Competition is growing in the United States for a shrinking national pool of qualified laboratory scientists. Public health and environmental laboratories (PHELs) must address this problem using a range of strategies and tools to ensure that a highly technical workforce of PHEL scientists is available in the future. One of these tools is the use of common personnel standards involving job titles and definitions, job classifications and minimum qualifications, and multi-step career paths. This article explains in detail the need for structure and use of common, basic personnel standards in developing and retaining a national workforce of PHEL scientists.