Sharon Gray went home and asked her kids.
She had two job offers on the table. One was the safe choice. The other was OzHarvest, Australia's largest food rescue organisation, where the mission was personal and the work was urgent. Her kids didn't need long to think about it. "OzHarvest is cooler," they told her.
That was the deciding factor for Sharon Gray, Chief People Officer at OzHarvest and one of twelve winners of the HR Influence Awards 2026. And if you think her experience is unique to the not-for-profit sector, the rest of this article might change your mind.
Across the six winners we spoke with about purpose, the message was consistent. People stay at organisations where they feel connected to something bigger than their job description. Not because of the perks. Not because of the pay. Because the work means something to them, and the organisation makes that meaning tangible every day.
Having been on the call for all twelve winner interviews as the producer of the awards, I noticed that purpose came up in every conversation, often before Rudy had even asked about it. It wasn't a talking point. It was the foundation everything else sat on.
OzHarvest has a stat that most organisations would struggle to believe. In their last survey, 93 per cent of staff said they feel incredibly connected to their purpose. The rest said they were very connected.
Sharon doesn't treat that as a happy accident. She treats it as a result of deliberate, daily work.
"We talk about our purpose every single day. We talk about our values every single day. We recruit to our values," Sharon says. "We have 187 drivers in our vans around the country rescuing food. But they're not just drivers, they're ambassadors."
The hiring process reflects this. A good driving record helps, but it's not the deciding factor. What matters is whether someone resonates with the mission, whether they're getting out of bed every day to make a difference. Sharon's team handpicks people for that alignment.
And the purpose work doesn't stop at onboarding. A couple of years ago, Sharon introduced what she calls the Purpose Program. Once a year, every employee can take a day out of their department and go work in another part of the organisation.
"Last week we had somebody from finance who was interested in joining P&C for the day to see what we do. I think we blew her brain," Sharon laughs. "She said, 'I'm also aware of everything that you had to do and deal with every day.'"
Sharon has her own purpose day booked. She's going to sit alongside the food rescue coordinators, the people who manage the logistics of getting vans on the road, picking up and dropping off food, ensuring every van goes out empty and comes back empty having rescued thousands of kilos.
"It's quite the orchestra of people out there that have to be manoeuvred well."
The Purpose Program does something simple but powerful: it connects every employee to the organisation's impact, regardless of where they sit in the structure. The person in finance understands what the people team deals with. The people leader understands the complexity of food logistics. Purpose stops being abstract and becomes something you've seen with your own eyes.
Anna Liumaihetau Darling, GM of People Experience at Sharesies, works at a company where the product and the internal culture are the same thing. Sharesies is a New Zealand fintech democratising investing for first-time and younger investors. The purpose is financial empowerment for everyone. And that mission runs through the employee experience in ways that go well beyond the careers page.
"Our whole purpose is about creating financial empowerment for everyone," Anna says. "We wake up and every day we know that everything that we're doing is going to help unlock things for people so that they can feel so much more empowered to make a difference for their wealth. Not just for them, but we say for mokopuna as well, so for future generations."
In Te reo Māori, mokopuna means grandchildren. The framing shifts the time horizon from quarterly results to generational impact. For Anna, that long-term thinking is both cultural and practical.
Every employee at Sharesies has either options or shares through the company's ESOP (Employee Share Option Plan). The financial product the company sells to customers is the same product they use internally. When Sharesies does well, employees benefit directly.
"There's that extra little piece of motivation to go for gold," Anna says. "One of our values is chase remarkable. So try things differently and, you know, shoot for the moon. Know that if we do well, if Sharesies does well, the share price does well and then that helps us again in a different way of growing our wealth."
Anna describes watching her team's Slack celebrations channel, where a group running a road show were sharing stories about how the work was making a difference to farmers' financial lives. "I'm literally, it sounds cheesy, but I'm sitting there going, this is why I love my job."
The pun at the heart of their people strategy came from one of the co-CEOs: "People are investing in shares, but we're investing in you." It's a play on words, but at Sharesies it's also the operating model. People practices are designed with employees, not imposed on them.
Alex Pusenjak, Global VP of People and Culture at Fluent Commerce, uses an analogy that captures why purpose and ownership are inseparable.
"People don't wash rental cars, but they wash their own. So we're essentially inviting them into the cockpit of the business."
