[00:00:05] Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: What’s really driving your best employees to leave, and what does it take to achieve exceptional performance. In this episode, Suhini Wijayasinghe, singer from recruitment agency People2People, explains why career growth has overtaken salary as the biggest driver of staff turnover. Suhini also shares practical ways businesses can improve retention through clearer expectations and meaningful career conversations. Then, ultra endurance athlete and entrepreneur Jason Dunn argues that talent isn’t what separates high performers from the rest. He explains why discipline, purpose and consistently doing the hard things matter far more. From SoundCartel, I’m Grace Jennings-Edquist, and this is Business Essentials.
Why career growth is now the biggest driver of staff turnover
For many years, salary has been seen as the main reason employees leave their jobs. The new research suggests that’s no longer the case. Head of HR Solutions at People2People, Suhini Wijayasinghe, joins me to explain what’s changed and what businesses can do to keep talented employees engaged. She starts by unpacking the latest People2People research, which shows career progression, has overtaken salary as the top reasons Australians are leaving jobs in 2026. I asked her what is driving that shift and why now?
[00:01:27] Suhini Wijayasinghe: The reality is a lot of people are coming to the conclusion that salaries are stagnating and that’s not, you know, new news whatsoever. And so they are trying to find fulfillment in other areas of their working lives. And as well as equipping themselves to go, okay, when I’m ready to make next move, how can I prepare myself? And how can I make sure that I’ve got all of the experience that’s required to take the step up and then possibly get a salary increase as well? So it’s a little bit of a double edged sword, which is really need to be mindful of and aware of.
[00:02:00] Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: One of the biggest gaps in the findings is around training and upskilling, with employees, rating it as a much bigger issue than employers do. Why do you think businesses are underestimating the importance of learning and development?
[00:02:13] Suhini Wijayasinghe: I think there’s several parts to that question, and one of them particularly revolves around the lack of preparedness that employers have. So they are, you know, sometimes more often than not in a position of stress when they’re hiring. You know, there’s been a quick departure. There is a lot of workflow happening. And in the current market, you know, we’ve got situations where businesses have had to make difficult decisions in terms of costs and restructures, etc. it’s not just the cost of living that’s gone up. It’s also the cost of running a business. Overheads are, you know, through the roof at the moment. And so what you find is you’ve got these new incumbents coming into positions where they’re expected to know everything. There’s not a lot of time that they’re willing to invest because they’re already under a lot of pressure from the employer perspective. And so it’s very much a. I need to teach you exactly what happens in this role, and I need you to focus on the output rather than going, how can I build and strengthen your capability to find other areas that I can leverage from you as well, which is probably the most cost effective way to, you know, manage an employee. And unfortunately, a lot of businesses aren’t seeing it that way. So they’re already on the back foot. And I know it can be really hard for businesses to kind of go, I’m already in the thick of it. It’s already so pressurized or, you know, what can I do now? But it is one of those situations where you do need to take, you know, two steps back to go five steps forward. And so it is worth that time investment to really focus on how to upskill your employees, particularly when you are already quite tight, potentially on headcount.
[00:03:42] Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: So what are some of the most common mistakes organizations are making when it comes to retention? Or perhaps, what are some of the real reasons why people are leaving organizations?
[00:03:53] Suhini Wijayasinghe: Well, I don’t think it will come as any surprise that, you know, the main reason that people are leaving is that there’s very limited career opportunities, and I think that ties in very much with the lack of training and upskilling as well. They go hand in hand. And so you’ve got this situation where people think that unless, you know, there’s a very clear progression path in the hierarchy of whatever industry or role that they might be in, that there’s no opportunity for them to be able to be retained in the business. And so that’s a miscommunication from both the employee and the employer. But really, the responsibility falls with the employer to make sure that their employees understand that, yes, while there may not be a clear and direct path, like, you know, for example, in an HR team, if someone’s an HR advisor and they want to step up into a VP role, that although that role may not be there, they can upskill and train them and develop them and give them more opportunity and take pressure off, you know, potentially other people in their team. And therein lies an opportunity missed by an employer. And an employee sees that as well. I’ve reached a dead end. I’m not really growing, so I need to look elsewhere. And so I think that there’s plenty of opportunity there for both parties to have that conversation. But really, it’s the responsibility of the employer to make sure that the employee knows that they can have that conversation and that they are open to those suggestions.
