Upcoming OPM IT Strategy to Cover Retirement Services Enhancement

The Office of Personnel and Management is slated to release its IT strategy for fiscal years 2023 to 2026.

OPM Chief Information Officer Guy Cavallo said the focus areas in the upcoming strategy build on OPM’s strategic plan released in 2022 and the data strategy released in March. He added that one of the focus areas is enhancing retirement services, something that OPM has been grappling with over the past two decades.

The agency’s focus on retirement services is one that the U.S. Congress has been pushing for years, Federal News Network reported Thursday.

According to Cavallo, solving the retirement services issue would be done step-by-step, starting with the introduction of the digital form for retirees and the use of a single platform that would enhance customer experience. The CIO explained that the measure would ensure that retirees could look up their status easily.

Other updates include the use of chatbots and the application of cloud-based call center technologies.

OPM has been trying to overhaul its retirement systems since 1987 but was never successful. In 2006, the office awarded Hewitt Associates a 10-year, $290 million contract to modernize the retirement system, but the contract was canceled in 2008 after the company failed to deliver a functioning retirement calculation engine.

OPM also developed various retirement systems modernization plans from 1987 to 2015.