Bonus Episode: The AI Pivot: Seagate’s Workforce Transformation in the Age of AI (with Patricia Frost & Ruslan Tovbulatov)
What happens when you stop looking outside for talent and start unlocking the full potential of the people already on your team?
That is exactly what host David Green and his guests explore in this episode of the Digital HR Leaders Podcast.
Joining David are Patricia Frost, Chief People and Places Officer at Seagate Technology, and Ruslan Tovbulatov, Chief Marketing Officer at Gloat, the platform partner behind Seagate’s internal talent marketplace, TalentLink. And together, they share how Seagate reimagined its approach to workforce planning by pausing external hiring and focusing on the talent already in-house.
In this conversation, expect to hear how Seagate:
Shifted from external recruitment to unlocking internal potential
Created transparency and trust to support employee-driven growth
Integrated AI to enhance - not replace - the human workforce
Rebranded their platform to reflect a purpose-led, people-first strategy
Helped employees navigate the emotional side of change and adoption
This episode, sponsored by Gloat, is a practical, inspiring look at how to future-proof your workforce by starting with the people who are already part of it.
Gloat is the world’s first work and workforce operating system for the AI era, helping leading companies like Seagate turn AI potential into real productivity by empowering people to work smarter, faster, and with purpose.
Visit gloat.com to learn more.
[0:00:00] David Green: Attend any conference and the key theme you'll hear rolling throughout will be about building a future-ready workforce. But what does that really look like when the pace of change outstrips traditional planning cycles? For Seagate technology, it meant making a decisive shift, pausing external hiring in favour of unlocking the potential already within, and it meant giving employees more than a platform. It meant giving them a map, a mindset, and the means to move.
I'm David Green, and in this episode of the Digital HR Leaders podcast, I'm joined by Patricia Frost, Chief People and Places Officer at Seagate, and Ruslan Tovbulatov, Chief Marketing Officer at Gloat, the platform partner helping to enable this shift. Together, we explore the story behind Seagate's internal talent marketplace, TalentLink, how they built trust and transparency across the organisation, and what it really takes to embed AI in ways that resonate with the workforce, not just leadership. This is a conversation about technology, yes, but more importantly about trust, purpose and building the conditions for people to thrive in a world of constant reinvention. So, what does it take to future-proof your talent strategy in a time of disruption, and how do you bring your people with you on that journey? Join us as we explore the answers together.
Patricia, Rus, welcome to the Digital HR Leader podcast and Rus, welcome back for the second time. To kick things off, please can each of you share with listeners an introduction about yourselves and your respective roles at Seagate and Gloat. Patricia, I'll come to you first.
[0:01:53] Patricia Frost: Oh, well, thank you, David. And first and foremost, just a little bit about myself. I would describe myself as a people leader. I'm a mum, an army veteran, outdoor enthusiast. That's where I get my passion, is being outside. And I have had the honour to lead people at all levels, all team sizes for over 40 years, and 32 of that being, of course, in the army. And now, I get the honour of leading at Seagate Technology. For those that don't know what Seagate Technology is, it's a global manufacturing company. We actually develop and produce hard disk drives. So, think mass capacity storage. Also think about external storage to your laptop or desktop. So, we pretty much probably touch everyone listening on this call, whether personally or professionally, because it's the world's data. So, just very excited to be here. And my role actually encompasses HR, communications, culture, community, occupational health and safety, environmental health and safety, sustainability, security. It's kind of anything that touches people, as soon as you walk in the door, or whether you're a remote worker, and it's just a fascinating job to have.
[0:03:06] David Green: Rus, if you'd like to give an introduction to yourself to listeners as well, that'd be great.
[0:03:11] Ruslan Tovbulatov: Yeah, thank you for having me again, David, and really great to be with you, Patricia. So, yeah, Ruslan Tovbulatov, I run the marketing here at Gloat. And not only do I have the privilege of telling Gloat's story, but I have the even bigger privilege of working with some of our top partners and some of the most forward-thinking companies on the planet, I would say, like Seagate and Patricia and all the work they're doing, and Gloat. And we've been really trying to help organisations navigate change through years, almost a decade now of disruptions that we, as enterprises, have to think about and endure and thrive through. In a way, started with COVID in a big way, where a lot of companies needed to redeploy talent, drive internal mobility, figure out how do we adapt to the changing environments and needs of a COVID in a post-pandemic world. Then, we went through the great resignation, helping companies retain talent and skills and grow that talent, so they can make sure they were prepared for the future. And now, increasingly the conversation is about the AI transformation that every company has to endure. And it's been a lot of fun, but also a huge challenge, obviously, every step of the way. How do we help enterprises like Seagate, and partner with them very closely, both from a technology and a change management standpoint, to thrive through all of these changes? So, we'll get into all of that, but I'm really excited for the conversation.
