Ciena Introduces Global Family Leave Policy

Ciena^® (NASDAQ:CIEN, news, filings) announced a significant expansion of its family leave policies, increasing maternity leave and extending employee benefits to include paternity, adoption and caregiver leave. Building on Ciena’s culture of inclusion and commitment to diversity, the Global Family Leave Policy reflects the company’s focus on providing employees improved work-life balance and greater job satisfaction. The new leave policy features for these significant life events exceed prevailing industry practices in most corners of the globe, offering employees generous family-friendly benefits.

Key Facts:

• Beginning in September, leave benefits for all new parents at Ciena – maternal, paternal and adoptive – were considerably enhanced with respect to paid leave, absence duration and return to work schedules. It also includes leave time for caregivers assisting a spouse, child or parent with serious health conditions. The new policy includes some retroactive features for employees who became parents on or after November 2, 2014, the start of Ciena’s fiscal year 2015. 

• The Global Family Leave Policy applies to all 5,200 Ciena employees, both exempt and non-exempt, across the globe.

• Plan minimums, as detailed below, will be integrated with local statutory plans, and more generous statutory plans will be honored.
  • Maternity:
    • 18 consecutive weeks paid at 100%
    • Phased-in return to work, allowing employees to work 80% of hours while receiving 100% of pay, which can be applied for up to six months during the first year from date of birth
  • Paternity:
    • 4 weeks paid at 100%, available at any time, including staggered, during the first 18 weeks from date of birth
  • Adoption:
    • 4 weeks paid at 100%, available at any time, including staggered, during the first 18 weeks from date of adoption
  • Caregiver’s Leave:
    • 2 weeks paid at 100% per year 

Executive Quotes: 

• “We are committed to building a diverse, talented workforce, who is inspired and enthusiastic to be part of Ciena’s journey as a market leader. With the expansion of our family leave policies, we join fellow innovators like Microsoft, Netflix, Google and other high-technology industry leaders that share a desire to be more considerate in work-life balance. We recognize the increasingly competitive dynamic around talent and are focused on delivering unique and attractive benefits to our global workforce.”
  –   Gary B. Smith, President & CEO, Ciena 

• “When you can do something that is both good for your employees and the company, while also advancing more significant societal goals, you do it. Our new Global Family Leave Policy checks all of those boxes. We are excited and extremely proud to offer these benefits to the entire Ciena team and advance our ability to attract and retain a high-performance workforce.”
  –   Jane Hobbs, Senior Vice President, Human Resources, Ciena 

 Supporting Resources: 

• Ciena Insights blog – Q&A with Jane Hobbs
• Ciena Careers

About Ciena
Ciena (NYSE: CIEN) is the network specialist. We collaborate with customers worldwide to unlock the strategic potential of their networks and fundamentally change the way they perform and compete. Ciena leverages its deep expertise in packet and optical networking and distributed software automation to deliver solutions in alignment with its OPⁿ architecture for next-generation networks. We enable a high-scale, programmable infrastructure that can be controlled and adapted by network-level applications, and provide open interfaces to coordinate computing, storage and network resources in a unified, virtualized environment. For updates on Ciena news, follow us on Twitter @Ciena or LinkedIn. Investors are encouraged to review the Investors section of our website at www.ciena.com/investors, where we routinely post press releases, SEC filings, recent news, financial results, and other announcements. From time to time we exclusively post material information to this website along with other disclosure channels that we use.

Note to Ciena Investors
Forward-looking statements. This press release contains certain forward-looking statements based on current expectations, forecasts and assumptions that involve risks and uncertainties. These statements are based on information available to the Company as of the date hereof; and Ciena’s actual results could differ materially from those stated or implied, due to risks and uncertainties associated with its business, which include the risk factors disclosed in its Report on Form 10-Q, which Ciena filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on September 9, 2015. Forward-looking statements include statements regarding Ciena’s expectations, beliefs, intentions or strategies regarding the future and can be identified by forward-looking words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “could,” “estimate,” “expect,” “intend,” “may,” “should,” “will,” and “would” or similar words. Ciena assumes no obligation to update the information included in this press release, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

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