HAIER UNIVERSITY by E. H. Edersheim

“Continual learning is tailored to the manager’s needs for tomorrow at Haier.

Haier University was built by benchmarking the GE Crotonville operation, and tailored to the needs in China at Haier and of every employee. The entrance to the University is elevated more than a step. The logic for this elevation is to emphasize the importance of high standards in education.

After the step, as you walk in, you enter the ‘hall of humility’, and walk down ‘the corridor of integrity.’ Management passionately believes that to learn, one needs to enter with the right mindset and a desire to grow.

The course offering is based on employee needs and is both comprehensive and innovative. For example, there are courses in how to team problem solve—The first assignment is a group working together on teaching a class. This requires tracking issues and compromises before you attend the first class. It meets for three days a month and runs for 9 months.

There are classes in humanely firing an employee, using the customer as your focus, managing someone else etc. The particular classes are selected by employees in their development plans.

Each employee spends about 3% of his or her working time in the University and the University is embedded in the culture.”