The federal retirement process becomes digital, and targets Paper PileUP | Company Business News

(Bloomberg) -The Federal Staff Agency has launched an online system for retirement applications, which has terminated a paper-based method that has remained largely unchanged for decades. The launch is one of the more tangible changes of greater effort to modernize government operations under the Department of Government Efficiency, a high-profile initiative presented early by Elon Musk and other technical figures in the administration. President Donald Trump cited the project as one of the top performance of Doge, as Musk wrapped his lead as a special employee in the White House last week. The new portal of staff of staff management delivered directly on Monday. Most federal employees who start the retirement process will have to use it immediately, with paper forms being phased out for others by July 15, according to a memo of acting OPM director Charles Ezell. “People have given decades of their lives to the government-30-year-old and they will retire and they are met with an obstacle course,” says Joe Gebbia, a co-founder of Airbnb Inc. and one of many people of the technical and financing world brought to help with the effort. The new system is intended to streamline a process that has been criticized for the delays and dependence on hand paperwork. The retirement process now lasts for as long as four to six months, with retirees living on a reduced pension payment, while a vast bureaucracy collects information to calculate the amount of annuity. The old system relied on federal workers at a former limestone mine in Pennsylvania, a facility that still houses millions of pension records and became a metaphor for government digital shortcomings. That paperwork will still be maintained for current retirees, but any new retirement must start electronically. “Paper will be long. This is not to create new paper,” Gebbia said. About 100,000 federal employees retire every year, and the Trump administration has encouraged many workers to leave through different early retirement programs early. Users of the OPM staff worked with Doge to make the review happen, Gebbia said. He said the new system is just as much a design challenge as a technical one, with the agency trying to ensure that the system is easy to use for retirees, agencies and the government’s internal payroll processors. The federal government has worked for too long in what it calls a ‘design desert’. More stories like these are available on Bloomberg.com © 2025 Bloomberg LP