A shocking video with more than 10 million views shows staff at a property firm being slapped and made to crawl on all fours like dogs.

The clip was filmed at a Zhonghuan Properties monthly employee-evaluation meeting in Yichang City in Central China's Hubei Province.

Five men and their supervisor can be seen standing in a line as their teary-eyed sales manager, surnamed Zhang, slaps them multiple times across the face, reports thesun.co.uk.

One of the men even has his glasses knocked off his face in the process as Zhang goes back and forth punishing them.

Another part of the video showed at least two dozen men crawling around on the floor in a circle while chanting the company’s mantra, with their branch manager standing in the centre looking at his watch.

The video caused outrage online and social media users branded it as a demonstration of ‘backward company culture’.

One of the branch's managers, surnamed Hu, admitted that he filmed the video to send to his colleague but did not expect it to be leaked online.

The Zhonghuan Properties branch, which is one of 10 offices and more than 160 staff, claims the footage has been ‘misinterpreted’.

One of the six men slapped in the video, surnamed Tan, said he and his colleagues suggested and then volunteered for the punishment after their supervisors lectured them about failing to meet their sales targets for the month.

Tan also noted that the sales manager Zhang was ‘reluctant’ to take part but decided to carry out the slapping punishment after being begged ‘four to five times’.

She has since quit her job, the property firm revealed.

Following the online backlash, the company has promised to review its methods and ‘improve’.

The police are not believed to be involved in the incident.

‘A proper company would never do something to humiliating its staff like this,’ social media user 'Feitianhui honey' wrote.