[00:05:13] Suhini Wijayasinghe: Obviously, the other ones, the other main ones really around misaligned job expectations. And that really goes back to, again, having that level of preparedness when you’re bringing somebody on board. Make sure that they’ve got their JD, you know, very clear and concise so they understand what the expectations of their role are. And that will tie into, you know, the last one, which is poor work life balance. And what you find there is people who don’t understand the parameters of their role, both as a manager and as the person in the job. Then end up with this expectation of doing other pieces of work, or not really understanding whether one headcount is sufficient for the work that they’re asking this person to do. And so that’s where that misaligned job expectation where they go, okay, well, this is what I thought I was getting myself into. But you’re asking me, you know, 20% more than what was expected. That feeds hand in hand. And it’s very much a chicken and egg situation where it then feeds into, I’m stressed and I’m not coping with this, and I don’t know where to have a conversation about this either. And because they’re so integrated, it’s hard to pinpoint where the problem actually starts.
[00:06:18] Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: I wanted to drill a bit more into this misaligned job expectations piece, because just looking at the data, I can see the report says that misaligned job expectations are being underestimated by job seekers, but heavily recognized by employers. So kind of 8% versus 32%. You did mention a couple of things that companies could do to improve transparency during recruitment, to avoid kind of disappointment and early turnover, such as making sure there’s an accurate JD. Is there anything else that employers can do to kind of, you know, reduce early turnover and avoid surprise and disappointment in terms of misaligned job expectations?
[00:06:54] Suhini Wijayasinghe: Yeah, absolutely. So I mean, look, at the end of the day, a job description only goes so far, right? Like it’s only going to describe from a very broad perspective the outcomes of of a position. There are so many things not just within your job, but just even in the way that, you know, company culture embeds itself and nuanced expectations of people within a working environment can manifest. And the issue I see is that a lot of these things are tacit knowledge. They’re held inside somebody’s head. It’s not articulated anywhere, and there’s no proper platform for a discussion to happen about those things. And usually it only comes up when someone does something that’s outside of an expectation, and then it’s a more awkward conversation of, oh, you know, you may have done something appropriately, or you did this in a way that I wasn’t really wanting. And so that causes friction. And the best way to resolve that is to have a very clear conversation when somebody comes on board about those unspoken expectations, you know, and it can be as granular as, you know, this is when we all kind of take our lunch breaks or this is the communication style I like. If you’re unwell or you need to let me know of the situation or. This is how I like to receive feedback and give feedback. All of those things are so important when it comes to having a fulfilling experience in your job.
[00:08:12] Suhini Wijayasinghe: And so when those things aren’t discussed early on, it sets you up for failure. And so what employers can do is have, you know, and this is worded in so many different ways, but one of the things that comes to mind is, you know, there’s a document that you can have called the Way we do things around here, and it could be a code of conduct, or there’s a million different names for it. But ultimately what it does is spell out all the things that are kind of in the background and kind of an expectation that’s unspoken and have a sit down or a coffee and make it not about a meeting, not about a performance 1 to 1 or anything like that. Somebody comes on board, have that conversation with them straight away, and then you’ve set the precedent as an employer or a leader to go, I’m open to this having these conversations. I’m open to having these discussions about things that might be a little bit nuanced or a bit tricky or unsure. And then what that gives a signal for the employee is to go, okay, even if I’ve stumbled upon something that I’m unsure of, I know I can have that dialogue with my leader or with my business. So I think that is a key piece that underpins success for a lot of new employees. And it’s heavily underused by employers.
[00:09:19] Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: Look, my final question is kind of around we know that salary isn’t the number one reason why Australians are leaving their jobs in 2026, but it still remains a pretty major factor. The stats of your report show. So for businesses that can’t compete on salary alone, what are some of the most effective retention strategies they should be prioritizing right now?
[00:09:39] Suhini Wijayasinghe: Well, I think it really goes back to that training and upskilling. I think you have to be realistic about this. And again, this comes with setting yourself up for success in the early days when you’re hiring somebody and you know that you have salary pressures or you know that it’s safe, for example, a small business. And so, you know, there’s not lots of avenues for you to grow and develop into necessarily as a business. You need to think about, okay, what can I give that’s not necessarily a monetary element or benefit or perk that’s going to motivate or influence my workforce. And that can be a wide array of things. And you need to be able to understand what’s in it for certain individuals. Now, there are going to be individuals, like employees in your business that are heavily focused on money, and you have to be realistic with the fact that there is going to be a shelf life with that person. If you so take on that particular employee into a role, right? And that’s okay. There is nothing that you can do around that. But in those instances, what you want to do is try and motivate them with, if you’re not going to be here forever, I want to set you up for success in, you know, however many years time that you can make the jump when you need to, because you would be amazed at how many things come back in swings and roundabouts of when you reconnect again and what you want to do is invest in people because ultimately they’ll invest back in you.
