Employment

Human Resources

The Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI), located in Emeryville, California, is a multi-institutional bioenergy research center funded by the U.S. Department of Energy. As the lead institution for JBEI, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) provides a dedicated human resources (HR) manager who oversees all aspects of recruiting and HR management in accordance and partnership with HR representatives from the other JBEI partner institutions. This full-time on-site service HR allows all JBEI employees regardless of institutional affiliation to drop in for information about benefits, payroll, leave requests, and immigration matters. When applicable, specific partner institution members are called in as subject matter experts.

Recruiting Strategy

When positions become available, the Berkeley Lab HR manager works with the appropriate line and institutional managers to post, recruit, interview, and place new employees. This builds off JBEI's HR philosophy to give all managers and employees a single point of contact to work through. All new hires and terminations are approved by the JBEI Chief Executive Officer. All recruitment advertising is standardized to ensure a consistent message. Additionally, all JBEI requisitions are announced on the JBEI employment website and JBEI's signage. Berkeley Lab's recruitment system (TALEO) allows for all JBEI Hiring Managers and collaborators to have access to the system and the ability to review in real-time Berkeley Lab-related positions and resumes. JBEI takes advantage of job fairs sponsored by the University of California Berkeley (a JBEI partner institute) and also coordinates with the job fairs of other JBEI partner institutions to ensure a wide recruitment effort is made.

Personnel

To reinforce the JBEI cultural identity among the employees working on the project, JBEI's HR MOU in years 1 – 5 established a management and staffing structure. Matrixed staff are organized into mixed teams of individuals from different employers conducting work under the direction of a single JBEI manager. As outlined in the HR MOU, all human resource issues are handled in accordance with the human resource policies and procedures applicable to each matrixed employee's home institution. JBEI's CEO and JBEI line managers (CSTO, COO, VP, or Directors) have responsibility for enforcing JBEI performance standards and work rules.