Compana 2025 in Review: How People Intelligence Took Centre Stage in Asia
And what this means for the future of people science in Asia.
2025 didn’t arrive quietly. It moved through the region with questions — big ones — about work, people, performance, leadership, and the unseen behavioural patterns that drive all of it.
This year, HR leaders across Asia paused and asked:
- “Why do some people thrive in certain environments but not in others?”
- “Why do good CVs still lead to poor hires?”
- “What does ‘potential’ actually look like in behaviour?”
- “How do we build cultures that don’t just measure people, but understand them?”
As Thomas Malaysia, and later, as Compana International, we find ourselves right in the middle of this shift. This is a reflection on what the year taught us about people, behaviour, culture, and the evolution of HR in Asia.
1. Identity Isn’t About Branding, It’s About Clarity
When we stepped into the Compana identity, it wasn’t about a new logo or colour system. Those were merely symbols. What really changed was our clarity.
Clarity in:
- How we speak to the region
- How we translate people science into the Asian context
- How we guide leaders through behavioural conversations
- How we show up as a partner, not a provider
Through hundreds of conversations, one insight became obvious:
- Asia doesn’t need complexity; it needs clarity.
- Clarity that respects nuance.
- Clarity that honours cultural context.
- Clarity that helps leaders actually understand the humans behind their teams.
Our brand identity wasn’t a marketing exercise. It was an alignment exercise, aligning our outward message with the kind of organisation we’ve been internally becoming. A partner rooted in connection, understanding, approachability, and precision.
2. 2025 Was the Year HR Leaders Relearned How to “See” People
Digital expansion wasn’t about visibility for us; it was about accessibility.
Our new LinkedIn presence across Asia, our website launch, and our newsletter weren’t created to “make noise.” They were built to make space.
Space for:
- HR leaders exploring behaviour for the first time
- Organisations overwhelmed by conflicting advice
- Managers trying to understand “why people behave the way they do”
- Teams struggling with misalignment
And the insight that kept surfacing was this:
✔ HR wants to talk about people insights, they just need someone to translate it.
- CVs and experience-based hiring are losing their power.
- Post-pandemic behavioural shifts have made intuition less reliable.
- Organisations need a new lens, not to replace instinct, but to refine it.
- Our digital footprint gave leaders a starting point.
- A place to explore, reflect, and learn at their own pace.
2025 wasn’t the year we “entered digital.” It was the year organisations started looking for us there.
3. The Region Is Hungry for Practical People Science, Not More Models
The events we participated in this year told a very specific story.
At the National Human Capital Conference & Exhibition, leaders didn’t want grand frameworks or buzzwords. They wanted grounding:
- Where do we begin?
- How do we make people science practical?
- How do we align behaviour with performance?
At the People Lab, something even deeper surfaced:
Leaders are craving spaces where vulnerability, introspection, and emotional capacity are treated as leadership essentials, not soft skills.
These were not polished, corporate conversations. They were human ones. About fear. About uncertainty. About team tensions. About decision fatigue. About emotional bandwidth. About what leadership looks like beneath the title.
And we realised:
People science isn’t about diagnosing people; it’s about creating conversations leaders didn’t know they were allowed to have.
That was one of the most meaningful insights of our year.
4. Recognition Isn’t the Achievement, The Shift Behind It Is
When we won two awards during the HR Vendor of the Year Awards in November, it wasn’t the spotlight that moved us. It was what the awards symbolised.
They reflected a changing landscape.
- Organisations are not choosing assessments because they’re trendy.
- They’re choosing assessments because they provide behavioural clarity.
- Leaders are seeking understanding, not just performance metrics.
The awards reminded us that the demand for people science in Malaysia is real, growing, and evolving. We are not racing to keep up with the market. We are growing with it, thoughtfully, steadily, and with respect for context.
5. The Hard Truths We Needed to Confront This Year
Working closely with organisations around Asia revealed several recurring misconceptions that shape (and sometimes distort) talent decisions:
❌ “Assessments are tests.”
✔ No — they are people insights.
They show patterns people don’t always notice in themselves.
❌ “We just want faster hiring.”
✔ What organisations truly want is accurate hiring.
❌ “Employees leave because of salary.”
✔ Often, it’s a behavioural mismatch, not pay.
❌ “Leadership comes with seniority.”
✔ Leadership comes from emotional capacity, curiosity, and self-management.
These truths shaped our work this year and reinforced our role in the ecosystem:
Compana isn’t here to sell assessments. We’re here to translate behaviour into clarity, decisions, and direction.
6. 2026: The Year of Depth, Not Expansion
Our focus for 2026 isn’t scale. Its depth. Depth in how we teach. Depth in how we guide. Depth in how organisations apply people science after the report is delivered.
Our 2026 commitments:
- Simplify people intelligence so any organisation can apply it
- Expand training and accreditation for deeper capability, not dependency
- Strengthen cross-border knowledge sharing across Asia
- Translate global Thomas research into local, cultural understanding
- Equip leaders to understand behaviour before managing performance
2026 will be quieter, deeper, more grounded, and far more human
A Closing Reflection
2025 taught us that people science is not a trend. It’s not a tool. It’s not an add-on. It’s the foundation of how organisations hire, lead, build, grow, and retain their teams. It is the language beneath every strategic HR decision.
Thank you for walking with us through this evolution, for your questions, your trust, your curiosity, and your willingness to explore behaviour with honesty.
2026 will be a year of deeper understanding, deeper application, and deeper partnership.
✨ Compana International
Thomas Malaysia
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