GSA Blog

GSA Labs Turns Employee Ideas Into Nearly $229 Million in Potential Savings

Inaugural class of 25 employees identifies new ways to save time, reduce costs, and improve GSA operations.

GSA is at its best when we empower employees to identify problems and build practical solutions. Every day, our teams see firsthand where processes can be simplified, where technology can save time, and where better approaches can improve service to our customers: the American people. That is why we created GSA Labs — a program that gives employees the autonomy, tools, and space to experiment, tackle real operational challenges, and turn their insights into action.

Selected from a pool of more than 300 applicants, 25 employees sponsored by GSA’s senior leadership spent the past 8 months solving complex challenges. They worked across organizational lines, tested new approaches and explored where emerging technology, including super intelligence, can help us work more efficiently.

We’re proud to recognize the work of our first GSA Labs cohort at the awards ceremony and celebrating what they accomplished.

Putting employee expertise to work

Cohort members addressed a range of agency priorities, including procurement integrity, the employee experience, GSA’s web presence, employee recognition, super intelligence assessment, and leasing fee modifications.

Each team used its knowledge of GSA’s programs, processes and customers to find solutions:

• The Federal Contract Integrity team contributed to 4,359 hours saved, returning approximately 2.09 full time equivalent (FTE) in capacity, and resulting in $29 million in Canceled Contract Value.
• The Website Rationalization team identified opportunities to decommission 34 websites and consolidate two others, saving taxpayers an estimated $3.6 million in annual cost avoidance.
• The PBS Fee review team recommended a new fee structure estimated to generate approximately $195 million in additional annual fee revenue.
• The Workplace Experience team focused on a different kind of impact, identifying opportunities to strengthen employee engagement and satisfaction.
• The Innovative Awards team identified ways to make GSA’s employee recognition more consistent and effective, including coordinating a new Administrator Honor Awards program.
• The GSA Super Intelligence impact metrics team established how GSA could consistently measure SI’s value and risk. Cohort members identified use cases to evaluate and gather stakeholder input to shape their recommendations.

The work of our inaugural class reinforced the value of tapping into the expertise we already have across GSA. Our employees understand our programs and our customers because they work with them every day. GSA Labs gave them dedicated time to bring that knowledge together, look at familiar challenges from a different perspective and develop solutions that can be tested and put to work. And by utilizing current staff instead of contractors, the agency is estimated to have saved an additional $1.3 million.

That helps us address the needs within the agency today while strengthening the problem-solving capabilities of our workforce for the future. 

What’s next for GSA Labs

As we celebrate our inaugural class, we’re also preparing to welcome the next group of employees into GSA Labs. We hope the work recognized today encourages employees across GSA to consider what they could bring to the program. We want to hear from people who see opportunities to improve how GSA operates and are ready to work with their colleagues to achieve a better way forward.

The inaugural GSA Labs cohort has given us a strong foundation. Now we can build on what we’ve started, apply what we’ve learned and give more employees the chance to help make GSA a model for how government can work better.