Employees help GSA save millions annually

The General Services Administration has accepted five employee-generated ideas that will save the agency approximately $5.5 million annually.

The proposals came from the Great Ideas Hunt, an initiative GSA launched in May to help develop cost saving initiatives. During a town hall meeting in July with information technology contractors, GSA acting Administrator Dan Tangherlini said employees had submitted more than 500 “meaty, consequential ideas.”

One of the ideas being adopted involved reviewing GSA’s newspaper and magazine subscriptions and canceling those belonging to employees no longer with the agency. GSA said this would save about $630,000 a year.

Additional ideas included creating an online system to track tenant satisfaction and replacing a paper system that cost $1.2 million annually. In a statement to The Washington Post, Jeffrey Sussman, a project manager with the Public Buildings Service, said going electronic would help tailor the survey to the needs of tenants.

GSA also will use a free survey the Office of Personnel Management developed to judge employee satisfaction, rather than hire an outside firm. The switch is expected to save the agency $1 million a year. In addition, GSA will set printers to default to double-sided printing to save $2.7 million in paper costs, a change that will be implemented governmentwide, according to the Post.

Tangherlini told the Post that the ideas were meant to show the agency’s commitment to saving money.

“We wanted to send a strong message that everyone in GSA is responsible for and plays a critical role in reforming and improving the agency,” he said.

The Post said the agency was looking to implement 40 more ideas, and also launch a permanent website to accept employee money-saving suggestions.

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