Ottawa's federal public service is turning the page on desk hoteling — the practice of workers booking whatever workstation happens to be free — as Treasury Board confirms a move back toward assigned seating for government employees.
The change is part of the ongoing return-to-office push that has reshaped daily life for tens of thousands of federal workers based in the National Capital Region. According to the secretary of the Treasury Board, the rollback of hoteling will not be a one-size-fits-all rollout. Instead, the transition to assigned desks will vary by minister and by department, meaning the timeline and specifics will look different across different parts of the public service.
What Is Desk Hoteling — and Why Did It Start?
Desk hoteling became widespread during the COVID-19 pandemic, when government offices dramatically reduced their physical footprints and workers shifted to remote work. Rather than maintaining a dedicated workspace for every employee, departments adopted a shared-desk model: workers book a spot when they need to come in, then clear out at the end of the day.
The model made sense during a period of dramatically reduced in-office attendance, but as return-to-office mandates ramped up — with many federal employees now expected in the office three or four days a week — the hoteling system has drawn growing complaints. Workers have reported difficulty finding available desks, long commutes only to end up in noisy open-plan areas, and a lack of personal workspace that makes focused, sensitive, or complex work harder to do effectively.
A Shift in Direction
The move away from hoteling reflects a broader recalibration in how the federal government is thinking about office space and productivity. Assigned seating offers workers a consistent, predictable environment — something that matters especially for roles dealing with confidential files, specialized equipment, or high-volume paperwork.
For Ottawa, where the federal public service is the backbone of the local economy, the change carries real weight. The city is home to the largest concentration of federal workers in the country, and decisions about how and where those employees work ripple out through transit ridership, downtown foot traffic, and the health of businesses that rely on the weekday lunch crowd.
What Comes Next
Because the transition will be managed department by department, federal workers shouldn't expect an overnight change. Some departments may move quickly; others may take longer to reconfigure office layouts or work through logistics. Employees are encouraged to check in with their own managers and departmental communications for timelines specific to their workplace.
The broader return-to-office picture for the federal public service continues to evolve, and announcements like this one signal that the government is still actively fine-tuning its approach — trying to balance in-person collaboration with the flexibility workers gained during the pandemic years.
For Ottawa residents who work in or around government buildings, the shift back to assigned desks is one more sign that the downtown core is slowly but steadily returning to something closer to its pre-pandemic rhythm.
Source: Ottawa Citizen. Read the original article.
