Abstract The Human Resources Challenge of Huawei —- Cultural clash
Introduction
Background of Huawei
In 1987, Ren Zhengfei, then 44 years old, founded a telecom equipment-trading firm in Shenzhen, China, with startup capital of CNY 21,000. By the end of 2014, Huawei had 170,000 employees in more than 170 countries and regions, serving more than one-third of the world’s population, and leading the world in international patent applications. Over 30 years, it has grown to become the largest telecom company in the world. As well as that, it has operations and representative offices in more than 100 countries and serves over 1 billion users worldwide. Huawei’s success boils down to two fundamental elements: the changing technology environment and the creativity of its people, so we can realize that employees play a very important role in Huawei and the human resources management is very crucial to Huawei
Human resources challenges of Huawei
According to Fang Lee Cooke (The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 2012, p.1845), there are several challenge to HRM in host countries and management responses of Huawei. First, because salaries are based on performance levels, inexperienced local new hires may have lower wages. Second, unlike local employment laws, as foreign companies, they need to comply more strictly with these laws than China. Third, how to strike a balance between employee development and cost-effective employee disbursement is sometimes a dilemma because HCN employees need training and development opportunities and then leave more famous Western multinationals. Fourth, multiculturalism and diversity management is another issue. Huawei may be one of the few Chinese companies that actively adopt the concept of multiculturalism and diversity management. Fifth, the lack of approval from local employees and their employers and the lack of acceptance of the corporate culture of Chinese enterprises are a double challenge to the issue of retention.
The key challenge
Cultural clash is one of the key human resources aspects that affected Huawei. Huawei as a multinational company, the objective existence of the company’s internal cultural differences, is bound to cause cultural conflicts in the enterprise. As the process of global integration accelerates and the flow of human resources in multinational enterprises like Huawei continues to accelerate, this cultural friction will increase day by day and gradually begin to manifest itself in the internal management and external operation of transnational corporations, resulting in the loss of market opportunities for transnational corporations and the inefficiency of the organizational structure and make the implementation of the global strategy in trouble. Therefore, this essay will attempt to demonstrate how the Huawei can solve this problem and develop better for its brighter future using human resources management practices.
Main discussions
Huawei’s problem of human resources
While Huawei successfully achieved its trans-national development, Huawei also encountered many challenges in its human resources management. The transnational management practice of Huawei shows that one of the important factors that affect transnational management is that various cultural conflicts arise from the differences in value orientation and behavior among people from different cultural backgrounds. How to realize the absorption and integration of culture has become a problem that Huawei constantly solves in transnational management.
How to solve the cultural conflict of human resource management in Huawei
With the continuous expansion and development of overseas affiliates of Huawei, Huawei conducts cross-cultural human resources management mainly through the following tactics:
- Localization strategy
Localization strategy which means the concept of global adaptation is the business trying to integrate into the target market, and strive to become a target market strategy adopted. The essence of “localization” is the process of multinational corporations integrating production, marketing, management and personnel into the economy of the host country in an all-round way. Generally, they conduct a series of surveys to understand the actual local economy, culture and customs. At Huawei’s overseas offices, everyone strives to create an atmosphere in which everyone, regardless of nationality and race, is a Huawei employee. Both Chinese and foreign cultures constantly collide and merge with each other. Under the influence of Huawei’s culture, Huawei is gradually presenting its diversified and international characteristics. With the gradual implementation of “localization” business strategy, the ratio of Chinese and foreign employees in overseas institutions of Huawei continuously changes.
- Culturally compatible strategy
Culturally compatible strategy is also the most important thing which need to understand the differences between different cultural concepts. Therefore, Huawei needs to integrate cultural differences into the overall marketing strategy to ensure that the realization of business goals will always be a major issue. For instance, Huawei’s employees in Uzbekistan’s offices regularly attend local weddings, travel to cities on holidays, watch ballets and learn about local culture and customs. Whenever an employee is on his birthday, everyone congratulates on sending a gift collectively.
