TALENT DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY
CREDIT: HAIER
HAIER REFRIGERATOR MANUFACTURING CO., LTD., CHONGQING, CHINA
High mobility among younger workers was a persistent problem at Haier’ s refrigerator plant in Chongqing, where Gen Z workers found traditional manufacturing and legacy top-down management unappealing. The company adopted its proprietary RenDanHeYi model, shifting from a management-oriented to a serviceoriented organisation. The philosophy, developed by Haier over two decades, favours small, autonomous teams directly accountable for their own
NAME: HAIER GROUP HEADQUARTERS: QINGDAO, CHINA NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES: ~ 100,000 MARKET CAP: ~ US $ 52.1BN performance and development. To embed this at scale, the site deployed 35 AI and data-driven talentempowerment solutions, including personalised promotion pathways, a point-based innovation incentive platform and team-level smart workforce planning using multi-timeseries forecasting. This enables each individual to actively navigate their own career pathway. Because of this shift, workforce attrition fell by 40 % and employee participation rose to 61 %.“ The true value of AI lies in liberating employees from repetitive labour to engage in more valuable creation,” says Kiva Allgood, Managing Director and Head of the WEF’ s Centre for Advanced Manufacturing and Supply Chains.“ Haier’ s Chongqing factory practices a‘ people-oriented’ philosophy, focusing on talent development throughout the entire lifecycle.”
82 March 2026