OPM releases final solicitation for government-wide HR modernization contract
Gettyimages.com/ Kevin Dietsch / Staff
By
Nick Wakeman
The 10-year contract opportunity comes months after the Office of Personnel Management canceled a sole-source award to Workday following complaints about a lack of competition.
The Office of Personnel Management has released the final solicitation for its government-wide human resources IT modernization contract.
Proposals are due Oct. 31 and OPM is taking questions on the request for proposals through Thursday, Oct. 23.
The contract has come a long way in a short amount of time since OPM tried to make a sole-source contract to Workday in early May. At the time, OPM said it had to take that route to meet Trump administration deadlines to have a government-wide HR system in place to push forward with its merit-based hiring reforms.
But OPM pulled the plug one week after the Workday award after complaints about a lack of competition.
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In July, OPM kicked off a more traditional procurement process with an industry day to talk about its requirements.
OPM released the final RFP on Oct. 17 that describes the goals of the program as centralizing HR functions across government agencies. The agency wants a single integrated platform that will be the infrastructure for a data-driven federal HR ecosystem, according to solicitation documents.
Some of the functions OPM wants include position management, personnel action, records processing, workforce analytics, and employee and manager self-service capabilities.
OPM will pick a winner based on four technical factors:
- Past experience and solution readiness
- Written implementation approach
- Systems testing
- Virtual live demonstration #2
Price is also a deciding factor.
The past experience and solution readiness factor has three subfactors:
- Past experience case studies
- Out of the box functionalities
- Virtual live demonstration #1
The agency is using a two-step evaluation process. Bidders will be evaluated on past experience and solution readiness, including the subfactors, and will then be given an advisory notice. To advance to step two, bidders must receive at least a “Limited Confidence” rating.
During step two, the government will evaluate the other factors as well as price.
The solicitation warns that the winning bidder may not have the lowest price or highest-rated technical proposal.
OPM is planning a single award for the 10-year contract. No dollar value has been released for the contract. The agency expects to make an award by November 2026.