Huawei Employee Exposes: Performance C Leads to Dismissal, Increasingly Common Now
Performance C at Huawei is no longer a simple “needs improvement” warning, but has evolved into a brutal survival game in the workplace.
Recently, discussions about Huawei’s internal performance management have heated up again. Several anonymous employees have revealed on social media that the workplace at Huawei in 2025 is experiencing a silent earthquake — Performance C is basically the prelude to dismissal, especially in departments like Data Communication and Enterprise Services that are struggling significantly, where employees receiving a C rating are much more common than in previous years.
This news quickly resonated with Huawei employees, many of whom commented on the current situation. In the past, receiving a C did not mean immediate dismissal; employees still had opportunities to transfer, receive training, or work hard in the next cycle to turn things around. However, since 2024, the internal atmosphere of the company has clearly changed.
Huawei’s performance evaluation has always been known for its “wolf culture,” with employee performance categorized into four levels: A (Outstanding), B+ (Excellent), B (Good), and C (Needs Improvement). Unlike before, employees who receive a C rating now often face severe career crises.
“If you receive a C in two consecutive semi-annual evaluations, HR will talk to you, and it basically means you should resign voluntarily,” revealed a Huawei employee. Nowadays, department heads are reluctant to give out C ratings, but in some business lines, due to the company’s rigid performance targets, they have no choice but to enforce it.
Performance evaluation has shifted from an assessment tool to an elimination mechanism. Although Huawei has not officially stated that “C-rated employees must leave,” in practice, C-level employees often find it difficult to stay. An experienced employee lamented, “The current situation is that once you receive a C, the best option is to leave gracefully on your own terms.”
Among Huawei’s many business lines, the Data Communication and Enterprise Services departments have become hotspots for C ratings. These departments are under pressure from intense market competition and declining profits, with the company demanding “cost reduction and efficiency improvement,” making frontline employees the “scapegoats.”
The Data Communication department faces increasing pressure from global market competition, with Huawei encountering fierce competition from companies like Cisco and H3C in traditional stronghold areas such as routers and switches, severely compressing profit margins. Meanwhile, the Enterprise Services department is experiencing slow growth in enterprise business, with significant investments in cloud computing and digital transformation that have long return cycles, putting overall team performance under pressure.
“These departments do not want to give B or B+ ratings, but the profit targets set by the company are too high, and if they cannot be met, performance must be pushed down,” lamented a former Huawei Data Communication employee.
“Business losses = employees taking the blame” has become the norm in these departments. Some teams have even adopted a “take turns taking the blame” strategy to control the proportion of C ratings, but there are always some who ultimately cannot escape the fate of receiving a C.
What makes employees feel even more powerless is that the performance evaluation process is not entirely transparent and fair. “Supervisors have a certain degree of discretion; sometimes it’s not that you didn’t work hard enough, but the team metrics are limited, and they can only sacrifice a few people,” one employee complained on an anonymous forum.
This performance evaluation mechanism has the most significant impact on employees over 35 years old. An internal employee pointed out: “Employees over 35 are the most at risk, and once they receive a C, it is challenging to secure a transfer opportunity.”
These employees are mostly in the mid-stage of their careers, with heavy family responsibilities and reduced career flexibility, yet they face the harshest evaluation pressures.
What do you think about Huawei’s current performance management approach? Do you believe that receiving a C rating equates to being pushed out is reasonable? Have employees in Data Communication and Enterprise Services truly become the “sacrificial victims” of the company’s strategic adjustments? Feel free to share your views and experiences in the comments!