Thu May 08 15:10:00 UTC 2025: ## OPM Awards Sole-Source Contract to Workday for Urgent HR System Overhaul

**Washington, D.C.** – The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has awarded a sole-source contract to Workday to implement a new, integrated human capital management (HCM) system. The urgent need stems from President Trump’s executive orders mandating workforce restructuring and merit-based hiring reforms, coupled with OPM’s current fragmented and inefficient HR systems.

According to an internal memo, OPM’s existing systems are plagued by payroll errors, benefits disruptions, and excessive manual workload, hindering compliance with White House directives. The new system, to be deployed by July 15th (coinciding with the end of a federal hiring freeze and the implementation of new 4:1 attrition-to-hire ratios), will provide real-time workforce data and integrated HR capabilities.

Workday’s system will encompass core HR functions, payroll and benefits integration, time and attendance tracking, talent acquisition, performance management, and compliance with federal security standards (FISMA and FedRAMP). OPM claims the Workday solution represents a 70% cost reduction compared to current expenses and will generate $600,000 in savings compared to manually implementing the executive order requirements.

The agency selected Workday over Dayforce, citing superior features and Workday’s extensive experience with large-scale HCM deployments, including for Walmart and numerous Fortune 500 companies, as well as prior work with the Energy Department and Defense Intelligence Agency. The one-year sole-source contract bypasses a traditional procurement process, which OPM estimated would have taken six to nine months—making it impossible to meet the White House deadlines. OPM plans to conduct a full and open competition after the initial year.

This decision has broader implications for the federal government, as OPM’s choices often set standards for other agencies. Industry experts anticipate a trend toward other federal agencies adopting similar commercially available, cloud-based HCM solutions. Workday is already collaborating with several federal systems integrators on this project.

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