The federal government's next-generation HR platform, HR 2.0, has a core system of record — Oracle won that base contract — but talent acquisition, assessments, performance management, benefits, decision support, employee relations, analytics and workforce planning remain outside it, and a new ACT-IAC report maps the commercial marketplace agencies will draw on to fill those gaps.

The report, produced by ACT-IAC's Institute for Innovation, responds directly to a December memo from OPM and OMB that assigned OPM responsibility for developing a marketplace of commercially available solutions for these specialized needs. Jim Cook, who chairs the Institute for Innovation, said the consortium reached out to OPM after tracking the government's HR modernization direction and recognizing that a single platform could not cover every personnel function.

"We thought this was a good role for us and a good opportunity to help jumpstart what the HR QSMO needed to do to develop this commercial solutions catalog," Cook told Federal News Network.

What does the standardized core change for agencies?

Gary Washington, ACT-IAC's Chief Strategy Officer and a former department CIO, said the standardized approach to core HR creates three enterprise-level benefits:

• Efficiencies across the federal government and potential cost savings
• Interoperability that allows cost avoidance when implementing modern technologies
• A more modernized HR workforce

The risks sit in the non-core functions, he said: "How do you attack the non-core HR functions that still require specialized tools, such as talent acquisition, assessments, performance management, benefits, decision support, employee relations?"

Cook framed the standardization-versus-agency-choice question as a balance rather than a tension. Without a standard core system of record for all personnel information, he argued, employee mobility across agencies is "really, really hindered" — an issue raised as far back as the first Trump administration in workforce work he did with Margaret Weigert.

The common core manages federal workforce information from an enterprise perspective, Cook said, while functions such as talent management and assessments can be tailored to particular agencies with different workforces, cultures and requirements. "It's not a one-size-fits-all solution," he said.

Is competition at risk under a single core vendor?

Washington said no. The core functions went through open competition — which Oracle won — and he expects competition to continue in the specialized and non-core function areas, where agencies may have specialized use cases requiring specialized tools.

"The goal here is to create an open marketplace, not the reverse," Cook said.

The market research itself, focused on products and solutions rather than services, found the vendor landscape larger and more robust than many expected. Cook called that "a pleasant surprise" and said some specialized segments already offer federal-ready solutions meeting the government's unique data, security and interoperability standards, while others are moving in that direction fairly rapidly.

What should agency CHCOs and CIOs do with the report?

Washington, drawing on his experience as a former department CIO, recommended agency leaders use the report as a strategic guide for decision-making on their HR 2.0 journey. Core-function requirements are already laid down, he noted, but the report gives agencies a strategic roadmap for evaluating non-core solutions.

"The outcome would be working together we would find efficiencies, cost savings, better streamline how we do HR functions across the federal government," Washington said.

Cook said ACT-IAC and OPM both saw the research as a way to accelerate OPM's efforts to build the commercial solutions catalog. He hopes OPM adopts the content, and the consortium plans to continue updating the inventory as the market evolves and to field questions from agencies and industry.

For HR technology vendors, the report signals where the demand sits: OPM's Quality Service Management Organization will curate which specialized products reach federal agencies, and federal readiness on data security and interoperability will determine which vendors make that catalog.