At Fluent Commerce, that means employees see "the dials and dashboards as we do." The company over-communicates the why at every turn. Employees aren't just told what to do. They're shown where the business is heading and what their role is in getting there.
"You can throw as many perks and benefits to employees as possible," Alex says. "But when an organisation respects the employees' time, it includes them in the vision, the employee then respects the company's mission enough to give it their very best."
Alex's framing is important because it takes purpose out of the not-for-profit context and plants it firmly in the commercial world. Fluent Commerce isn't rescuing food or democratising investing. It's a global technology company. But the principle is the same: when people feel like owners rather than occupants, they care more.
For organisations building engagement strategies around purpose, the rental car analogy is worth remembering. If your people feel like renters, the perks won't fix it. If they feel like owners, you won't need to.
Deepak Singh, Founder of Mission and Rhythm, PeopleStack and Just Sing Out, has built three separate ventures around a single through line.
"Great experiences for our business and community through great experiences for our people," Deepak says. "Simply different entry points, but all the same mission to make work actually work."
Mission and Rhythm works at leadership and system level, connecting culture to business outcomes. PeopleStack helps early-stage teams build their employee experience with the same intentionality as their customer experience. Just Sing Out supports individuals when the system breaks, offering what Deepak describes as pre-legal workplace coaching for people in tough situations who aren't ready for or can't access legal representation.
What connects the three is a belief that traditional HR has over-complicated things. "We've turned it into too many frameworks, dashboards, policy, policing, procedure, and almost lost the point a little bit."
Deepak's purpose isn't tied to a single organisation's mission. It's tied to the profession itself. He wants work to be better, and he's built three different vehicles to get there.
Edan Haddock, Head of Talent and People Experience at Movember, works at an organisation where purpose isn't just a pillar of the employee experience. It's the reason people apply in the first place.
"You don't move into the not-for-profit sector for dollars and bonuses and paychecks or whatever you want to put it. That's not the core driver," Edan says. "You move into this space because you're connected to the cause."
Movember funds over 70 programs worldwide tackling issues from young men in a digital world to Indigenous men's health to gender-responsive healthcare. The internal culture mirrors the external movement. Edan's EVP (employee value proposition) is built on three pillars: good cause, good vibes, good crew.
What's distinctive about Edan's approach is how he operationalises cause-connection in the hiring process. Applicants share their personal connection to men's health as part of the recruitment experience. Many have lost friends. Some have been through cancer themselves. The stories are deeply personal, and Edan has built systems (including an AI agent named Joel) to make sure every applicant gets the chance to share theirs.
The result is a workforce where purpose isn't a poster on the wall. It's the reason people walked through the door.
Sharon made a point during her interview that reframes the entire conversation for people leaders outside the not-for-profit world.
"Every corporate exists for a reason, doesn't it? I know some of it might seem like it's about making money, but that's not the only reason they exist," Sharon says. "Ask the why. Maybe one why is not enough. Maybe you need to go two or three or four or even five whys to get down and understand things more deeply."
Her advice to corporate leaders wanting to be more purpose-driven is practical. Use the Five Whys model. Keep asking until you surface the real reason the organisation exists. "It's not just about making money, that's just an outcome of what you do. What you really do is support people to make better decisions or help people live the life they want to be living."
Teresa Lilly, Founder of Culture Pilot Co, adds a necessary caution. Purpose without follow-through is hollow. It shows up in who you hire, who you promote, how decisions are made. An organisation can talk about purpose on its careers page, but if the daily experience doesn't match, people notice.
What separates the leaders in this article from the ones still putting purpose on a poster is that they've done the work to make it felt. Sharon's Purpose Program puts finance staff on food rescue vans. Anna's ESOP makes every employee a shareholder in the mission. Alex's cockpit approach gives employees access to the dashboards. Deepak built three businesses around a single belief. Edan designed a hiring process that starts with "why does this cause matter to you?"
For people and culture teams thinking about what drives retention and engagement, the evidence from these six leaders points in one direction. Purpose works. But only when it's more than a line on the wall.
Read the full feature articles for each winner mentioned in this piece:
About the HR Influence Awards
The HR Influence Awards recognise the top 12 HR and people leaders across Australia and New Zealand who are shaping the future of work. Presented by Compono, the awards celebrate leaders who go beyond policy to drive real business and cultural outcomes.
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