[00:10:59] Suhini Wijayasinghe: So training and development is obviously a no brainer, but also ensuring that they have things that motivate them outside of that. So whether that’s, you know, charity leave 1 or 2 days a year, you’d be amazed at what a difference that makes having, you know, group activities, if that’s something that they enjoy, but really ensuring that whatever you discover, you don’t apply it as a blanket rule. There should be an array of opportunity for employees to select from, and there’s lots of resources out there that you can choose that are completely free. You know, that you can research in terms of, okay, what are other small to medium or even large businesses in Australia doing at this time? And whilst, you know, non-statutory leave is always as a big one, there’s lots of other group activities or singular activities or learning opportunities or even networking events, for example, that you can promote and encourage people to step into.
[00:11:52] Suhini Wijayasinghe: And all you can do is offer those things. Some people will take it, some people will not. But you do have to be pragmatic. Then also as well, with the type of employee that you’re bringing on board, if you know it’s going to be limited in terms of the salary space or the growth space, think about that. Investing your time into somebody who might be not quite at the role that you want, but ready to step into it. The longevity of that is much bigger than, for example, someone who already knows what’s going on in that position. It might take a little bit more time, but then what you’ll find is somebody who’s learning and developing and therefore far more invested in your business to stay a little longer than what you would normally get with somebody who already knows what’s exactly what’s going on. And we’ve seen a lot of success with that in people, to people. So very rarely do we, you know, reach out to the market and get somebody that’s picture perfect for the role. We find that it’s a really great investment to go, you’re just there, but we’re going to train and develop you to get to the rest of the way, and you’ll grow into the position.
[00:12:48] Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: That was head of HR solutions at People2People, Suhini Wijayasinghe.
Why exceptional performance isn’t driven by talent
Now to the ingredients for success that matter far more than pure talent. We often hear that exceptional performers are simply born with more talent. But according to ultra endurance athlete, entrepreneur and high-performance coach Jason Dunn, that’s one of the biggest myths in business and life. Jason is also an author, and he has a new book out called Greatness Doesn’t Care. He joins me to explain why discipline, purpose, and consistency matter far more than pure talent when it comes to achieving lasting success. I started by asking him, what does discipline actually look like in practice, and why is it a better predictor of long term success than natural ability?
[00:13:35] Jason Dunn: In my newest book, I talk about the 14 Steps to Greatness. And interestingly, talent is not one of those steps. And in the annals of history, and in my personal experience, there are many other steps that, you know, contribute more significantly to greatness, whether it’s in business or personally. And discipline for me has been my bedrock. Regardless of its application and discipline, essentially is the alignment between wisdom and action. Discipline requires a plan, a clear plan, and a business that’s both a strategic and a tactical plan. And it’s knowing what you should be doing and when you should be doing it. And the discipline to actually do it, regardless of the circumstances, regardless of the challenges, regardless of emotion, regardless of how you feel in the day, whether you’re inspired or not. And that’s the wisdom of knowing from your plan what you need to do and making hundreds, thousands of tiny decisions that you know are perhaps a little sliding door moments because, you know, creating discipline, knowing what will make a difference and doing it regardless of how you feel, but the confidence that it will generate or produce the outcome that you require. And that outcome is always aligned to purpose. So often businesses don’t have a purpose. They might have a mission statement, they might have something corporatized that they hang on a wall. But truly understanding your purpose personally and in business is absolutely essential because everything you do should align.
[00:15:12] Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: Yeah, absolutely. You’re right about the importance of discomfort in business. Where do you most often see leaders avoiding discomfort, and what do you think that avoidance can end up costing them?
