Culture is often seen as an aspirational concept in many organisations – an ideal that sits on company walls and in corporate handbooks but seldom makes its way into the day-to-day reality of employees.

At Grab, however, culture is intentionally built to be lived and experienced. It is a force that evolves alongside the company’s people and the communities they serve.

For Chin Yin Ong, Chief People Officer at Grab, culture is not just a set of lofty ideals – it is both an art and a science.

“Culture building, to me, is both an art and a science,” Ong told People Matters in an exclusive interview. “Culture, to some companies, is very, very aspirational. But at Grab, we really wanted to make sure that it’s very, very grounded."

A culture rooted in reality

Ong and her team sought to define the characteristics that drive success at Grab – not through abstract ideals, but by looking at the people who were already thriving within the organisation.

“At the start, when we were trying to dive a little bit more into what kind of people display behaviours that make them really very successful at Grab, right?” she explained.

To do this, Grab surveyed its employees – known internally as Grabbers – with two fundamental questions:

• What are the characteristics of people or leaders that are successful at Grab?
• What are the characteristics of leaders who are not successful at Grab?

What emerged from this process was not a set of aspirational qualities but a concrete framework: the 4H values – Heart, Honour, Hunger, and Humility.

“Through a process more like filtration, rather than an aspirational goal setting, we discovered that the most successful people at Grab, even in those early days, have what we call the 4H values: Heart, Honour, Hunger, and Humility,” Ong said.

These values became the foundation of Grab’s culture.

“And some of these are very distinctive of Grab. And it applies to really all, across all kinds of businesses that we are. Whether you are in tech, whether you are in a corporate function, whether you are in a sales function, we found that there are these ingredients that make someone truly, truly successful at Grab,” she said.

The result? A culture that mirrors the company’s most effective people – rather than a culture imposed from the top down. It is a philosophy that aligns with Grab’s mission to serve Southeast Asia’s small entrepreneurs, delivery drivers, and micro-merchants.

Culture as a living and evolving force

While many organisations create a set of core values and leave them unchanged for decades, Grab treats its culture as something that must continuously evolve.

“I think the other thing about culture building at Grab is that we really evolve our culture over time,” Ong said.

“Now, that doesn’t mean that you change your values every two to three years, but it is a topic that we – in our annual planning – constantly keep looking at to say, how can we enhance our culture and make sure that it’s not just words that’s living on the wall, right? And in paintings and in all our collaterals.”

At Grab, culture is an active part of decision-making, leadership development, and employee engagement. It is woven into the company’s operational fabric, ensuring it stays relevant as the business scales and evolves.

Values defined by purpose

One of the most distinctive aspects of Grab’s 4H cultural framework is its definition of hunger, a value that could easily be mistaken for aggressive competitiveness. But for Grab, hunger is not about outperforming colleagues but about being relentless in serving customers and finding real solutions.

“Hunger is not about being hypercompetitive with your teammates. It’s not about, you know, fighting just for our own goals,” Ong explained.

Instead, it is about seeking what she calls the ground truth.

“Hunger to us is about seeking out the ground truth, the hunger to serve our consumers and our partners,” she said.

“And so we’re highly encouraged to be speaking to the microentrepreneurs, the merchants, the delivery drivers that we serve every day and understand their lives and seek the ground truth so that we can find the right solutions.”

This philosophy ensures that Grab’s employees are not just working within corporate silos but are actively engaging with the communities they serve. It is a value that translates into real-world impact, ensuring that Grab’s platform is shaped by the needs of its users rather than assumptions made in boardrooms.

A culture that underpins success

For Ong, culture at Grab is not a static doctrine but a living, breathing entity.

“In totality, we really look at culture as a living thing. We look at culture [knowing] that we need to evolve often over time and make sure that it’s not a set of words that is just in everybody’s onboarding materials," she said.

This philosophy sets Grab apart. By building a culture that reflects the behaviours of its most successful employees and embedding it deeply into everyday operations, Grab has created an environment where people thrive.

As the company continues to grow, its culture will continue to evolve, ensuring that the values that make Grab successful today remain just as relevant for the challenges of tomorrow.