Federal Human Resources Data: OPM Should Improve the Availability and Reliability of Payroll Data to Support Accountability and Workforce Analytics

Abstract

The Enterprise Human Resources Integration (EHRI) payroll data are not fully supporting the Office of Personnel Management's (OPM) strategic and open data goals. This is because OPM has not taken the steps necessary to make the data widely available for use by other agencies and researchers. EHRI payroll data are intended to provide a centralized, standardized, and comprehensive source of pay and leave related data across the federal government. In this capacity, these data have the potential to provide a more efficient, cost effective, and precise data source for federal agencies and researchers who wish to assess human resources and policy decision making across the federal government. Because these data are not widely available, federal agencies and researchers must rely on other proxy sources for payroll data, which are more limited in the scope of analysis they can provide or the level of detail needed for data-driven human capital studies. Although some elements of the data are sufficiently reliable for general use, weaknesses in OPM's internal controls for the EHRI payroll data will need to be addressed to enhance the reliability of other data elements. As shown in the table below, GAOs assessment of key internal control activities that are critical to ensuring the reliability of the EHRI payroll data found a number of areas where there is insufficient assurance that the control objective will be achieved. These weaknesses increase the risk of data errors, incomplete data fields, and ineffective monitoring of the EHRI payroll data. Unless OPM takes steps to correct these internal control weaknesses, it will be unable to fully leverage these data to meet its mission and allow others to make full use of these data for their research needs.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Oct 01, 2016
Accession Number
AD1171784

Entities

People

  • Nancy Kingsbury

Organizations

  • United States Government Accountability Office

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  • Human Systems
  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes

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  • Accountability
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  • Computer Access Control
  • Congress
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  • Department Of Homeland Security
  • Department Of Veterans Affairs
  • Electronic Mail
  • Employment
  • Governments
  • Human Resources
  • Information Processing
  • Information Systems
  • Law
  • Management Personnel
  • National Governments
  • Organizational Structure
  • Personnel Management
  • Public Administration
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  • Resource Management
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  • United States Government

Readers

  • Defense Acquisition Program Management
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  • Personnel Management and Statistics in the Military and Department of Defense