Sole-source award raises eyebrows in rush to meet Trump’s hiring mandates

The US Office of Personnel Management (OPM) awarded Workday a sole-source contract to overhaul its human resources systems - bypassing any formal competition - citing critical failures in its aging, fragmented HR infrastructure and binding deadlines from President Trump's executive orders on workforce restructuring.

OPM acts as the federal government's central HR shop, setting workforce policies, handling background checks, and managing benefits programs for the more than two million civilians across federal agencies.

That made OPM an early target when the new Trump administration froze most federal hiring and issued orders to root out waste and dismantle diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs. Trump also launched DOGE, a Musk-led initiative aimed at shrinking the civil service.

DOGE has leaned on agencies like OPM to carry out its workforce reduction agenda, which has turned out to have saved a lot less money than originally promised.

Under that pressure, OPM said its ...