Kumpulan Wang Persaraan (Diperbadankan), widely known as KWAP, achieved the highest recognition at the recent 2025–2026 HR Stars Awards Malaysia by winning the Employer of Choice award. This headline victory is a collective triumph that provides a comprehensive model for HR practitioners on how a large public-sector organisation can successfully build an award-winning workforce framework while operating under high institutional visibility.
As Malaysia’s largest public-sector pension fund, KWAP is charged with the unique national mandate of safeguarding retirement security, healthcare affordability, and financial dignity. Operating in an environment reshaped by rapidly changing national demographics, the HRD has deliberately moved away from traditional back-office administration to function as a core catalyst for enterprise-wide transformation. By treating culture building as an intentional science rather than an exercise in basic comfort, the fund has established an operational environment where human equity, open communication, and strategic capacity planning are structurally aligned with societal outcomes.
The foundational engine driving this cultural shift is an in-house curated framework built systematically around three integrated pillars: Purpose, Trust, and Camaraderie. The purpose pillar anchors the workforce by redefining employees not merely as asset managers but as direct stewards of Malaysian livelihoods. Trust is established by introducing psychological safety and absolute leadership credibility, while camaraderie fosters cross-functional inclusion and shared responsibility across all corporate levels. This entire cultural network is continuously reinforced by a dual performance and character standard known as PEKA, which dictates that performance without integrity is completely unacceptable, and integrity without performance is entirely insufficient.
To bridge the gap between strategic architecture and lived workplace habits, the HR team deployed specific interventions to make these values active across the business. At the executive layer, regular culture check-ins provide senior managers with dedicated spaces to evaluate their personal leadership styles, surface trust gaps, and adjust daily habits, ensuring that accountability begins at the top. This commitment is visualised via a public Culture Socialisation Platform where leaders record formal behavioural pledges, paired with metaverse-enabled employee experiences and dedicated Trust+ departmental budgets that pass the direct ownership of workplace culture straight into local business units.
A major factor cementing the organisation’s position as a premier national employer is its extensive, multi-layered development ecosystem. For non-executive personnel, the team introduced UPSKILL, a highly successful Mini-MBA programme designed to build business acumen, digital fluency, and leadership readiness amongst staff members who previously viewed such opportunities as out of reach. This focus on social mobility and internal professional progression is balanced alongside the launch of a robust learning management system, which achieved full group-wide adoption through automated LinkedIn Learning activation tracks to provide flexible, self-directed upskilling at scale.
The institution couples its continuous learning focus with national-scale social impact. Through the Malaysia Short-Term Employment Programme, the human resources team reskills underemployed individuals without degrees, placing them in rural areas and agricultural industries to expand public career access. External recruitment partnerships further support senior hires, returning workers, and disadvantaged individuals.
Managing these complex initiatives requires a unified workforce. The fund monitors sentiment via digital feedback channels, discarding slow annual surveys for real-time manager actions. This digital workspace is balanced by physical wellbeing programmes, including fitness challenges, medical check-ups, and a dedicated corporate childcare facility. This strategy ensures perfect compliance and exceptional workforce engagement.
