Oracle wins $396M federal HR systems overhaul contract
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By
Nick Wakeman
The Office of Personnel Management is using the contract to consolidate more than 100 systems into a single platform covering 2 million federal employees.
The Office of Personnel Management is sticking with the incumbent as the agency moves forward with a plan to modernize human resource systems across the government.
OPM has picked Oracle for the 10-year, $395.8 million Federal HR 2.0 contract that will cover more than two million federal employees.
OPM received seven bids in total for the contract, according to Sam.gov records. Oracle faced challengers such as Workday, IBM, SAP and Economic Systems Inc.
IBM and Economic Systems filed protests earlier this year objecting to terms in the solicitation. IBM withdrew its protest and GAO denied Economic Systems’ protest on June 1. Once the protests were resolved, OPM was clear to make its award.
Much of what OPM uses to manage HR functions is run on PeopleSoft, which Oracle acquired in 2005. Oracle recently extended its support for PeopleSoft through 2037, which includes updates and fixes.
The contract is structured as a firm-fixed-price award with a 10-year ordering period. Requirements include core HR and personnel action processing, payroll and benefits integration, audit-ready reporting, and time and attendance tracking.
The system also has to comply with security standards such as FISMA and FedRAMP, as well as be interoperable with existing federal IT systems.
OPM wants the core implementation to be completed by the fall. Other phases will follow for agency transitions, and then licensing and sustainment.
More than 100 HR systems currently operate across the federal government. Federal HR 2.0 is OPM’s attempt to wrangle all that into a single, integrated platform.
The goal of the program is to centralize HR functions across government agencies. OPM wants a platform that can 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.
Given that the award was announced Wednesday, the clock is ticking for competitors to file protests. Companies generally have 10 days to file after a debriefing.