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From workforce data and AI to wellbeing, critical skills and employee benefits, HR and rewards leaders at Total Rewards Asia Summit 2026 – Malaysia shared lessons on making total rewards more strategic, sustainable, and business-focused. Umairah Nasir reports.
As employee expectations evolve, healthcare costs rise and organisations compete for increasingly specialised skills, the role of total rewards is changing.
It is no longer enough for rewards teams to benchmark salaries, manage benefits, and deliver annual reward cycles. Increasingly, the function is expected to help shape workforce strategy, influence employee behaviour, and support business performance.
Across two days at Total Rewards Asia Summit (TRAS) 2026 – Malaysia, HR and rewards leaders explored what this shift means in practice. Discussions covered everything from strategic rewards and employee wellbeing to AI, skills, job architecture, performance, benefits and the difficult trade-offs that come with reward decisions.
Here are 10 key takeaways from the summit, as distilled by Umairah Nasir.
Takeaway #1: Total rewards leaders need to move from data owners to strategic advisors
The opening keynote set the tone for Day 1 with a challenge for rewards professionals: move beyond being the people who produce the numbers and become the people who help the business understand what those numbers mean.
Shazmi Ali, Vice President of Human Resources, Shell Business Operations (SBO), Shell Malaysia, pointed to the wealth of data that sits within the total rewards function, from compensation and benefits to workforce trends and employee insights.
No other sub function in HR has the richness of the data like you.
The opportunity, however, is not simply to collect more data. Rewards leaders need to connect it to business priorities and translate analytics into a narrative that senior leaders can act on.
That also means developing stronger commercial understanding and building relationships beyond the HR function.
As Shazmi put it: "I want to be part of the discussion. Don't give me the minutes of the meeting."
The shift is therefore from reporting what happened to influencing what happens next.
[Read our full coverage of Shazmi's session, here.]
Takeaway #2: Rewards should shape employee expectations, not simply respond to them
Employee expectations are changing quickly, but Day 2 speakers challenged HR leaders to think beyond simply keeping up with those expectations.
Ernee Yuni, Head of Leadership and Talent Management, Malaysia Aviation Group, argued that organisations should take a more proactive approach.
"High-performing organisations... don't respond to demand. They actually shape it."
That requires HR and business leaders to be deliberate about what their reward strategies communicate.
Pay, performance, development, recognition and career opportunities can all reinforce the behaviours and capabilities an organisation wants to see.
Rather than asking only what employees want, rewards leaders can ask what the organisation needs to encourage, whether that is stronger performance, leadership capability, critical skills or long-term retention.
In that sense, she noted, rewards becomes more than a response to employee expectations – it becomes a tool for shaping them.
Takeaway #3: One-size-fits-all rewards are giving way to more differentiated strategies
A workforce spanning different generations, life stages and talent segments is unlikely to value the same rewards in the same way.
In a panel discussion on designing rewards for a diverse workforce, speakers highlighted the challenge for organisations: balancing relevance and affordability while remaining competitive in the market. The answer, they agreed, is not simply to offer more benefits. Instead, organisations need a clearer understanding of who needs what, why it matters to them and where investment will create the greatest value.
This requires a more strategic view of fairness.
A separate discussion explored the risks of treating every employee and role identically – particularly when certain skills and roles are far more critical to business performance than others.
Equality in rewards is not fairness. It is erosion of the strategic intent.
Differentiation, therefore, should not be about creating winners and losers. It should be about ensuring rewards investment is aligned with business criticality, talent priorities and future capability needs.
Takeaway #4: Wellbeing needs to move from programmes to an embedded business strategy
Wellbeing featured prominently across Day 1, with speakers pushing back against the idea that workplace wellbeing can be addressed through isolated campaigns or an annual wellness calendar.
Laavenia Ramasegar, Head of Wellbeing, CelcomDigi, described wellbeing as a broader ecosystem encompassing physical, mental and emotional health, as well as psychosocial wellbeing.
The real definition of well-being is when a person can bring the best version of themselves to work consistently all the time.
This, she said, requires organisations to look at the conditions that enable people to perform sustainably, rather than treating wellbeing as an additional HR offering.
