We’ve heard about the debilitating effects that pandemic-era remote work policies had on metro ridership, consumer spending, and commercial tax revenue. 

But cutting back on telework allowances could harm federal agencies’ ability to recruit younger, more diverse employees, according to preliminary findings from a wide-ranging survey presented Thursday to the National Capital Planning Commission. 

The survey modeled how three different telework policies could alter the region’s transit ridership, federal real estate holdings, workforce participation, and employee housing spread. Each model projected outcomes of either a minimum, moderate, or maximum number of remote working days. It did not attempt to quantify the relative productivity of agencies that encouraged telework.

While the study’s full results won’t be finalized until January 2024, its preliminary results hint at the rippling consequences – and high stakes – of the federal government’s position on allowing employees to permanently work remotely, even part time. The National Capital Planning Commission will use the results to help inform the Federal Workplace element of its Comprehensive Plan, a blueprint for the long-term growth of the D.C. region 

With a permanent, extremely flexible telework protocol that allowed employees to work remotely four or five days per week, systems that suffered during the pandemic would continue to degrade, the survey hinted. Public transportation lines could see a “drastic fall in daily ridership” – and, consequently, revenue, requiring systems to potentially “reevaluate routes, frequencies, and overall operations to remain valuable,” per the survey. And because housing costs in D.C. have risen 12% in recent years, federal employees would likely continue to move to the suburbs or even outside the region entirely, seeking more affordable and bigger housing options. 

At the same time, boasting flexible work opportunities could allow the government to strengthen recruiting efforts for younger employees and broaden the geographic pool of applicants. Data indicate that roughly one-third of federal employees are 55 or older, and that racial diversity among federal employees decreases with age. Implementing more rigid in-person work policies could hamper the federal government’s attempts to recruit more diverse and younger employees, who tend to prefer flexible work arrangements.  

Evan Cash, a member of the national Capital Planning Commission who sits in on behalf of D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson, called the eventual outcome of lawmakers’ telework policies immensely consequential – making the region reconsider, “what does it even mean to work in D.C. anymore or not?”

Those effects will vary drastically across the region depending on the kind of federal facilities present in any given jurisdiction. A case study of the Department of Defense’s various outposts indicated that defense and military workplaces have a more difficult time teleworking, given security concerns associated with the sensitive nature of their work. 

Consultants who conducted the survey interviewed employees of at least nine agencies, ranging from the U.S. Secret Service to the Department of Agriculture and National Aeronautics and Space Administration. 

As the region’s largest land owner and occupant, the federal government will play a significant role in setting an example for local jurisdictions as each navigates their own telework priorities. More than 400,000 people in the region – roughly 11% of its workforce – are employed by the federal government, per the survey. 

About 80% of federal workers live in suburban Maryland and Virginia, with many of those people relying on public transit to commute to their offices. Half of D.C.’s metro stations serve federal facilities, which comprises 150 million square feet across the National Capital Region, also per the survey. 

When federal workplaces closed during the pandemic, business in downtown D.C. plummeted, with new development approvals and office attendance still struggling to rebound. Ridership across WMATA lines plummeted to 27% of pre-pandemic levels during the worst of the crisis. And the federal government has some decisions to make that could exacerbate those quandaries even further: 58% of its 474 leases across the region will expire in the next five years, many of those in Prince George’s County, Maryland and the city of Alexandria.

But strict return-to-work policies have proven controversial. Even a 2022 directive from President Joe Biden to workers across the country – who said in his State of the Union speech that year that “it’s time for America to go back to work and fill our great downtowns again” – has reportedly gone ignored among some federal agencies. 

“I think making some recommendations based on the findings is the responsibility of the commission,” commissioner Mina Wright said after consultants presented their findings. “Depending on your one’s agenda, you could take this [report] and spin it any way you want.”