Upon President Donald Trump’s return to the Oval Office, one of his first actions was to order federal employees to go back full-time to their offices.
Trump signed an executive order Monday requiring federal department and agency heads to “take all necessary steps to terminate remote work arrangements and require employees to return to work in-person.”
Metro Atlanta is home to several federal agencies and tens of thousands of their employees, many of whom still work some form of a hybrid schedule five years after the COVID-19 outbreak closed many offices. Hybrid and remote setups remain popular among private and public sector workers.
Many federal workers on social media bemoaned the order, saying it will create more traffic, overcrowd offices without the space for the staff and kill employee morale.
While simple on paper, the federal return-to-office push is more complicated in practice and will be difficult to measure, commercial real estate experts told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The Trump Administration will have to grapple with union telework agreements, its complex portfolio of leased office space and retaining talent within its workforce who might be turned off by the new mandate.
An increase in commuting white-collar workers could have some spillover effects in Atlanta, adding some vibrancy to areas near government offices, such as in downtown.
But the order’s impact is unlikely to meaningfully improve an office market that continues to face demand challenges, and it’s likely outweighed by Trump’s desire to gut the federal bureaucracy.
“Any impact of more frequent office attendance by federal workers is likely to be generally small, concentrated in a few areas and take quite some time to fully play out,” said Phil Mobley, national director of office for real estate services firm CoStar Group.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Unlike many of Trump’s other executive orders, his return-to-office mandate is actually a continuation of his predecessor’s efforts — albeit a bit more forcefully worded.
While the Biden Administration forged union agreements to preserve telework capabilities, former President Joe Biden also issued guidance throughout 2023 and 2024 aiming to get more federal workers back in the office.
“It’s virtually saying the same message as Biden (gave),” Marcy Owens Test, senior vice president of real estate service firm CBRE’s federal lessor advisory group. “It’s the tone that is different with this new executive order.”
Feds as followers, not leaders
In Atlanta’s five core counties, federal departments and agencies lease about 2.9 million square feet of office space, according to the U.S. General Services Administration, which oversees the government’s leased and owned properties.
That’s enough space to fill the city’s tallest tower, Bank of America Plaza, more than twice. But it’s a rounding error when compared to the region’s office portfolio.
The metro Atlanta market has about 151 million square feet of office space, according to CBRE. Of that space, a record-setting 32.9% was either vacant or otherwise available to lease at the end of December.
Ramping up the federal government’s return-to-office push isn’t likely to spur new government leasing activity, Test said. The past 12 years have seen the federal government shed its leased office space at a consistent pace.
“I don’t think there’s any correlation between (return-to-office) and increased leasing on the federal side,” she said. “I think we’re going to see a continue in the reduction of federal leasing nationally.”
Credit: Natrice Miller / Natrice.Miller@ajc.com
Credit: Natrice Miller / Natrice.Miller@ajc.com
Federal agencies leased about 198 million square feet of workspace across the country in 2013, but that figure dropped to about 173 million square feet by 2024, according to the GSA. That’s a 12.6% decrease, roughly 1 percentage point less each year.
The GSA did not respond to multiple requests for comment about Trump’s executive order and the effect it will have on its Atlanta office management and leasing plans.
Many federal employees, like other essential workers, were never sent home during the pandemic or previously returned to workplaces as the demands of their jobs warranted. Several prominent Atlanta area companies have implemented stringent return-to-office policies for white-collar workers, including Fortune 500 giants like Home Depot and UPS. Test said she doesn’t expect Trump’s order to spur a new wave of in-person work mandates from the private sector.
“If you think the federal government is a leader in return-to-office, then we have another thing coming,” she said. “The federal government really has been a follower of the private sector, albeit about two years behind.”
Welcoming ‘voluntary terminations’
Another factor at play is whether Trump and his allies deliver upon their promise to purge the federal workforce.
There are 62,717 federal civilian employees in the six congressional districts that make up the core of the metro Atlanta area, according to a Congressional Research Service report from December. Statewide, there are about 80,000 federal civilian employees.
Compared to the region’s private sector, the federal government has no equal. The closest is Delta Air Lines with nearly 40,000 full-time employees at the end of 2023, according to the Metro Atlanta Chamber.
Elon Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla and leader of a new Department of Government Efficiency, recently wrote in a Wall Street Journal opinion column that revoking “the COVID-era privilege” of remote work would trigger “a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome.” Trump paired the return-to-office mandate with a federal hiring freeze and an executive order to strip civil service protections, widely known as “Schedule F.”
On a Reddit chain of government employees, one said they weren’t looking forward to returning to a small office filled with colleagues all on video conference calls eight hours a day. Another said the goal was to prompt people to quit “and then never backfill them.”
“Is the point of this to break the government?” asked another. One poster replied: “Yes.”
The American Federation of Government Employees, a federal employee union, told Reuters that hybrid working capabilities were a “key tool” for recruitment.
“Restricting the use of hybrid work arrangements will make it harder for federal agencies to compete for top talent,” it told the news outlet.
Mobley of CoStar said the combination of policies is likely “more bearish than bullish” for commercial real estate. Test added that the number of fully remote federal employees is likely small and that it will be difficult — and take time — to noticeably bring workers back to the office five days a week.
“I think what we’re going to find is that there is not a sweeping change in the number of feet that walk into the lobbies of buildings based on this directive,” she said.
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