OPM conducts analyses and develops reports that allow for the assessment of trends and workforce issues that affect OPM and other Federal agencies. This includes analysis of policy options, legislative changes and trends that affect health and retirement benefits for Federal employees. To assure employee benefits provide maximum value and are secure, OPM conducts actuarial analyses, as well as statistical tests using large data bases. OPM's actuarial staff is responsible for assuring that OPM makes decisions regarding various benefits, but in particular health and retirement benefits, consistent with best actuarial practices. Policy staff provides overall policy guidance to OPM on a range of issues affecting retirement and benefits policy. In doing so, OPM seeks to effectively use and integrate the major data sources available.
OPM issues Governmentwide guidance on documentation of Federal employment. In addition OPM issues guidance on reporting human resources, payroll and training data which are based on instructions of governmentwide data element standardization and system edits.
OPM is the focal point for providing statistical information about the Federal civilian workforce. OPM's FedScope is an online tool which allows customers to access and analyze the most popular data elements from OPM's Enterprise Human Resources Integration (EHRI) Data Warehouse. Customers include Federal government agencies, researchers, the media, and the general public. OPM provides numerous Raw Datasets (including FedScope data) for customer's use.