It's often said that the federal government is slower to move than the private sector. But coming out of COVID-19, even government workers may find themselves working from home a lot more than they were before.

Kurt Stout, executive vice president, Government Solutions at Colliers International, doesn't think the pandemic will necessarily drive space decisions for the federal sector in the future. But he does believe it will change work-from-home policies for the federal workforce, which has an estimated 2.1 million civilian workers, according to an October 2020 report from the Office of Management and Budget.

"I don't think space will be designed to continue to achieve social distancing the way that it is  today," Stout says. "But what I do think is going to persist once the COVID-19 virus is hopefully eradicated is this idea of more remote work. In the federal sector, we've heard from the heads of a number of agencies that this [telework] is working and that their employees appreciate it. They want to continue working from home."