Washington, D.C. - The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) soon will initiate the Human Resources Line of Business (HRLOB) Reference Model with assistance from the Office of Management and Budget. HRLOB is an initiative that once fully implemented, will enable federal agencies to share human resources products and services.

As the managing partner of the HRLOB, OPM formed and led a taskforce of twenty-two agencies that defined the vision, goals, and objectives of the HRLOB and formulated the common solution, target architecture, and supporting business case. The common solution is a market-driven approach where service providers compete for government business by providing the best services and most innovative solutions at the lowest cost. The HRLOB initiative will establish government-wide shared service centers to provide technology solutions to support multiple agencies.

"Requiring service providers to compete for this work advances President George W. Bush's goal of a government that is market-based, and provides the best bang-for-the-buck for the taxpayer," said Acting Director Dan G. Blair.

Beginning last August, OPM sponsored fourteen Verification and Validation workshops to update the target business processes within the federal government. This effort was characterized by widespread agency collaboration and produced an updated business reference model.

"Identifying the target business processes is an important step to allow for a shared services HR model that will lead to significant financial savings across the federal government," said Blair. "The multi-agency collaboration achieved during the workshops is a model for the development of modern, interoperable HR solutions."

In April 2004, OPM was named the managing partner for the HRLOB. OPM led this ground-breaking effort for the federal government to rethink its approach to HR management. The vision of the HRLOB is to create governmentwide, modern, cost-effective, standardized, and interoperable HR solutions providing common core functionality to support the strategic management of human capital. These common solutions will enable federal agencies to work more effectively to meet the human capital goals of President George W. Bush's Management Agenda.