[00:15:24] Jason Dunn: I think for business owners and for individuals, you know, I believe that everything we do pervades every aspect of our life. And, you know, whether it’s discipline, courage, you know, planning, resilience, all of those elements play a significant factor. And again, discipline comes into the wisdom to know when to act and not to take the easier route. Because as humans, you know, there’s that’s a tendency we have. So we tend to gravitate towards an activity or an action that’s more comfortable and isn’t uncomfortable. Isn’t discomfort because it’s just easier in the moment. That’s discomfort that we avoid. And, and the consequence of that obviously is the problem, the issue, the challenge, the development, it won’t go away. In fact, as you, I’m sure, realize, grace, it will grow. It’ll snowball. So I have a favorite mantra that I’ve lived by since, you know, my life changed. I made the decision to change my life because I had lived with so much regret, and I wasn’t fulfilling anywhere near my own potential. And it goes like this. You have to be truly successful in life. You must first do what you don’t want to do when you don’t want to do it until you do. And that is the recognition that you value the challenge. You value the issue. And you know that you know you have to overcome the issue. So discomfort and struggle, that’s life. Whatever aspect of life it is, and particularly in business, that that is life.
[00:17:01] Jason Dunn: If you discomfort and struggle are so important because firstly, you know, you’re on the right pathway. If you’re not growing, if you’re not progressing, if you’re going backwards or you’re stagnating, it’s often because you’re not prepared to face that discomfort or struggle. And I’m a firm believer as I’ve seen this in others, and it’s in the annals of history and thousands of occasions, certainly in my life is, you know, discomfort is necessary and you can influence your mindset to actually embrace struggle. That’s one of my favorite concepts is accepting that, you know, if you want to grow something remarkable, something incredible, or, you know, even less incredible, but it means it growth and moving forward is you will encounter struggle. It’s just you have to accept it. And I found techniques, you know, mindset techniques and mindset is one of the absolutely essential steps of finding your own greatness, whatever that might be, that you actually recognize that it’s the struggle that brings meaning. You can welcome struggle. You can actually say in the moment that this is what will make me great. Or and when I say great, I don’t mean a winner or it’s not about ego, but my greatness depends on struggle because it’s inevitable. And perhaps that’s, you know, if others are not dealing with struggle in that way, then me actually dealing with that in that moment is essentially that’s my pathway to success.
[00:18:33] Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: Just to take a slight sidestep, I want to talk about comparison because it seems that comparison has become almost unavoidable in this age of social media and constant business benchmarking. How can leaders stay informed about competitors without falling into that trap of comparing themselves into paralysis or self doubt.
[00:18:51] Jason Dunn: Comparison is the death knell or comparison will kill joy. It will often kill greatness. And I think the relevance with comparison is being grounded in who or what you’re comparing yourself with. So if you are a startup business or you’re a fairly new business, comparing yourself to a well established, high performing business is not a fair comparison by any means. And I think that I’ll give you an analogy. And in running or in sport, which I think most people can relate to, but we often, when we compare ourselves based on benchmarks, often on benchmarks. So that’s about performance. All that does is tell us that we have more to do, and there is a great opportunity to improve. Doesn’t actually tell us what to do. So my hack, if you like, in terms of comparison is bear in mind where you know the stage of your business and your development, but if you want to compare yourself, you know, the intent must be to improve, not not to benchmark. And people compare outcomes and results. They often compare, you know, tables, tables, or, you know, success or revenue or a whole bunch of different things instead of identifying the practices within a business. In other words, the inputs, if you want to compare anything, compare inputs. So what are they doing and how are they doing it? Not what’s the result? What are they generating, how successful they are, but how do they do that? So that might be it could well be how do I you know, what’s their culture? How do they work with their people? You know, how do they, you know, create an amazing team? You know, what’s their purpose? Is it a corporate mission statement or is it a purpose? How aligned, what do they do to align to their purpose? And are you aligned to your purpose? So it really is about lifting out the inputs.
[00:20:52] Jason Dunn: And in terms of, you know, if I put that into a running analogy unit, because this is probably the simplest for many people to understand, you know, if your purpose is and by the way, purpose is not a goal. People get very confused. Goals are either short or long term aspirations, but they don’t necessarily bring meaning. Purpose is something that evolves and transforms and you evolve with it. But so if your purpose is, you know, to live a healthy, fit life and be strong and, you know, perhaps you want to take up running or you’re a new runner, you want to learn from the best. So you find someone you know, like Elliot or someone that has, you know, an amazing, incredible athlete. Now, if you compare yourself to them, then that will be so, you know, deflating and self-defeating. So you’ll probably give up. It won’t provide any motivation or incentive at all. But if you break down elements of what an athlete like that does, how they run, how they train, then you have a, you know, tangible, realistic set of activities and inputs that you can actually start to focus on.