At CelcomDigi, the approach includes psychological safety, mental health support and measurement of psychosocial risks. Employee feedback and workforce data can then help identify where further intervention is needed.
The lesson is clear: wellbeing needs ownership, data, accountability and measurable outcomes if it is to become a genuine business strategy.
Takeaway #5: Sustainable wellbeing is built through everyday behaviours
The conversation around wellbeing also moved away from big-ticket programmes towards the smaller behaviours that employees can realistically sustain.
During a panel on data-driven workplace wellbeing, panellists explored how micro-behaviours, nudges, and habit loops can help make healthier choices part of everyday work.
This means organisations first need to understand their workforce rather than automatically rolling out the same intervention for everyone.
Data and employee feedback can help identify different needs, segment populations, and determine where interventions are likely to have the greatest impact.
There is also a change-management element. Introducing a new wellbeing tool, habit, or process can disrupt established routines, meaning HR needs to understand where resistance may come from and bring employees along in the process.
The takeaway here is that lasting wellbeing is less about one major initiative and more about making healthier behaviours easier to adopt consistently.
Takeaway #6: AI can make rewards more personalised, but human judgement still matters
AI and digital tools are increasingly becoming part of the rewards conversation, particularly as organisations look for ways to personalise employee support and make better use of workforce data.
The discussions at TRAS Malaysia highlighted potential applications ranging from analysing employee data and identifying trends to improving benefits administration and supporting more personalised wellbeing interventions.
For rewards teams, the value of AI lies partly in its ability to process information at a scale that would be difficult to manage manually.
But better data does not automatically mean better decisions. HR leaders still need to interpret the information, understand the employee context and make judgement calls around sensitive issues such as wellbeing, privacy, fairness and benefits design.
The opportunity is therefore not to replace human decision-making, but to free HR teams from some of the administrative work so they can spend more time on judgement, strategy and employee experience.
Takeaway #7: Skills are challenging traditional job architecture
The changing nature of work is also forcing rewards leaders to reconsider how jobs are structured and valued.
During Day 2's panel on job architecture, speakers examined whether traditional job structures remain fit for purpose as organisations place greater emphasis on skills, capabilities and evolving roles.
The question for rewards teams is increasingly bigger than the job title or grade.
What skills does the organisation need? Which capabilities are becoming critical? How quickly can those skills change? And how should employees be recognised when the value they bring does not fit neatly into an existing job structure?
For organisations operating in fast-moving industries, greater flexibility in job architecture can help rewards strategies keep pace with changes in work.
This does not mean abandoning structure altogether. Instead, it means ensuring job architecture can accommodate skills-based talent strategies, evolving responsibilities and new career pathways.
Takeaway #8: When benchmarks are missing, rewards leaders need stronger judgement
One of the practical challenges explored during the Leadership Exchange was what happens when there is no obvious market benchmark for a role.
As organisations create new positions and compete for emerging skills, rewards professionals may encounter roles that simply did not exist in the market previously.
The discussion highlighted the need to look beyond a single external benchmark and consider the wider context, including internal equity, role scope, business value, talent scarcity and affordability.
That requires rewards leaders to be comfortable making informed decisions even when the data is incomplete.
The goal is not to find the perfect number. It is to build a defensible reward decision that makes sense for both the individual role and the wider workforce.
Takeaway #9: Critical skills require rewards and talent acquisition to work together
The competition for niche and fast-moving skills has also made the relationship between total rewards and talent acquisition more important.
Paying above an existing range may help an organisation secure a candidate quickly, but it can also create internal equity concerns and questions about what happens when other employees discover the difference.
The lightning talks on compensation and talent acquisition highlighted the importance of making these decisions jointly rather than treating recruitment and rewards as separate processes.
That includes asking whether a capability genuinely needs to be bought externally or whether the organisation can build the skill internally.
Where an external hire is necessary, the discussion also pointed towards looking beyond salary alone. Career opportunities, development, role scope and future progression can all form part of the proposition.
Ultimately, the strongest rewards strategy is not necessarily the one that pays the most. It is the one that makes intentional, sustainable talent investments.
Takeaway #10: Every reward decision solves one problem and creates another
Perhaps one of the most consistent lessons across the two days was the importance of looking beyond the immediate outcome of any reward decision.
