Chinese tech companies have sparked controversy on social media after choosing to motivate their male employees by hiring ’programming cheerleaders’.’

The ’pretty, talented’ girls are hired to ’create a fun work environment’ for employees of internet companies across the country, according to social media website Trending in China.

Their job includes buying programmers breakfast, chitchatting and playing ping-pong with them,’ the post said.

Pictures show young women being trained in a corporate room by a senior employee, each dressed in bright outfits and taking notes.

Additional images show the women chatting to employees as they work, laughing with a number of male workers and participating in what appears to be an office sing-along.

They also show one of the employees playing ping-pong with one of the women.

An HR manager of one of the companies that apparently hired the ’cheerleaders’ told the site that their programmers were ’mostly male and terrible at socialising.’

The presence of these girls has greatly improved their job efficiency and motivation,’ the HR manager said.

The response on social media to the pictures has been less positive.

Or you know, hire some women who code. Oh wait, that would be too intimidating for theses man-children, right?’ One Facebook user wrote.

How about the female coders? Do they get some men?’ Another said.

I bet that these girls would work better than the guys in this company, and without needing any cheerleading stuff for that. This is ridiculous,’ a female user said.

It is currently unknown what companies are choosing to introduce this role and how many have indeed adopted it.