[00:22:04] Jason Dunn: So it’s not about the output, it is about the input. Everything is about input. And I know that in businesses I’ve, you know, I’ve witnessed, there’s so many times where, you know, there’s great competition and there’s leaderboards internally and people measure performance based on outputs. So if you’re having a conversation with someone in your team whose outputs or results are not strong, by the time you’re having that conversation, it’s actually and perhaps it’s even, you know, you start to, you know, put in place a development plan. It’s going to take 3 or 4 months to change those results and those outputs. And by which time, you know, the conclusion is often, you know, the person will leave before there’s any real demonstrable results or outcomes, you have to focus absolutely on the inputs. You know, you have to focus on how somebody does something. You know, what are the coaching or training? Do they need? Do they need a mentor? So comparison is the thief of joy and the greatest thief of greatness. So you know, my advice there would be study what people do, how they do it, and pick out the elements that work for you and build them into your plan, and then have the discipline to know and the wisdom to know what it is that’s critical that you execute each day and then you show up.
[00:23:22] Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: The last question I wanted to ask is kind of about a theme of reinvention, because one of the themes in your book is that it’s never too late to reinvent yourself. So for someone who’s listening, who might have spent 20 or even 30 years in a career or business and feel stuck, what would you say is the first step towards meaningful reinvention?
[00:23:40] Jason Dunn: We often, again, it is about comparison, and sometimes it’s about, you know, you compare yourself to the version of you that was 25 years old. And again, it’s, you know, self defeating and it’s deflating because, you know, perhaps you don’t have the capability. And certainly if it’s a physical thing, you know, at 50, you look up is pretty much impossible to achieve what you could if you started at 25. I faced that. I faced exactly that because I was 35 and I was living with regret. I passed up lots of opportunities I need to do, and what I did was stand back and say, right, this is a, you know, a stock take of where I am right now, whether again, career, business, life, sport, family. And I started, I call this the armchair test. So my regret was so significant that at 35 that I sat down and I would do this in business, you know, with people in my team, we would do this with clients and say, you know, look, imagine you’re 65 years of age or 70 years of age and you’re retired and you’ve got all the time in the world to reflect on your life, which most people do, by the way, And, you know, how would you feel about what you’ve achieved? How would you feel about the person you are? How would you feel about, you know, how you treat other people? You know, what’s your legacy? And do a stock take and write your legacy out and stand and, you know, sit down and look at what you’ve written and say, you know, does that bring meaning? Am I proud of that? You know, will I reflect back at 65 and go, you know what? I gave everything.
[00:25:09] Jason Dunn: I gave life my best shot. And if the answer is you’re not happy or you’re discontent, which is often the case, the next question is, you know, what will bring you meaning. You know what outcomes, what achievements, what accomplishments, the way you behave, how you treat people. You know how you run your business, you know, contemplate what that would look like. And then that becomes your purpose. You know, to find your purpose. And purpose is the antidote to everything. Purpose is the antidote to fear, failure, everything. And then once you’ve designed that, then you need to think about, What does that look like at different times and how do I gradually work towards that? And how do I actually start to make the first step? Because in three weeks, you know, you’ll start to build different habits, you’ll be moving forward, you’ll be aligned to your values, aligned to your purpose, and you will start.
[00:26:01] Jason Dunn: And once you start, and once you start to do the things that you don’t want to do and you don’t want to do them, then success and meaning will follow. And that it is. And be patient, you know, be patient. You won’t. Rome wasn’t built in a day. You know, you don’t become a successful business owner in two weeks. So you need a strategic plan and then you need a high performance plan or a more tactical plan that, you know, brings a goal that’s five years away, ten years away down to what do I need to get up to do today? Be really clear about the actions that are important that you need to do today, and then have the discipline to go do them. And that builds evidence and confidence that you are on the pathway to achieve this remarkable feat. You know, it might be a small feat. It might be something you believe is impossible. And in life, seeing people achieve things they once thought impossible is one of the most remarkable circumstances and experiences.
[00:27:00] Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: That was ultra endurance athlete, entrepreneur, high performance coach and author Jason Dunn. Thanks for joining us for this week’s episode. Follow Business Essentials Podcast across social media and head to www.BusinessEssentialsPodcast.au for more. Business Essentials is a SoundCartel podcast. Producers are Nick Schildberger, Nicole Goodman and myself. Technical production is by Pete Letts. I’m Grace Jennings-Edquist thanks for listening. We’ll bring you more business essentials next week.
