GovernmentExecutive.com

Federal workers soon will be able to access their personnel records from a centralized online database, and managers will be able to make long-term personnel projections using information from electronic personnel folders.

Leaders of the Office of Personnel Management's Enterprise Human Resources Integration e-government initiative announced last week that Chantilly, Va.-based Integic Corp. would provide the software for the initiative, known as Quicksilver. Agencies will contract with Integic on a fee-for-services basis.

The Health and Human Services Department already has contracted with Integic for the personnel record-keeping system, and about 50,000 employee records have been scanned into the database.

Electronic folders would replace agencies' current paper filing systems. The new system is designed to speed up delivery of records, cut the cost of delivering them and allow managers to project future personnel needs electronically.

The project is expected to save $740 million over the next 10 years.

Rhonda Diaz, OPM's EHRI manager, said the program will help eliminate paper, create a central data repository, and provide analytical methods for identifying personnel trends.

Diaz said agencies' current system for mailing personnel folders - -for reasons ranging from an employee transfer to another agency to an employee's request to view their personnel folder - -is expensive and cumbersome. By centralizing and standardizing the personnel folders, information for long-term personnel planning is easily compiled, Diaz said.

Other agencies preparing to switch to the EHRI system are the Education and Homeland Security departments, OPM, the Agricultural Research Service, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation and the Forest Service.

Diaz said other benefits to putting the folders online include protection from fire and paper damage.

"It's very expensive to recreate [a personnel folder]," Diaz said. "We have a very robust backup plan."

Jim Fraley, vice president for Integic's Civilian Federal Practice, said the program will provide a standardized method for integrating agencies' human resources records and addresses the complex personnel issues within the federal workforce.

"This changes how we manage human capital across the globe for geographically dispersed agencies," Fraley said. "[Managers] can look at trends towards retirement and get a better look at what's going on."

Fraley said agencies' current human resources systems fail to provide a clear view of employees' tenure and transfers, and retirements aren't accurately predicted. By providing the personnel records electronically, the process for gathering the data is simplified, and administrators are freed from having to copy personnel information, allowing them "to do the higher level thinking and step away from the paper folder work."

"It's the foundation of moving to the 21st century in human capital management," Fraley said. "What you will take out is the space required to store the folders, the retrievers for the filing systems, the copying, mailing, recreation costs and lost file costs."

COMMENTS

• Although I would venture to say that I do not trust my own government with my personal information, there is no privacy in this country to amount to anything anyway. So, as long as there are appropriate security measures taken, I believe that I will benefit by having access, if we are granted access. One of the most important records that we are entitled to is an SF50 which has all current position and payroll information. Instead of having to wait on an admin person to get a hard copy to you without having to beg for it, perhaps we could print it ourselves. Tim Ellmore Posted March 29, 2005 7:01 AM
• When the company named this "quicksilver" I bet they named it correctly. This will prove to be a costly, overburdened, and collosal failure before it is done. Congress has got to be totally crazy to allow this to be done. Charlie Posted March 8, 2005 7:52 PM
• This will undoubtedly turn into the biggest debacle imagined. With two years every business in the country will have the personnel files of every federal employee. It will only take a couple of rogue federal employees to sell this information to every lackey that wants it. OPM never did anything without screwing it up. This will never be any different. Privacy for federal employees will be flushed down the toilet; just what BUSH should do to OPM. Rodney Posted January 21, 2005 8:28 PM