The New Year is here and NEON staff continue to make substantial progress in the design of the NEON Observatory. Part of that progress involves filling the empty desks waiting to be occupied by experts ready to move NEON to the next level.
NEON has an incredibly dedicated and talented team, and we continue to expand our staff with an average growth rate of about three hires per month. Given the kind of economy we’re currently facing, that’s a pretty big deal.
The economic climate means there’s more people out there looking for jobs, which means there’s a bigger pool of potential employees to choose from. However, successfully hiring qualified and motivated staff is not so simple. NEON is headquartered in an area teeming with technical expertise and has a built-in eco-conscious community to boot, so we’ve got some serious competition. Further, according to recent studies, today’s job seeker has a wish list that includes meaningful work, competitive salary and benefits, stability, and opportunity for growth. What NEON has to offer to them is equally as important as what they have to offer us.
Our responsibility as NEON’s HR department is somewhat unique compared to a lot of traditional HR departments. When I first joined NEON in October 2007, our CEO, David Schimel, told me that a large part of NEON’s success would hinge upon the ability of Human Resources (HR) to staff the organization appropriately. “Appropriately” meant that in addition to bringing in the best experts we could, we had to do it in a short time frame and on a national scale. And here we are, doing just that. Are you interested in joining us?
As we prepare to “break ground” for the construction phase of this project, how does NEON rank when it comes to meeting candidate requirements?
Meaningful Work – Check. We’ve got plenty of meaningful work and selling our mission is easy.
Competitive Salary and Benefits – Check and Check. NEON’s compensation philosophy is to use a market-based approach. We continually survey the relevant labor markets in which we compete and our salary mid-points are targeted at the 75th percentile. Some noteworthy features of our benefits package include generous paid leave and 100% employer paid medical.
Stability and Work Experience – Check and Check. Employees at NEON tend to have an entrepreneurial spirit. This means they needed more than a healthy dose of professional courage to leave a current employer and blaze an ecological trail to do what’s never been done before within the ecological community. They needed to challenge all of their assumptions, trust in and rely on one another by working collaboratively and present meaningful cost-effective methods and solutions that preserve the integrity of NEON’s mission. Sounds daunting, doesn’t it? It is, especially if you were recruited to NEON before the recent design reviews with no guarantee of continued funding.
Yet, our employees have performed time and again and I fully expect the level of their individual and collective contributions to continue. Why? In large part because in exchange for their entrepreneurial spirit and significant contributions, the HR department has created (and continues to refine) a work experience that is “ground-breaking.” For instance, as a Staff Scientist your day may start by bundling up your infant to bring them to work. Yes, that’s right! NEON staff can bring their infants up to six months of age into work. Also, getting to work is easy using your NEON-subsidized EcoPass. While at work you’ll interface with other scientists, educators, engineers and office support staff to review the talk you’re giving to the community, assist with developing data products, finish a poster for a scientific conference, and/or review protocols for data collection at our Domains. At the end of the day, you return home knowing your efforts and ideas were valued and welcomed.
So, successful recruitment at NEON takes a lot of effort, and it’s not easy. It’s taken quite a bit of time and energy to build a sustainable process-driven approach with a steadfast commitment to execute our process each and every time, for each hire, at every level and for every position. However, the payoff is incredible and has yielded tangible results. The caliber of the NEON is staff is evident everywhere you look. The quality of work can be seen in the results of multiple NSF-led reviews, in conferences and meetings, at employee events, in one-on-one discussions, and even in the way staff have embraced new benefits such as sharing office space with infants.
I’m proud of what our employees have accomplished, and I’m honored to work side by side with them. I look forward to our next phase with them and possibly you. If you’re interested in being a part of this engaged and enthusiastic bunch, working at either our headquarters in Boulder or in one of our Domains, please look for openings that match your background, experience and interests and send your CV/resume to careers@neoninc.org.