- Cross-cultural training strategy
Huawei implements cross-cultural training strategy. As international enterprises become the most important intercultural organizations in the world, the source of human resources is increasingly showing an international trend among a considerable number of enterprises. More and more people of different colors become colleagues. The employees from different countries and nations have different cultural backgrounds. Employees’ values, needs, attitudes and behaviors are quite different. Such cultural differences within the enterprise inevitably lead to cultural conflicts. At the same time, due to cultural differences, the human resources management concepts, human resources management systems and methods of different countries vary. As a result, the human resources management concepts and management methods among the managers in the enterprises also continuously impact and collide. In the daily operation of enterprises and foreign exchanges, if employees are lack of the knowledge and skills of intercultural communication, the differences between cultures will create misunderstandings and unnecessary friction, which will affect the work efficiency and reduce the competitiveness of enterprises. Therefore, the cultural difference is also an obstacle that must be overcome in the internationalization and transnational management of human resources. Huawei employees will receive relevant training in the training department before leaving the country, such as the local cultures and related products. Daily training also includes seminars, language training, books, websites, discussion and simulation exercises and more. These trainings enhance the adaptability of employees with different cultural backgrounds and promote communication and understanding among people of different cultural backgrounds. Through continuous cross-cultural training, cross-cultural awareness has gradually developed among employees and learned to regard cultural differences as differences without distinction between good and bad, helping employees to be good at standing with people of different cultural backgrounds considering each other’s point of view, cross-cultural conflicts are greatly reduced.
- Common values management.
A reason why a company can become a good company, a very important reason is that it has successfully created a kind of core values and mission to enable all employees heartfelt identity, as the core values of the enterprise culture once being all staff sincerely agree or share, it will affect people’s thinking and behavior patterns. HuangWeiwei (dedication – the Huawei Philosophy of Human Resources Management) claims that Huawei doesn’t like to make too much money. And the profits are not its motive – growth is. This aspect of the enterprise culture is what drives its HRM policies and approaches. In addition to regulating and managing overseas institutions under Huawei’s business conditions, Huawei’s corporate culture restricts every employee’s behavior in an invisible ideology. Even away from overseas, the militarized management style from Huawei headquarters is still not diminished. Huawei believes that only those who persist in fighting unjustly for the collective can form a united community. Therefore, Huawei advocates desire-driven, decent means, so that the formation of a group of vigorous, good management style. Huawei believes that unity and cooperation, collective struggle is the soul of Huawei. No one in Huawei has the privilege, and everyone shares the common aspiration and hardship, equality for all. Any individual interest must serve the collective interests and integrate individual efforts into the enterprise. Huawei integrated this common value, the entire enterprise burst out of the incredible combat effectiveness. So we could realize that in human resources management, only understanding cultural differences and respecting multi-culture can improve the ability of cross-cultural management.
Suggestions for Huawei Cross-cultural Human Resources Management
Under the multi-cultural background, the core of human resource management lies in how to integrate the scattered and isolated functions, responsibilities and activities in human resource management. By coordinating the operation of human beings and creating the competitive advantage of enterprises. In order to give play to this advantage of enterprises, Huawei can consider the following aspects in implementing cross-cultural human resources management:
Firstly, Huawei should strengthen cross-cultural selection and training. Cross-cultural selection and training can enhance people’s responsiveness and adaptability to different cultural traditions, promote communication and understanding among people of different cultural backgrounds, mitigate cultural conflicts and enhance teamwork and corporate cohesion. The specific measure is that Huawei should try to select those who have the skills and qualities of a global manager. They should love the new culture, have the adventurous spirit, have strong interpersonal skills and work hard with people from different cultures to understand their opinions and attitudes. Such a global manager can adapt to the requirements of cultural integration and they also have to attend a series of trainings about the language, culture and personal occupation of so as to better adapt to the future work. Huawei should also adopt some new cross-cultural training methods, such as setting up intercultural communication programs, setting up “global service projects” and setting up business institutes.
Secondly, based on the common understanding of culture, Huawei should establish the strong corporate culture according to the requirements of the external environment and the strategic development of the company. It helps Huawei not only to reduce cultural conflicts, so that each employee can put their thoughts and behavior with the company’s business operations and objectives together, but also to make the subsidiary and the parent company closer. At the same time, it can establish a good reputation in the international market and enhance the transnational corporations’ ability of cultural change.
Thirdly, Huawei should enhance cross-cultural communication. In order to ensure the effective implementation of effective communication in cross-cultural enterprises, Huawei must establish a culture of mutual understanding and mutual respect between management, management and employees as well as between the company and the outside. In addition, Huawei must actively establish a variety of formal and informal, effective and invisible cross-cultural communication organizations and channels, so that every employee in the enterprise have more opportunities to express their opinions. Some successful companies often organize seminars, classes and language training within the enterprise and enhance the role of managers by effectively promoting communication with people, teams and organizations through the use of media such as books, bulletin boards, websites, videos and television. As a result Huawei could improve business efficiency and maximize the effectiveness of cross-cultural human resources management.
