Washington, DC - The Chief Human Capital Officers (CHCO) Council, in partnership with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), launched the first phase of the HR University (HRU), the Federal government's one-stop training resource center for the Federal HR professional. Through the use of a web-based platform, the HRU will provide a wide variety of training and development resources geared toward Federal HR professionals.

"The roles and responsibilities of the HR profession are emerging and growing and the HR University is the first step at creating a single source for consistent human resources training," said OPM Directory John Berry. "This training resource will save taxpayer money and improve the quality of our HR services. It will pool resources between agencies and reduce duplicative courses across the government. And it will identify the best HR trainings across the government and spread these resources to HR professionals at every Federal agency."

The HRU focuses on three major training needs for HR professionals including foundational knowledge of federal Human Resource laws, technical and analytical skills, and strategic thinking and partnering skills. The platform of the HRU is a website featuring:

· A course catalog that incorporates OPM approved Human Resource related courses from various Federal agencies and vendors;

· A "one stop" place to access learning, through an OPM central repository, using multiple delivery methods with a blended learning approach;

· A common "core" curriculum and criteria that emphasize solid technical knowledge and expertise; and

· A career guide for current and future HR professionals that focuses on building competencies, skills, and Individual Development Plans (IDP).

HRU courses are a combination of classroom, online and web-based offerings and will be offered (for a cost) across the government. Users will have the capability of registering and tracking all courses offered through the HRU. The courses offered at HRU will come from OPM, other participating Federal agencies and private training vendors.

The HRU is continually evolving and will be rolled out in three phases. Phase one of HRU is now live. It launched the basic framework of the website which includes several available OPM-approved HR courses from across the government, a variety of human resource career maps inclusive of the HR specialty areas, career guides for each specialty area and success factors for HR professionals. Over the next several months, phases two and three will launch. Phase two centers around building relationships with interested vendors to develop and offer approved Human Resource-related courses through the program. Phase three will focus on bridging the approved competencies and course curriculum into a certification program for the Federal HR professional.

To view HRU please visit www.hru.gov.