Training and development in Huawei By Pablo Bernabé Soraire Alías Section 1 – What is training and development in Human Resources Management? How does Huawei apply this concept in its organization? Training and development is the area of Human Resources that deals with upskilling employees in a process that includes gaining knowledge, skills, and attitude, to workers' job performance, permitting future career growth (Keka, 2023). This field holds great importance in an organization, as is allows to reduce expenses and errors and increase the productivity of the business by encouraging employees to quickly adjust to changes and overcome obstacles. Moreover, it can help to manage and retain talent, and reduce staff attrition since employees will value the investment made by the organization in their personal growth. In this section, training and development in Huawei will be discussed. Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. is a leading multinational technology corporation originated in China in 1987. Being a pioneer in the 5G mobile phone standard, it provides information and communication technologies worldwide, as well as smart devices. As a global company, they have a workforce of over 207,000 employees distributed among 170 countries and regions, including over 55% of them working in R&D. Their employee development policy is centered around continuous improvement, providing ongoing opportunities for mobility and growth around the world. It focuses on cross-functional training, mentorship programs, certifications, and microlearning. Regarding the situation this year, some recent steps that stand out are the company joining the UNESCO Global Alliance for Literacy (GAL) in February 2023 to step up talent cultivation (Huawei, 2023), the announcement of a new talent development model at Mobile World Congress 2023, or the public launch of Chaspark - a global academic and technological communication platform that allows expert internal and external stakeholders to suggest their own solutions - in November 2022. These solutions proposed by the Chinese tech giant can contribute to attract and retain talent, foster a comprehensive continuous improvement culture, and raise the employees’ motivation and satisfaction, thus boosting the overall productivity of Huawei. According to the Huawei News website, Huawei made several exciting announcements during the MWC 2023. For instance, the addition of Huawei to the UNESCO GAL, in which the company agreed to “jointly promote the use of technology to raise literacy” along with the Institute for Lifelong Learning. Both parties sealed a cooperation agreement whereby the Chinese company will contribute to the ongoing efforts to improve the use of technology in developing nations. Huawei’s Seeds for the Future program has already contributed to developing more than 2.2 million digital talents across over 150 nations. It is estimated that around 200,000 students can be trained annually thanks to the initiative. The use of this ICT academy can be greatly useful to train emerging talents and boost motivation for potential future employees. In line with their goal of building and developing innovative ICT talent, Huawei is currently working with partners to pursue the “Three trees” model, bringing new opportunities to teachers and students, lifelong learners, and industry practitioners, thanks to its talent cultivation system and certification standards offered in the platform. What makes these initiatives so innovative is their openness, since they are not only available for their own employees, but for the public as well. This allows to facilitate the global technological transformation and create worldwide value. Huawei’s ICT platform now features over 30,000 resources such as courses, classes, practice, and exams. Lastly, the addition of the Chaspark platform helps scholars and researchers to explore and exchange insightful papers, challenges, and technical contests together (Huawei, 2023). Section 2 – HRM recommendations for Huawei Huawei’s proposals in personnel training and development are extensive and comprehensive. Taking the right path is essential since this area of HR requires extensive inversion and human capital. Although the company’s shift towards e-learning is a smart move, it can nevertheless be enhanced. However, their specific training methods were not publicly disclosed, other than their ICT academy. Huawei’s learning platform includes ICT courses such as 5G, AI, IoT, security, or cloud computing. Nonetheless, they focus on technical fields, excluding other important knowledge realms. As a global company, diversified education could be useful to reduce the risk of discrimination laws related issues. As stated in the Diversity and Inclusion website of Huawei, the TECH4ALL inclusion initiative of 2019 fostered an inclusive digital environment educating and connecting with developing communities in Kenya and Thailand. Since the company already demonstrated inclusivity commitment, a recommendation would be adding courses related diversity and inclusion in their e-learning platform. The degree of success of this initiative is dependent on previous “commitment of leadership, the customization of training programs, and ongoing efforts to foster an inclusive workplace culture” (OpenAI, 2023). Additionally, the HRM department could explore reverse mentoring programs, allowing younger employees to have the chance to mentor senior staff, breaking the generational gap. This initiative would greatly foster innovation and creativity, as well as