The OMB memo rescinds a 2024 Biden administration memo that also set targets for reducing underutilized office space.

Norman Dong, former commissioner of GSA’s Public Building Service under the Obama administration, said the Utilizing Space Efficiently and Improving Technologies (USE IT) Act — part of a larger law to improve ports, harbors and other water infrastructure — required GSA to come up with a common metric for agencies to track building utilization.

“There’s a very clear process and timeline that’s been laid out in these public buildings reforms that were part of the Water Resources Development Act. That first step is everybody agreeing upon what that yardstick should be,” Dong said.

The USE IT Act applies only to the 24 largest federal agencies, but OMB said its federal building utilization requirements will apply governmentwide.

“The USE IT Act is limited to CFO Act agencies, but this guidance sets the requirement for all agencies to support efforts to eliminate unnecessary space and costs,” the memo states.

The Trump administration is holding agencies accountable for underutilized office space. The Department of Housing and Urban Development announced plans to move out of its Washington, D.C. headquarters, since the headquarters is only about half full on any given day.

Employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs shared photos of a “Return to Office Tracker” on the VA’s internal website, which allows users to search by a VA employee’s last name or employee ID number, or to review return-to-office data by region.

OMBt estimated in August 2024 that telework-eligible employees were working in the office about 60% of the time. OMB determined that about half federal workforce is not telework-eligible and works onsite full-time.

Federal News Network first reported in April that GSA leaders discussed how implementing new technology could help track federal building occupancy governmentwide.

PBS Commissioner Michael Peters told employees on April 3 that many agencies, including GSA, do not have accurate numbers on how full offices are in the office on any given day.

“We literally don’t know how many people are in our buildings,” Peters said. We kind of have an idea of how many people are in this building, which is good. But we should know it for every one of the facilities that we own or lease, because that’s a fundamental metric.” 

Peters also said GSA is setting an 80% utilization goal for federal buildings, adding that the current occupancy of federal buildings is well below that goal.

“We do know that number is sub-optimal,” he said. “Whether it’s 50% or 60% or 40%, it’s definitely not the 80% level that we want to get to.”

A GSA real estate official, who requested anonymity because they still work in the industry, said it would be a challenge for many agencies to achieve an 80% utilization rate for their buildings.

“Even in corporate headquarters or law firms, it’s unusual to find more than 70% utilization on a given day, because people are sick, on travel or visiting a project site,” the former official said.

Republican lawmakers repeatedly pressed the Biden administration for federal building occupancy data as agencies gradually relaxed pandemic-era remote work and telework policies. But the former GSA real estate official said occupancy data is a constantly moving target.

“On a given day, some people may have just been hired, some people may have quit. There are contractors who occupy government space. They don’t typically get counted in your head count, so you’re not exactly sure how many of those people there are,” the official said. “This metric is difficult.”

The USE IT Act mentions Personal Identity Verification (PIV) card data as one source of building utilization data, in cases where employees must swipe their ID badges when coming into work.

“If a federal agency employs PIV card data and can meet the requirements of the Act, no additional technology is necessary. PIV card data can be collected from the agency’s managed turnstiles, card readers used for space access, or both,” the memo states.

The OMB memo notes that agencies using this data to track occupancy must protect personally identifiable information and should only count an employee’s first badge swipe of the day to avoid counting the same employee multiple times in a single day as they enter and exit the building.

GSA, as required under the USE IT Act, recently updated its website with a list of tools agencies can use to capture occupancy data.

Dan Mathews, a former PBS commissioner under the Trump administration, told Federal News Network last month that PIV card data is not the most efficient way to track building occupancy.

“Those systems are designed for security, not for utilization. It’s really expensive, so you can’t deploy it at scale. That’s just not a possibility. You won’t be able to do it,” Mathews said.

Instead, Mathews recommends that agencies purchase small sensors designed to track occupancy.

GSA will use laptop data to be able to assess how many employees are in a building. Peters said this data will give agencies clarity about their office space needs amid major reductions to the federal workforce.

“It’s particularly important that we get that data right now, because the number is moving,” Peters said. “It’s very much a moving target. We need real-time, day-to-day data on that front to improve our efficiency.”