Fourthly, Huawei should enhance the localization of employees. As local managers have a deep understanding of local culture, they are easily accepted by employees and at the same time provide a promotion channel for local employees. Therefore, they have strong incentives. Local employees are familiar with the local customs, market dynamics and government regulations, hiring local employees will undoubtedly facilitate cross-cultural enterprises in the local market development and gain a firm foothold. In the development of intercultural human resources, most large multinational corporations have proposed the strategy of employees’ localization and continuously raised the proportion of senior and middle-level managers in the country. The management concept of “local affairs managed by local people” is being gradually realized. To some extent, the implementation of this concept can make cross-cultural enterprises eliminate cultural friction, develop their own adaptability to local culture, and its unique foreign culture affect the host country’s cultural environment, showing a company’s great tolerance to multiculturalism , So Huawei could attract more outstanding employees and enhance their competitiveness. Through the above measures, the effectiveness of cross-cultural human resources management at Huawei will be greatly enhanced so that enterprises can implement effective and strategic personnel planning in a multicultural environment.
Conclusions
With the continuous expansion and development of Huawei’s overseas subsidiaries, Huawei, as the leading telecom solution provider in the world, has faced the challenge which is cultural conflicts in the implementation of human resources management. In order to solve the conflicts caused by cultural differences, Huawei implement cross-cultural human resources management, mainly through the implementation of localization strategies, cultural compatibility strategies, cross-cultural training and common values management strategies.
Huawei mainly implements localization strategy when implementing cross-cultural human resources management, including staff localization, localization management, R & D localization and localization of partners. There are more than 100 countries around the world applying their products. International markets have become the main source of Huawei’s sales. In all countries and regions, Huawei has set up hundreds of branches and dozens of research institutes. More than half of its employees are local employees, and more and more local employees have become local technical backbone. Huawei has established training centers around the world, which greatly enhance Huawei’s ability to provide high-quality training in these regions. While maintaining sound management, Huawei persists in its localized operation globally and has made great contributions to its countries and regions. As well as that, Huawei has established branches in more than 100 countries around the world, investing locally, setting up sales and service offices, research and development centers, training centers, technical support centers and factories, and hiring local staff. This not only deepens Huawei’s understanding of the local market, but also raises the local employment rate, enhances the technical level of local engineers and promotes the development of the local economy. In addition, Huawei regards employee training as the most basic level of cross-cultural management. Cross-cultural training for employees, including training on basic knowledge of culture, training on cultural conflicts, and training on cultural adaptability, has been conducted. In terms of value management, Huawei’s corporate culture affects every employee as an invisible ideology. Huawei creates the unique “wolf” corporate culture and it requires employees to develop the habit of learning, to have a good learning ability and a unique sense of innovation and awareness.
In summary, cross-cultural human resources management has an important impact on the survival and development of Huawei and also plays an important role in the productivity of Huawei. A successful human resources management will bring a value-added effect of 1 + 1> 2 to the enterprise, otherwise, it will have a negative impact and hinder the development of the enterprise.
References
Fang Lee Cooke The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 2012, p.1845
Huang Weiwei Dedication — the Huawei Philosophy of Human Resources Management
Huawei The startup that became the largest telecom company in the world
This research is a review for some studies which are focused to highlight discrimination in payment between male and female members. The studies present the data collection methods such as surveys and interviews. All the studies showed that the discrimination in payment against women still exists, but there is a significant decline in the gender wage gap particularly because of the increasing awareness and enforcement of Gender Equity Act. The studies showed that the women recently have gained more experience and higher education which declined racial discrimination against the women. The studies also noted that the women have the right to get equal pay like that of men. Similarly women deserve to have the same employment opportunities as of men.
1 Introduction
The equal pay act was signed on the 10th of June 1963 by the President John F. Kennedy (U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 2014). The enactments of this act were to support and amend the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938. This Act gave attention to unfair practices in paying low wages to female employees than males for the same job. John F. Kennedy highlighted the importance of the Equal Pay Act as “While much remains to be done to achieve full equality of economic opportunity for the average woman worker earns only 60 percent of the average wage for men this legislation is a significant step forward” (John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, 1963).
