Beyond Policies: 5 People and Culture Lessons from PACC 2026
By Alia Huzaidi
On 5–6 August 2026, the People & Culture Conference (PACC) returned to CCEC, Bangsar South, Kuala Lumpur, bringing together 253 delegates from 132 companies and 24 speakers for two days of conversations on leadership, culture and the future of work.
But beyond the numbers, PACC has always been about one bigger question: What does it take to build organisations where people can do their best work, and actually want to stay?
As organisations navigate technological disruption, shifting expectations and increasing complexity, five themes stood out at PACC 2026 — offering important lessons for people and culture leaders and organisations alike.
1. Culture is defined by the behaviours we create – and tolerate.
Culture is frequently reduced to policies, welfare programmes, and stated values on a wall. But ultimately, workplace culture is what people experience every day.
In her keynote, “Confronting Performative Policies Towards Meaningful Inclusion & Belonging,” Emellia Shariff challenged organisations to look beyond what they say they stand for and examine what employees actually experience.
“Belongingness is a fundamental human need, not just an organisational need, for people to work well together.”
A strong DEIB policy means little if everyday behaviours tell a different story.
The question for people and culture leaders is simple: If our policies disappeared tomorrow, would our people still experience the culture we claim to have?
2. Toxic leadership becomes a culture problem when it is tolerated.
Leadership comes with power. The question is how that power is used, and whether anyone is willing to challenge it.
During the Case Study Sprint on “Addressing Common Toxic Leadership & High Power Distance Practices,” Michael Roy, Managing Director of BASF, made the implication clear: when management fails to address toxic leadership, it effectively accepts that behaviour as part of the culture.
Shahrizan Aini, Group Chief People Officer of SD Guthrie Berhad, reinforced this. “Compliance doesn't create trust. Culture is not something you put on a piece of paper. It's built over time day by day.”
And as Feldatun Sharif, Chief People Officer of TNB, put it: “Whatever we do, we have to protect our people.”
Accountability cannot only travel downwards. A healthy organisation must make it possible for people to challenge decisions, speak truth to power and hold leaders accountable, regardless of title.
This is where leadership is regarded to be equally as responsible for the workplace culture of their organisation. The behaviours leaders model — and the behaviours organisations choose to overlook — ultimately shape the culture employees experience.
3. Brand trust starts from within.
Brand reputation is often treated purely as a marketing or customer-facing challenge But in reality, it begins with employees.
In his keynote, “Regaining Public Trust & Market Confidence In A Conscious Economy,” Animesh Mukherjee, Chief People Officer of CIMB Group, highlighted the importance of alignment: “Personal purpose has to align with company purpose.”
Employees need to understand how their contribution connects to the organisation's wider purpose, and believe in it enough to embody it.
The conversation was expanded in a Fireside Chat session titled “Navigating Geo-Political Turmoil Impacting Business & Brand Reputation”, where Floris Verhagen, Vice President (APAC) at ROSEN, similarly emphasised that a brand is ultimately a reflection of the people within it.
Customers see what an organisation projects on the outside, but employees live what happens on the inside. You cannot market your way out of a broken internal workplace culture; the two must align if you expect anyone to trust the brand.
4. Psychological safety enables high performance.
Psychological safety is sometimes mistaken for comfort: a workplace where everyone agrees and nobody is challenged.
But it is fundamentally the opposite. It is the ability to say “I don't agree,” “I think there's a problem,” or “I need help” – without fearing what happens next.
During “Leading with Emotional Intelligence in High-Pressure, High-Reward Settings,” Ellisha Othman, Co-Founder, Managing Director & Clinical Psychologist at Thrive Well, highlighted how honest conversations in workplace culture can unlock better solutions.
“When we can open up the safe spaces for conversations where people can really be honest and know that their feedback is taken into consideration, then I think a lot of the solutioning can happen.”
Sometimes, the fastest way to identify a problem isn't another dashboard. It's creating an environment where someone feels safe enough to tell you the truth.
5. AI makes People & Culture more important, not less.
At PACC 2025, delegates asked what people and culture would look like in the age of AI. This year, that conversation continued through “Managing the Promise & Peril of AI in a Workplace Prone to Cyber Crisis.”
Yuki Aizawa, Regional Director (APAC) at Women In Tech, offered a timely reminder: “Technology comes and goes, but employees have to evolve with it.”
And Azizah Ali, Group CEO of Awantec, reframed AI adoption: “AI is not taking away their work. AI is actually transforming the way they work.”
That transformation requires more than new tools. It requires new skills, new mindsets, new leadership behaviours and, above all, a culture that empowers people to learn and evolve.
The decisive advantage in an era of technological disruption has never been the tools you buy — it is whether your culture allows your people to adapt to them.
So, where do we go from here?
Across two days, PACC 2026 brought together leaders from different industries and organisational contexts. With these differences in one room, all conversations led to one truth: people and culture aren't separate from business performance. It shapes it.
Culture determines whether people speak up or stay silent. Whether leaders are challenged or simply obeyed. Whether purpose is embodied or merely communicated. Whether pressure drives performance or pushes people out.
And at the core of it all: whether organisations can adapt when the world around them changes.
Perhaps the biggest takeaway isn't a new framework, policy or trend. It's a reminder that organisations don't build workplace culture once. They build it every day through every decision, every conversation and every behaviour they choose to tolerate.
So the question for leaders isn't simply, “What kind of culture do we want?”
It is: “What kind of culture are we creating, right now?”
For more insights from PACC 2026, be sure to visit peopleandcultureconference.com.
To know how MIDP can help transform your culture into one that works, get your free custom proposal today!
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