A CULTURE OF LOYALTY.

Finding, hiring, motivating and retaining employees is a challenge far CEOs -- especially in the high-tech arena. Nonetheless, Pat Nettles, CEO of Ciena Corp., a manufacturer of intelligent optical switching equipment for telecommunications companies, has managed to succeed well beyond the norms. How he has done that is an object lesson in strategically managing human resources.

"All of the people in this company, right down to the manufacturing line workers, are, in a large sense, knowledge workers," Nettles says. "For that reason, training plays a crucial role in our strategic plan, and employee retention is one of the key metrics by which we measure our success or failure."

Ciena's growth has been meteoric. Launched in 1992 with four employees, it has grown into an $858 million corporation with 2,775 employees. "With that kind of growth, you don't have the luxury of showing everybody how to do a job for the first time," Nettles says. Instead, Ciena relies on a strategy of franchise players -- a framework of people with the right skill sets who understand how to tackle the tasks they face, how to train the people they supervise to do the same and how to motivate them at a very high level.

"We have tried to hire people with a common cultural view -- not just about technology, but about results," he explains.

To help promote that philosophy in a rapid-growth environment, Nettles says he relies on certain catchphrases, his feeling being that they are a succinct means of communicating important concepts throughout the organization. One example is, "Time is the enemy," referring to Ciena's focus on quick execution. Another is "ONTG" -- an acronym for "one neck to grab" -- meaning that there is an individual in charge of every aspect of the business, a person with whom the buck really does stop. "Things that don't have ONTG generally don't get finished," he observes.

Nettles says his company outperforms its industry in the area of employee retention, even during a downturn about two years ago that saw bonuses dry up in the wake of a failed merger attempt. One reason for that is the company's location outside Baltimore. Ciena brought jobs and opportunity to an area that sorely needed them, and the company's culture is devoid of the job-switching mentality that characterizes so many other high-tech firms.

"We've built a skilled work force with a great deal of loyalty," he says. "We took people who didn't have skills, trained them and gave them skills they never would have had."

The other factor is an emphasis on smart hiring practices. "It goes back to the cultural fit," says Nettles, noting that Ciena looks closely at job applicants' personality traits. "We end up with people who are really motivated to do the things we need them to do for the commercial success of our company."