Kelly Jeanetta, founder of Kelly A. Jeanetta Law Firm LLC, said that the women are still getting only seventy percent of total wages earned by men for the same jobs. She further argues that due to unexamined biases and favoritism systems men are getting higher wages than women which has negatively affected the lives of women (Jeanetta, 2013). The goal of the Equal Pay Act of 1963 was to achieve equality in wages paid to both men and women at workplace. Furthermore the Act was approved keeping in consideration the objective to prevent the discrimination and biasness in jobs and pays in the private sector. Previously a negative notion existed stating that men should get more wages than women if they are on the same job and have same responsibilities. However this shows the obvious discrimination in disbursement to men and women.
Jeanetta (2013) further pointed out the law that was enacted in Minnesota in 1969 about Equal Pay for Equal Work, which prohibits employers to discriminate between employees in paying who are doing the same work, the same effort and the same efficiency. This law is a good model to reduce the difference in wage payment between man and woman, and the employer who pays wages on the basis of sex difference is a violation of the law of equality in pay. However to fully implement the rules and regulations of this Act, continuous work is required to be done. Government and NGOs must step ahead to ensure that wages are paid equally to both sexes.
The aim of this research is to understand the need for Equal Pay Act and the improvements in the gender wage discrimination during the course of history. Furthermore the paper attempts to find if discrimination exists in disbursement of wages to men and women. Also the research aims to highlight major problems faced by the women with the low wages than their counterparts.
2 Literature Review
2.1 Need for Equal Pay Act and its Impact
The basis of Equal Pay Act was to eradicate the discrimination of wage between men and women during the course of their job. Several researches have been conducted to analyze the importance of Equal Pay Act and improvement in the wage distribution as a result of the increased enforcement of the law. Suh (2009) investigated determinants and characteristics of changes in the gender wage gap in the United States of America between 1989 and 2005. The study found that the wage gap between men and women reduced during the study period, from seventy four percent to more than eighty percent. The results of this study show that women tried to close the wage gap by education, working hours and increased experience. This study also concluded that decreasing gender gap is also the result of diminishing level of wage discrimination in the labor market. Although with the passage of time the improvement in the wage gap between men and women occurred, still the distribution is far from equality.
Regarding the economic impact on lives of the women due to low wages, the study shows that certainly the economic condition of women was improved as human capital development became the reason for better wages. According to Neumark decomposition the majority of increasing discrimination is because of the increase of influence of men in the workplace (Neumark, 1988).
Jake Rosenfeld and Meredith Kleykamp (2012) used the current population survey between 1973 and 2007 to find out the impact of African-Americans to reduce the wage gap in the private sector, and how African-Americans worked with unions to protect themselves from discrimination in the private sector. The survey showed that wage gaps between women, black-white are thirteen to thirty percent lower. The study showed that the important role played by Union to reduce racial inequality (Rosenfeld & Kleykamp, 2012).
Patrick Mason (2011) presented the paper which studied the changes in the concept of ethnic Americans during the post-Jim Crow era, the study included American families between 1965 and 2006, and the differences between the U.S. region, especially the South. The study noted that men and women regardless of their racial difference, have different opportunities in society and the market and likewise the remuneration also differentiates (Mason, 2011).
The study also showed that Oaxaca-Ransom decompositions found there is a big reduction in payment discrimination against African Americans especially for those between the ages of 50 and 59, women are more practice racial equality faster than men. The study also showed that the reduction in the Southern racial disparity is reason for the national improvement among men (Mason, 2011).
According to a study carried out by both of Rafael Lalive and Alois Stutzer (2009), women get paid lesser than men for the same work, and the level of their satisfaction with their jobs are lower than men. But the study showed that the wage discrimination against women has decreased significantly, and that’s because the high awareness of the act of equal pay between men and women, in addition to experience factor which the women have from the labor market.
The reduction in the gap occurred during 1970s due to immediate attention toward the wage discrimination after the resolution of Equal Pay Act. Increase in jobs opportunities in the U.S. labor market occurred during this period because of higher qualification of women.
Many European countries have evolved towards decentralization and to determine the minimum wage, which address the problem of the wage gap gender. “In several European countries the gender pay gap has a low profile both in the public debate and in the policy agenda. Summarizing, one of the main problems is that there is no real owner of the problem, as nobody really feels responsible for closing the gender pay gap. Organizing political support for closing the gap seems to be an important challenge for the near future.” (O’Dorchai, 2008).
