Great Place To Work: Malaysia makes first-ever national list

23 February 2026

SINGAPORE: Between broad economic reforms, a booming startup scene, and a talent market growing more competitive by the quarter, Malaysia is having a moment.

What the country hasn't had, until now, is Great Place To Work. The global authority on workplace culture behind the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For and Best Workplaces™ lists in more than 170 countries is arriving. This Thursday, 26 February, Great Place To Work will release the inaugural Best Workplaces in Malaysia list for 2026.

"We're honoured to bring the Best Workplaces recognition to Malaysia for the first time," said Evelyn Kwek, Managing Director of Great Place To Work ASEAN & ANZ. "It's an extremely dynamic time for this country, and as the nation presses forward with ambitious growth plans, it makes sense for organisations here to have a benchmark for attracting and retaining high-quality talent."

Drawing on data from over 45,000 individual employee survey responses, representing a workforce of 95,000, it stands as one of the most comprehensive workplace culture studies Malaysia has ever seen.

Twenty organisations have made the cut for 2026 across small, medium and large categories, spanning tech, hospitality, construction, finance, manufacturing and professional services – a cross-section of the industries driving Malaysia's economy.

The rankings are based on the Great Place To Work Trust Index™ Survey, the same methodology used worldwide. Employees answer questions about what it's really like to work at their company, and Great Place To Work examines how positive that experience is for all groups, roles and levels – not just a select few.

To become Great Place To Work Certified, organisations must achieve at least a 65 per cent score on the survey. Only Certified organisations are then considered for the Best Workplaces list, where the highest-scoring companies in each size category are ranked.

"Great Place To Work has accumulated global best practices around people, leadership and culture from nearly three decades of data," said Kwek. "Those insights are invaluable to Malaysian companies, whether they're homegrown businesses or local operations of multinationals. While Great Place To Work hasn't been in Malaysia until now, we've been operating in this region for more than 12 years with many big clients who have a presence in the country."

Kwek has led the team that also introduced Great Place To Work culture benchmarking to Singapore, the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand.

"I believe we bring the best of both worlds: global best practices in leadership and people culture, applied with local nuance."

Malaysia's economic trajectory, growth ambitions and increasingly competitive regional talent market have created precisely the conditions where workplace culture becomes a strategic differentiator.

Last year the Malaysian economy grew by 5.2 per cent and the ringgit emerged as Asia's best-performing currency, gaining nearly 9 per cent against the US dollar. Unemployment has fallen to around 3 per cent – its lowest level in a decade – and North American tech giants and cloud providers have committed more than US$23 billion to build data centres and digital infrastructure across the nation.

"We feel it's time to recognise companies that are doing wonderful things – truly great workplaces that top talent might consider working for. Malaysia is definitely a country coming into its own in that respect," Kwek said.

One of the more interesting tensions in Malaysia's current business landscape is the coexistence of a thriving startup ecosystem alongside large, established corporations. Both need strong culture, but for entirely different reasons.

"There is a growing number of startups in Malaysia, and we can help them understand how to scale culture as they grow and expand. For large organisations, the challenge is different: it's about how to amplify culture so that it reaches every part of the business. These are two distinct challenges, and we have the experience and data to support both," Kwek explained.

Scaling culture is straightforward in theory. But what happens when a 40-person company doubles its headcount in a single quarter and the informal structures that once held everything together – who talks to whom, how decisions get made, what new hires absorb in their first week – stop working?

"When organisations have a strategic focus on culture, they statistically do better on innovation, adaptability and even revenue," explained Kwek. "High-trust workplaces earn up to 8.5 times more revenue per employee than the market average. They're also better able to withstand the shocks of an uneven financial climate. Trust is what allows them to absorb that friction and still perform, and often outperform their competitors."

Bringing Best Workplaces to Malaysia 2026 is just the beginning. Great Place To Work will be building an annually updated body of evidence about what workplace culture actually looks like in the country, measured by the people who experience it every day.

"One of the key distinguishing factors of Great Place To Work is that our model is built on the idea of a great place to work for all – the ideal of inclusiveness. As Malaysia builds its next-generation workforce, helping organisations build and amplify a culture of trust, regardless of background or where people come from, is foundational. That 'for all' philosophy is what we hope to bring to Malaysia," Kwek said.

For the companies that made the list, it represents external validation of something they've been investing in internally. For those that haven't yet participated, the benchmark now exists and a standard has been set.