a feedback culture. As stated by ChatGPT, this would include pros like knowledge transfer, innovation, leadership development – younger employees developing skills and gain visibility, and increased employee engagement. Regarding the cons, experienced employees might resist being mentored by younger ones, and there might be time and resource issues, since meetings between employees in different stages would have to be scheduled. Altogether, this would be valuable for a leading tech company with a global workforce at the forefront of emerging tech trends. Another method that could be implemented is gamification learning. It could help the personnel to always stay up to date and increase engagement, particularly for the younger generations of employees. It can be an expansion of the Huawei ICT academy, featuring leaderboards and rewards. When asking the chatbot, it agrees that the initiative can be valuable since it offers benefits like increased engagement and motivation, skill development, great adaptability, and easier data analytics – the progress can be continuously evaluated and analyzed to enhance the platform and training methods. Lastly, Huawei’s training and development program could include cross-industry collaboration. As a multi-dimensional company, its employees would benefit from exploring other areas for learning and personal growth. It can be implemented through joint training programs and multidisciplinary workshops. As suggested by ChatGPT, this would bring advantages like broader skill sets and perspectives, improved problem-solving, and network building – a greatly valuable asset for employees. However, it could face some challenges regarding logistics and coordination, cultural differences, and even confidentiality concerns. These collaborations can nonetheless be successful if applied correctly. Overall, the responses given by ChatGPT were helpful in assessing the quality of the recommendations. The AI struggled to provide accurate and relevant information related to Huawei today since it only relies on information up to January 2022. As Huawei does not disclose specific details about it’s the implementation and evaluation of their training program, its answers were mostly generic and similar for each initiative that it was asked to evaluate, not having the same depth of context as a human. After also trying Bing AI (uses GPT-4 and is updated), the responses were similar to ChatGPT, not including context related to the actual current situation of Huawei. The AI tools are useful to receive initial recommendations, suggestions, and a more general idea, but they are probably not suitable for designing comprehensive and accurate training and development programs. Word count: 1200 Section 3 – Appendix ChatGPT prompts and answers 1. ChatGPT prompt: What is the degree of success of implementing diversity and inclusion training in Huawei? How relevant is it for a global company like Huawei? 2. ChatGPT prompt: Would it be suitable for Huawei to implement reverse mentoring programs? What are the pros and cons of doing so? Does it make sense for a company like Huawei? - Note: the prompt included the date of January 2022, because it is the newest information available in this version of ChatGPT. If that date is not stated, it would provide general information about a tech company. 3. ChatGPT prompt: How would a gamified learning platform be beneficial for Huawei as part of their training and development program? Does it align with the company's value? Evaluate the degree of success such implementation could have in the specific case of Huawei. 4. ChatGPT prompt: How can Huawei implement cross-industry collaboration as part of their training and development program? Evaluate the pros and cons of this initiative and suggest the degree of success in the specific case of Huawei. 5. Bing AI prompt: Critically evaluate the quality of each one of these possible implementations in the training and development program for the organization of Huawei. Consider the current position of the company in 2023 and the relevance of these measures for this global tech company. o Gamification learning o Adding courses related diversity and inclusion in their e-learning platform o Reverse mentoring o Cross industry collaboration Section 4 – Reference list ChasPark: an academic exchange platform for global top STEM talent. (2023). Huawei. https://www.huawei.com/eu/sustainability/the-latest/stories/win-windevelopment/chaspark-academic-exchange-platform Corporate Information - Huawei. (2018, June 2). Huawei. https://www.huawei.com/en/corporate-information Digital inclusion. (2023). Huawei. https://www.huawei.com/en/sustainability/digitaldivide#development4all Employee Portal. (2023). Huawei. https://career.huawei.com/reccampportal/portal5/employee.html Employee training and development. (2023, July 28). Huawei. https://www.huawei.com/en/sustainability/the-latest/stories/assigning-thebrightest-minds Huawei. (2022, April 21). ICT Academy. Huawei Talent. https://e.huawei.com/en/talent/ictacademy/#/home Huawei. (2023, June 29). Huawei unveils ICT service and software innovations and practices aimed at empowering industrial intelligent digital transformation. https://www.huawei.com/en/news/2023/6/digital-service-innovation Training and development - meaning, examples, importance. (2023, March 3). Keka HR. https://www.keka.com/glossary/training-and-development Workhuman Editorial Team. (2022, November 6). Training and Development in HRM. Work Human. https://www.workhuman.com/blog/training-and-development-in-hrm/