As Li Chiang Sia, Regional Performance & Rewards Manager, Southeast Asia, KONE, put it:
"Every reward decision solves one problem and creates another."
Paying a premium, for example, may help solve an immediate recruitment challenge, but it can also raise questions about internal equity. A cost-saving measure may protect the budget in the short term while weakening employee trust. Similarly, a performance system may encourage the desired behaviours but lead to unintended consequences if it is poorly designed or implemented.
The principle extends beyond compensation and benefits. Donovan Cheah, Co-Founding Partner, Donovan & Ho, highlighted the financial and organisational consequences that can arise when employee terminations are handled poorly. Both the reason for the decision and the process used to carry it out need to be justified, he noted. Employees should receive a clear explanation, an opportunity to respond and a process that is respectful and private.
The broader lesson is that a decision that appears rational on paper can still affect trust, culture, employee experience and, ultimately, business performance. Rewards leaders therefore need to consider not only what a decision solves today, but also the consequences it may create tomorrow.
From pay and benefits to business strategy
Across the two days, the conversation around total rewards repeatedly came back to one central question: what is the organisation trying to achieve, and how can rewards help it get there?
Answering that question requires rewards leaders to look beyond salary benchmarks and benefits utilisation. They need to understand the business, identify critical talent and skills, use data intelligently, listen to employees and consider the longer-term effects of each reward decision.
For a function traditionally associated with numbers, policies and annual processes, this represents a significant shift.
Ultimately, the future of total rewards is not simply about paying competitively. It is about making deliberate strategic choices that help organisations attract the right talent, build the capabilities they need, support employee wellbeing and create sustainable business value.
In addition to the speakers above, Human Resources Online would like to thank the following speakers, panellists and moderators for sharing their insights at TRAS Malaysia 2026:
- Cedric Deschamps, CEO, Pacific Prime Malaysia
- Heena Bose, CEO, Pacific Prime Singapore
- Pooja Todi, Global Mobility Programs Manager, Baker Hughes
- Su Lyn Doong, Country HR Leader, GE Aerospace
- Vincent Li, CEO, Tribe Benefits
- Jayanti Kandayah, Head of HR, VAT Malaysia
- Amanda Lim, Head of Talent Management, Wellous Group
- Katherine Leong, Director of Health and Wellness Tech, Fermion
- Vellu Mahadevan, Country HR Director, Micron Memory Malaysia
- Debica Sigamani, Chief Talent Officer, Omnicom Media
- Jaime Liew, Regional Total Rewards Lead, Leader Energy
- Surya Darpita, Senior Principal APAC CoE Total Rewards and Performance, B. Braun
- Thamayenthi Narayanan, Senior Director, Group Cluster Human Resources MY, BN, SG, VN, ID, PH, DKSH
- Siti Sabariah Ahmad Murtazam, AVP, People & Culture, KWAP
- Sheila Bala, Head of Talent Acquisition Malaysia, Standard Chartered Bank
- Stephanie Leong, Head of Culture & Change Transformation, U Mobile
- Fazila Banoo Manzur Elahi, Head of Performance & Rewards, Permodalan Nasional Berhad
- Shu Tze Yuh, Head of Organisation Effectiveness, Performance & Recognition, Valiram Group
- Anjan Varma, Total Rewards Associate Director, Southeast Asia, Australia & New Zealand, BD
- Adrita Datta, Cluster Head of Talent, Culture & Inclusion, Malaysia & Singapore, British American Tobacco
- Michelle Yong, Head of Human Resources, Dutch Lady Milk Industries
- Dr Koh Ngee Loke, HR Director, Malaysia & Thailand, Ultra Clean Technology
- Sek Fong Kan, Lead, Compensation & Benefits, onsemi
- Queenie Yeoh, Head of Reward & HR Services, Hilti Asia IT Services
We would also like to extend our gratitude to our sponsors & partners for making this conference possible:
GOLD SPONSOR
Pacific Prime
SILVER SPONSOR:
Fermion
Tribe Benefits
EVENT PARTNER
Pigeonhole Live
Keen to attend our 2027 edition? Register your interest here!
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Photos / HRO
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