Liqin Zhang and Xiao-Yuan Dong (2008) used the data from Chinese company to analyze the wage discrimination between male and female in China’s industry. The results of the study showed that there is a relation between low wages for women, and weak production for female workers compared with male workers. The result of this study showed that the women who worked in the public sector get wages equal to the men, but the women who worked in the private sector more like to discrimination in wage. The study noted that the Chinese woman status in the deterioration because of discrimination against them from employers in the private sector, in addition to the failure of the public sector to the protection of women, and failure to impose policies and laws against discrimination in wages.
“In the service sector, women do not encounter gender wage discrimination in state-owned enterprises but do suffer from discrimination in private-owned enterprises. The public sector pays more attention to advocating gender equality while managers of private enterprises have more discretionary power to act out their prejudice against women in wage-setting and employment policies”( Zhang and Dong, 2008).
A group of researcher: Ariane Hegewisch, Hannah Liepmann, Jeffrey Hayes, and Heidi Hartmann (2010), they presented a paper to prove the existence of discriminatory wage between the gender by analysis of occupational data during the 1970 and 1980s, and the study noted that can be seen from the occupations that does not require high levels of education, and the jobs which required especial degree.
2.2 Problems faced by Women
Discrimination in the pay between men and women is no doubt troublesome for a large population of US workforce, mainly consisting of women. Glynn (2012) says that 50% of all workers of U.S. payrolls are women and majority of them are single mothers working outside their homes. In order to support their families the single mothers and other women are required to have adequate payments. Furthermore gender pay gaps and the discrimination hinder the women to progress up to the top level management positions in the organizations. Even if female workers are qualified and experienced they are paid lesser than their male counterparts. Apart from the single or married women the female workers who are unmarried are also getting lower wages. Recently graduated female staff members are usually paid less than other female staff. Organizations on the other hand save a big chunk of their income by paying less to the female workers.
The study noted that the European women are suffering from difficulty in earning with low wages and the discriminatory practices from employers. The study suggested to impose a three polices to protect woman from discrimination at work, first equal pay policies, the legal frame is not the problem, but the problem is enforcement of this policy, second wage policies and third equal opportunities policy.
Women are also paid less because they are considered to be best suited for pink collar jobs which offer lesser benefits than other white collar jobs. Furthermore position of women in white collar jobs which demand effective decision making skills is very limited. Few organizations offer top management positions for the women.
According to Boushey, Arons, and Smith, among the 19 million families in USA women are the main breadwinner for their families, which makes the women bear the brunt of keeping their jobs and take care of family. Whereas the man is more prone to lose his job, which means that millions of families now rely on a woman’s job to make ends meet. This shows that women’s jobs are more critical for their families than men (Boushey, Arons, and Smith, 2010) and getting paid lesser is no doubt extreme level of discrimination.
Nowadays the American parents working very hard to take care of their kids and cover their bills, and women try to find a good job with a good payment to help her family to cover the requirements of family life. So, the discrimination in wage could have a negative impact not only on her life, but also on her family life, “Nearly two-thirds of mothers are either the breadwinner for their family or share that responsibility with a partner. Women’s earnings therefore are vital to their families’ economic well-being” (Glynn, 2012).
3 Conclusion
Previous researches and articles included in the research helped to analyze the facts and figures of the discrimination. Furthermore study of the Equal Pay Act shows how payment discrimination was reduced and more awareness is spread about its implementation. Equal Pay Act helped to reduce the unfairness in the wage disbursement to both men and women.
From the studies we can see the reduction in racial discrimination in wages, especially against women. And that’s because the increase awareness of the Equal Pay Act. The studies showed that The United States and European Union countries are more pursuant to the Equal Wages Act than Eastern European countries and China. The studies also confirm the importance of supporting of the Equality Act, and make it effective in order to protect women from discrimination and give women the right to equal employment opportunities.
The study showed major problems faced by the women when they are paid lesser than their counterpart male workers. As statistics show that women share major portion of US workforce the discrimination of pay has negative impact on their economic condition. Furthermore single, married and single moms face trouble as they are main contributors in the family. Considering the economic and social problems faced by the women due to discrimination in the wages, the need for a strongly established law is obvious. Federal agencies need to play vital role in the establishment and implementation of equal pay system to both sexes. This research can also be extended further to see why organizations do not appoint women in top managerial positions.
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