PeopleSoft lands HR deal at DOJ

PeopleSoft Federal last month nabbed a contract to provide off-the-shelf human resources software to the headquarters offices of the Justice Department.

The contract marks the second federal award for PeopleSoft Federal, a division of PeopleSoft Inc., Pleasanton, Calif. Last fall the Department of Veterans Affairs awarded a $6 million contract to High Technology Solutions Inc., which was teamed with PeopleSoft [FCW, Sept. 25, 1995]. PeopleSoft had focused primarily on the commercial market until opening a federal office last summer.

Planning Technologies Inc., Atlanta, is the prime contractor on PeopleSoft's DOJ project.

DOJ's purchase of PeopleSoft's Human Resource and Benefits Administration for Federal Government (HRBA) is part of a trend among agencies to buy advanced personnel systems so the agencies can downsize administrative offices and meet work-force goals established by the National Performance Review.

Currently, "technology is the only way to find savings and improve what already exists," said Henry Romero, director of personnel at DOJ.

PeopleSoft HRBA will automate DOJ's paper-based system. The new software will reside on a Sun Microsystems Inc. SPARC server.

PeopleSoft HRBA will keep track of an estimated 20,000 personnel actions—such as pay adjustments, organizational code changes and promotions—for 7,000 employees in the headquarters components of DOJ. PeopleSoft will also help track actions on labor relations, drug testing, unemployment and health benefits.

Because PeopleSoft HRBA lets organizations quickly copy similar information from different files, the software will eliminate the need to type in duplicate information on each personnel file for each employee.

"Now we can input data and work with just one software package," said Lois Hickey, assistant director for strategic planning, automated systems and work-force development at DOJ. "That will save a lot of time."

DOJ also will be able to quickly generate statistics on its work force to answer questions from DOJ bureaus and offices, the media and the public.

And PeopleSoft HRBA's payroll interface will link DOJ's payroll data to the Agriculture Department's National Finance Center.