No, I didn’t misspell it.

Then-actor Ronald Reagan immortalized the phrase – “Just win one for the Gipper” – in his 1940 portrayal of George Gipp, a young Notre Dame football player who died in 1920 after a big Notre Dame win. The phrase was Gipp’s dying words to his legendary coach Knute Rockne.

In the Reagan movie, Rockne recounts the story of Gipp’s heroism and selflessness to rile up his team at halftime during a tied game against Army. Notre Dame prevailed over Army and the player who scores the winning touchdown proudly proclaims: “That’s one for the Gipper.”

Reagan later popularized the phrase as part of his various political campaigns, culminating with his 1988 Republican National Convention speech endorsing former Vice President George Bush: “But, George, just one personal request: Go out there and win one for the Gipper.”

Ok, back to reality.

This week, OPM launched a new, modernized version the Guide to Processing Personnel Actions (affectionately known as “GPPA”). And, truth be told, I’ve been waiting with bated breath to release this post – if only to bastardize Gipp’s famous words.

What is GPPA? In simple terms it is the rulebook that governs every HR-related activity in the federal government – promotions, compensation changes, reassignments, separations, awards, leave-related actions. And “book” is the operative phrase in rulebook. Historically, GPPA has been a series of PDF files that codify more than 1,500 rules and codes of federal HR; the bane of existence for most federal HR professionals who have to navigate an arcane set of documents to do the most foundational aspects of their jobs.

No longer.

The new and vastly improved GPPA Navigator is the first digital platform that replaces the “book” with modern technology. Underlying the platform is a database that serves as the authoritative source of truth for HR actions, allowing HR guidance to be more current and accurate than it has been in years. And to create substantial direct downstream effects on data quality, meaning fewer processing errors and faster personnel actions across government, including retirements and onboarding. Fewer errors mean less rework. Faster decisions mean personnel actions from new hires to retirements move through the system more quickly and reliably. This is what government looks like with the benefit of modern tooling.

And this is just the start. The database underlying the GPPA Navigator was built to scale and lays the groundwork for guided decision flows, AI-assisted features, and integration with systems like Core HCM.

You may recall that we have recently kicked off a migration effort to consolidate roughly 119 disparate HRIT systems that exist across multiple agencies into a single Core HCM for all of government. In doing so, we will not only save enormous sums of money for taxpayers – reducing spend from about $2 billion per year to about $40 million per year – but will also vastly improve our ability to better serve all federal employees from onboarding through retirement.

Once Core HCM is deployed, the GPPA Navigator will be seamlessly integrated to automate and capture all lifecycle events of an employee.

One system at a time, OPM is utilizing modern technology to make government more responsive – both to its employees and to taxpayers – and more efficient. In doing so, we hope to win more than just one for the GPPA.