LoginOPM’s plan to unify disparate HR systems taking shape
The government’s dispersed systems for managing human resources for the federal workforce are on the verge of a major transformation, according to the Office of Personnel Management.
By January, OPM said it expects to award a federal contract that will eventually result in a cohesive HR system for all agencies to use. But in the short term, creating a governmentwide HR entity will mean working to consolidate the more than 100 systems agencies currently use for workforce management.
It’s not the first time OPM has attempted to merge the disparate HR IT systems across government. But Dianna Saxman, OPM’s associate director of HR Solutions, said the effort currently underway is “different.”
“We’re really leveraging the collective wisdom of the entire federal community,” Saxman said Tuesday during a public meeting of the Chief Human Capital Officers (CHCO) Council. “We’ve already brought experts from many different agencies into a steering committee that is helping us to set the strategy up front.”
Along with employing a steering committee at OPM, Saxman said many federal human capital leaders have started collaborating internally with other agency executives, like chief information officers and chief data officers, to plan the integration of the upcoming HR system.
“What we’re seeing in these agency engagements is a lot of enthusiasm and support for the overall effort,” Saxman said.
Once implemented, the new system will be the source for agencies, HR offices and federal employees to manage personnel records, payroll systems and performance data, while also having the capability to provide federal workforce analytics.
After OPM awards the HR IT contract in January, the agency will spend the next several months implementing the core HR system by the end of April. From there, OPM plans to work one-on-one with agencies to configure the platform to meet their unique needs.
All told, OPM’s end goal is to have the HR IT system fully adopted governmentwide by September 2027.
The value of the anticipated contract award in January is not yet clear. But it comes after OPM released a request for proposals (RFP) in October, detailing a specific plan of action to modernize and centralize the more than 100 current federal HR systems.
In May, OPM had previously released its initial RFP through the General Services Administration schedules program, which emphasized the need for interoperability in governmentwide human capital systems. The May RFP came just weeks after OPM initially announced a sole source award to Workday in early May, but then quickly canceled that award.
The expected timing for awarding the HR IT contract also “aligns beautifully” with the Trump administration’s newly released President’s Management Agenda, Saxman said. She highlighted three key goals in the new agenda that dovetail with the HR IT consolidation effort.
For one, a centralized HR IT platform would underly the administration’s goal of fostering a “merit-based” federal workforce, Saxman explained.
“As we look to foster greater merit, we’re able to do that by having an end-to-end HR IT capability that allows us really to see what’s happening with the federal workforce, with skillsets we have available [and] how people are being promoted and evaluated,” Saxman said. “This gives us that visibility.”
The Trump administration’s goal of making “buying power” more efficient calls for consolidated contract opportunities that are “smarter, faster, cheaper,” according to another component of the new PMA.
“A lot of the contracting processes in government are really decentralized, and there’s a lot of repetitive action there,” Saxman said. “This effort seeks to centralize the purchasing of a private sector core human capital capability at OPM — we would have one entity buying it on behalf of the entire federal government.”
On top of that, Saxman noted that OPM’s effort aligns with the goal of leveraging technology, as the PMA seeks to “consolidate and standardize systems,” while also incorporating “digital-first” government services and eliminating data siloes.
“We’re going to be consolidating over 100 systems into one, reducing the number of system integrations that are required and the complexity of managing all of these systems,” she said.
Saxman outlined what she said will eventually be an array of benefits for agencies, HR offices, federal employees and external stakeholders, once legacy HR systems are decommissioned and the new system is fully implemented.
“There are many manual data requests that come out from OPM, many different stakeholder groups,” she said. “But we’ll have an opportunity where the data will be readily available in dashboards, so we can have a real view of what’s happening with the federal workforce at any point in time.”
OPM also hopes to ease the workload for HR employees by eventually moving all personnel records to single files, even when employees transition between multiple agencies throughout their career. Currently many federal employees have personnel records that span across multiple different HR systems.
“Our goal here is to have one system that they can manage their employee record,” Saxman said.
For signs of success, Saxman said OPM will be measuring and looking for improvements in employee experience, cost savings and better data overall.
“A lot of our HR professionals are working with outdated, disparate technologies that are not serving them well, that are not serving our employees well,” Saxman said. “As a federal community, this is something that we have wanted to do for a long time.”
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