By Scott Kupor, Director, U.S. Office of Personnel Management
March 18, 2026

The Framers knew that, for the United States to grow and prosper, “an energetic Executive” was essential. As Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist 70, “Energy in the Executive is a leading character in the definition of good government.” And conversely, “[a] feeble Executive implies a feeble execution of the government.”

Today, one key challenge in managing the Executive Branch is managing the vast bureaucracy: nearly two million federal civil servants spread across numerous different agencies. Overseeing these employees is one of the indispensable parts of “the Executive power” vested by the Constitution in the president. As James Madison observed during the First Congress, “if any power whatsoever is in its nature Executive, it is the power of appointing, overseeing, and controlling those who execute the laws.”

Managing the federal bureaucracy would be difficult enough on its own. But this management problem is compounded by another factor: the extreme decentralization of HR services and technology across government.

There are currently over 100 unique core human capital management systems across the federal government. As OPM described in a request for proposal from May of last year, this “patchwork of aging, siloed systems . . . . suffer from significant functional and architectural limitations.” Among other things, these systems “do not reliably validate or audit changes, cannot properly sequence concurrent personnel actions, and often propagate incorrect data across records — creating widespread downstream effects on payroll, benefits, and employee entitlements.” These systems are also very costly to maintain.

That is just on the systems side. HR services across government are also siloed, decentralized, and very expensive. At the beginning of the Trump Administration, there were nearly 42,000 HR employees governmentwide costing $5.4 billion in hard-earned taxpayer dollars annually. The ratio of HR professionals to employees in the federal government is almost double the private sector average. And often, agency HR office have little visibility into what is happening within the agency’s components.

The result of all these systems and personnel is a civil service that is difficult for anyone to oversee or manage, frustrating efficient and effective oversight. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is the agency of jurisdiction regarding the civil service. Pursuant to its statutory authority, it advises the president on the efficient management of personnel, and enforces the rules, regulations, and laws governing the civil service (among numerous other tasks). But OPM’s statutory role is impeded by aging, ineffective technology and siloed, decentralized services.

Fortunately, OPM (in close partnership with the US Office of Management and Budget (OMB)) is taking decisive action to lead the transformation of federal HR via the “HR 2.0” initiative. This effort has two parts.

First, OPM and OMB are leading the procurement of a single core HR system for the federal government, to replace the current patchwork of outdated systems. This system will encompass personnel action processing, employee system of record, position management, employee and manager self-service, analytics and dashboards, time and attendance, and learning. And it will integrate with other federal HR IT systems (such as payroll, benefits, talent acquisition, performance management, and retirement) to ensure a seamless, accurate, secure flow of information across various HR functions—making HR processes fast and efficient.

Second, to help tackle fragmentation of HR services, OPM has launched the OPM Shared Service Center. The OPM Shared Service Center will use OPM’s revolving fund authority for personnel to provide state-of-the-art full-scale HR operations across the federal government. The OPM Shared Service Center will enable OPM’s skilled and specialized HR personnel to provide high-quality HR services at a reduced prices for federal agencies.

Two other initiatives are worth noting in this regard. First, Executive Order 14356, Ensuring Continued Accountability in Federal Hiring (October 15, 2025) requires agencies to promulgate Annual Staffing Plans setting forth their hiring plans for the coming years, and set up Strategic Hiring Committees to approve new vacancies and hires—ensuring efficient oversight and control of federal hiring. Second, the Merit Hiring Plan (May 29, 2025) requires agencies to use validated, skills-based assessments in hiring new federal employees, backstopping a high-quality, merit-based civil service.

Ultimately, inefficient systems and processes waste money and thwart effective accountability and oversight of the federal civil service. The “HR 2.0” reforms being pursued by OPM and OMB, in addition to other long-overdue regulatory changes, will end the waste of taxpayer money and fulfill the framers’ vision for a well-managed and energetic Executive Branch, creating what the American people deserve: a truly accountable federal civil service of the highest quality.