The Interior Department Friday began a six-month pilot program that, if successful, will add human resources automation services to its widely used Federal Personnel Payroll System (FPPS).
The pilot will automate services such as applicant tracking, training management and skills analysis.
"Interior has had significant downsizing in our personnel management component," said Timothy Vigotsky, director of Interior's National Business Center. "Our personnel staff wanted additional resources. This project answers that need."
FPPS, an online payroll system, serves all 66,000 Interior employees. In addition, FPPS entrepreneurs have garnered the payroll business of agencies such as the Education Department, the Federal Trade Commission and the Social Security Administration, who outsource their payroll needs to FPPS. As a result, FPPS handles the payroll for over 200,000 federal employees throughout the government.
Interior is working with all eight of its internal bureaus, including the National Park Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Geological Survey, on the pilot. SAP Public Sector and Education Inc., will integrate its software with the help of Integrated Concepts and Research Corp.
True to the entrepreneurial spirit of the FPPS crew, the new human resources components of the system could be used to market FPPS to even more agencies for payroll and human resources-related processing.
But "our number one focus is Interior," Vigotsky said. "After Interior is taken care of, then we can take a look at marketing FPSS's new functionality to other agencies."
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