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"Sustainable business growth begins with people growth." Guided by this belief, UR Klinik has made leadership development part of its everyday culture, aiming to help women build confidence, leadership capability, and financial independence.
As UR Virtue Berhad (UR Klinik) continued to expand in the recent years, the organisation uncovered a simple but powerful insight: sustainable business growth begins with people growth. While systems and processes can support operations, it is leaders who build trust, shape culture, and drive employee engagement.
This realisation led the medical aesthetics provider to shift its focus from performance management towards leadership development, particularly among its predominantly female workforce. Rather than treating employee experience as a separate HR initiative, UR Klinik embedded leadership development into everyday work, with the goal to help women build confidence, leadership capability, and financial independence through meaningful careers.
Making this work required organisation-wide commitment. From weekly leadership discussions and frontline study groups to mentoring sessions and biannual leadership training, people development became a shared responsibility across the business. In this edition of Winning Secrets, Dr Jovyn Ng, Chief People Officer, UR Klinik, shares how the organisation's women leadership strategy earned it the silver award for 'Best Women Leadership Programme' at the Employee Experience Awards 2026, Malaysia.
Find the full interview below.
Q Tell us about the biggest insight or lesson that influenced your EX approach this past year.
One of our biggest insights was that sustainable business growth begins with people growth. As UR Klinik expanded, we realised that systems could support operations, but only great leaders could sustain trust, engagement, and culture. This shifted our focus from managing performance to intentionally developing leaders who could grow people while growing the business.
In a women-centric organisation where most of our employees and customers are women, we saw that confident and empowered women leaders created stronger psychological safety, collaboration, and team performance. Rather than treating employee experience as a standalone HR initiative, we embedded leadership development into everyday work, helping women build confidence, leadership capability, and ultimately achieve personal growth and financial independence.
When employees feel genuinely supported, valued, and inspired by their leaders, positive employee experience becomes a natural outcome.
Q How did you bring leaders, managers, and employees together to support the execution and success of the initiative?
We believe people development should never belong to HR alone; it should be owned by every leader. From the beginning, our CEO and leadership team consistently positioned people development as a business priority, making leadership an integral part of how the organisation operates.
Rather than relying on standalone programmes, leadership development was embedded into our operating rhythm. Leaders met weekly not only to review business performance, but also to align direction, discuss people challenges, and support one another's growth. This was complemented by weekly frontline study groups, monthly manager study groups, monthly management meetings that brought all managers together, regular mentoring and engagement sessions, as well as our biannual "Shine & Bright" Leadership Training to deepen leadership capability and organisational alignment.
What united everyone was a shared purpose: empowering women to build confidence, leadership capability, and financial independence through meaningful careers. When leaders consistently invested in people's growth and employees experienced that commitment firsthand, engagement, ownership, and collaboration naturally became part of our culture.
Q What challenge behind the scenes tested your team the most, and what did it teach you about building stronger employee experience programmes?
One of our biggest challenges was supporting emerging women leaders as they transitioned from outstanding operational performers into people leaders. Many excelled at delivering results, but leadership demanded a different set of capabilities — building trust, influencing people, making difficult decisions, and leading through uncertainty.
This journey taught us that leadership cannot be developed through training alone. It grows through continuous mentoring, real-life experiences, regular reflection, and a supportive environment where leaders feel safe to learn, make mistakes, and improve.
More importantly, we realised that strong employee experience is built through everyday leadership rather than one-off initiatives. By embedding leadership development into our daily and monthly operating rhythm, from coaching conversations and study groups to leadership meetings and leadership training camps, we created an environment where leaders continue to grow alongside their teams.
Q As you reflect on the journey, what does this recognition at the Employee Experience Awards 2026 mean to you and your team?
This recognition is deeply meaningful because it affirms something we have always believed — that when women are empowered to grow and lead, the impact extends far beyond the workplace. It strengthens families, inspires communities, and creates a positive ripple effect in society.
As a medical aesthetic organisation serving predominantly women, we believe empowering the women who care for our customers is equally important as caring for the customers themselves. At UR Klinik, our internal mission is to help employees achieve personal growth and financial independence through meaningful careers. Women leadership has never been about increasing representation alone; it is about building confident leaders who can create meaningful experiences for both our employees and the women we serve every day.
For our team, this silver award reflects years of collective effort from our founder, leaders, managers, and employees who have embraced a culture of learning, support, and continuous growth. Beyond celebrating an achievement, it reinforces our belief that when people grow, business grows. This recognition inspires us to continue building a Profit with Purpose organisation where people thrive, leaders grow, and success is measured not only by business results, but by the lives we help transform.
Q Finally, as employee expectations continue to evolve, what is one area of EX you believe HR teams will need to rethink in the year ahead?
I believe HR teams need to rethink employee experience from career progression to continuous growth. Today's employees are not just asking, "When will I be promoted?" They are asking, "Am I learning? Am I growing? Am I becoming a better version of myself?"
At UR Klinik, we believe meaningful careers are built by continuously developing capability, confidence, and financial independence. This is especially important for women, whose career journeys may evolve alongside different life stages and responsibilities. Rather than adopting a one-size-fits-all approach, organisations should create flexible growth pathways that help individuals progress at their own pace while staying connected to a shared purpose.
Ultimately, the future of employee experience will depend on how well organisations develop leaders who genuinely care about people's growth.
When leaders genuinely invest in people's growth, employee engagement, business performance, and organisational success naturally follow.
Read more interviews on why organisations have won trophies for their HR practices - head over to our Winning Secrets section!
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