GSA plans to optimize operations following cost-cutting, agency head says

The General Services Administration is planning to move into a “build back” phase after taking steps to cancel contracts and downsize federal operations, the agency’s current head said on Thursday.

Speaking at GovExec’s Government Efficiency Summit, Stephen Ehikian — GSA’s acting administrator and deputy administrator — said the agency is positioning itself for the future after the Trump administration and cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency have finished their efforts to slash federal spending. 

“The build back isn't just bringing it back to where it was before; it is rethinking the GSA,” Ehikian said, adding that “phase two will be taking a more slimmed down version of GSA and thinking of, ‘how do you streamline workflow, business processes, bring new technologies in, rearrange, restructure the workforce itself, moving from a regional model to more centralized model?’”

He said the path forward includes having GSA run “more like a business,” with the agency becoming “where it's much more efficient, much more effective and [with] much more of an eye towards our stakeholders, which is the American taxpayer.”

Ehikian also highlighted GSA’s push to work more closely with private sector partners to overhaul its technology procurement process, including through its new OneGov Strategy. The initiative is designed to help federal agencies streamline their acquisition of private sector technologies by treating the government as a single, massive customer. 

“This is all about leveraging these wallets, and we're seeing phenomenal success,” Ehikian said about the initiative, which has already led to agreements with Google, Adobe, Salesforce, Uber, Oracle and Elastic.

When it comes to using artificial intelligence capabilities, Ehikian said GSA is already in “full on adoption right now,” including through the use of an internal chatbot called GSAI. He said that roughly 50%, on average, of GSA employees are using the tool every day. 

Ehikian said GSA has also set up a process “to automate a lot of back office operations,” which has led to “over 300,000 hours saved in the GSA alone” through the first six months of this year. 

He added that the use of these tools “is not about eliminating workers, it's about eliminating the drudgery of day-to-day work.”

Layoffs across the agency, however, have affected many of the personnel tasked with modernizing and overseeing government technologies. GSA eliminated 18F, its consultancy office for other agencies, and has laid off a significant number of personnel across the Technology Transformation Services. That group serves as GSA’s tech branch. 

At least 2,100 GSA employees have accepted the Trump administration’s deferred resignation offer. 

Ehikian said the workforce reductions have been about “moving people from maybe lower productivity roles to a higher productivity in the private sector.”

“We've tried to do it as empathetic as possible,” he said. “We're trying to help them meet that conversion.”