How to Map top element in Json to Java Class

Question

I need to parse the input json string into Java Object. I am using jackson annotation for that.

Input Json:-

{
"employee":{
  "id":123,
  "name":abc,
    department:{
      "id":123,
      "name":"xyz"
    }
  }
}

Pojo File:-

public class Employee {

@JsonProperty("name")
protected String name;
@JsonProperty("department")
protected List<Department> departments;

public String getName() {
    return name;
}
public void setName(String name) {
    this.name = name;
}
public List<Department> getDepartment() {
    return departments;
}
public void setDepartment(List<Department> departments) {
    this.departments = departments;
}
}

I am getting the below exception while using mapper.readValue(jsonString, Employee.class) statement:

Exception in thread "main" com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.exc.UnrecognizedPropertyException: Unrecognized field "employee"

if i use @JsonIgnoreProperties(ignoreUnknown=true) nothing is getting mapped to my Employee object. Can anybody suggest what i am missing ?

Thanks,