[0:04:31] David Green: Yeah, thanks, Ruz, thanks, Patricia. And actually, you've teed that up perfectly, Rus, because as you just talked about really, over the last six or seven years really, through the pandemic, immediately prior to the pandemic and then since, it's been a huge time of transformation and change, and obviously a lot of conversations around skills-based workforce planning. Internal mobility is a big focus, particularly as the labour market pool starts to shrink. They've taken centre stage and now obviously, as you said, the advancement of technology, AI, agentic AI, we're seeing more organisations really start to prioritise this. Patricia, I'd love to hear your take. What sparked the transformation that you've undertaken at Seagate?
[0:05:12] Patricia Frost: So, mine was, you come into a new position and you do an evaluation, and I was doing lots of listening sessions. And the number one thing that was being mentioned across our global company, and this was about five years ago, was a lack of transparency on requisitions that were open at Seagate. And Seagate managers tended to go externally first. And my objective was that I wanted our employees to be the first to see a requisition open. But we know, it's human nature, if an employee is looking for a new opportunity, they're already on LinkedIn, especially here in the United States, looking. So, I needed a platform where it was them looking within Seagate first. So, I wanted a platform that could kind of be our LinkedIn. And so, they could see their career, which is why we called it Career Discovery in its first phase, so they could discover career opportunities at Seagate. And managers had to be willing to allow them to depart their organisation to have that opportunity. That's another challenge.
But it really was to be transparent. And I had the support of our CEO and we had a mandate for how many days a requisition had to sit on the internal platform before a manager could even go externally. And I also knew that our employees, they knew our business processes, they knew our culture. They also knew we're a pretty large company, so they had teammates. And so, they knew how to get things done. If you bring in someone externally, yes, they'll bring new skills, new talent, but their learning curve is pretty steep, 90 to 120 days. So, just let's truly focus on the team we have and give them that opportunity first. So, that was my goal when we first rolled out the platform. And we went all in. Many companies did only projects first. We did projects and open positions. And we said, "If we're going to do it, we're opening the whole thing up. And we want everyone to see everything from projects to mentorship, to positions that were available".
[0:07:27] David Green: It's crazy, isn't it, that it's easier in some companies to get a job if you're an external candidate than it is if you're internal to the organisation and you've got a track record of success over a number of years. And I guess that your objective was to flip that effectively. And there's enough research out there that tells you that not only is it cheaper to hire internally, but the time to productivity, as you highlighted, Patricia, is less. These people are already embedded in the culture as well. Russ, I presume this is a common story that you heard from the companies that you've worked with at Gloat?
[0:08:04] Ruslan Tovbulatov: Yeah, Patricia has given me many quotes over the years that I proudly steal, but one of them, and I'm going to steal your thunder here, is that, "You have to win with the team you have". And you can hopefully share some of that story of where you got that quote, I won't steal your thunder on that. But it's just so core to the belief system that we have at Gloat. And I really believe that as a manager and a people leader myself. I think so many times, we think that we can solve the problems by some kind of external solution, whether that's a hire or a platform, or in the marketing world, it's always more technology. But in reality, it actually starts within. You have to really take advantage of the people and the technology increasingly that you already have. And that's the question, are we getting the most out of that?
So, for us, that's one of the reasons this relationship has worked so well, is I think from the beginning, Patricia really understood the value of not chasing some shiny object externally, but let's look at the people around us. Let's look at not even the skills they already have, but what skills are they willing to have? What are their passions and interests? And what is the capacity of those people? And we'll get into some of those conversations, but I think that philosophy almost has to underpin everything. I think even as we transition to the AI era, I actually think that becomes even more important, to make sure that our people are as equipped as possible to do their best work.
[0:09:24] David Green: That's really good. And Patricia, I'm going to let you expand on that story, because I think it sounds like definitely one our listeners will want to hear. So, I'll ask the next question as a two-part question, really. Please, obviously, expand on the win with the team you have; and then, maybe a wider, a big part of enhancing internal mobility is transparency. What are some of the barriers that you needed to break down to make that happen and win more with the team that you have; and how did your partnership with Gloat help that change?
[0:09:53] Patricia Frost: Right. So, it goes from being in the military. And in the military, you have to know the team you have. And we're going to talk about the next phase of Gloat and Mosaic. I'm so excited with where they're going and the opportunities. But to really know, managers have to know their team. They have to know the strengths of their team, they have to know what gaps they need to fill, and those gaps can be filled normally within the company itself. So, if you go to an army, platoon, company, battalion, we don't get to externally hire and say, "Oh, I'm missing a rifleman, I'm missing a sniper". No, you have to go train for that skill. That's not something you just throw someone into the mix.
So, you go to war with the team you have, I've been to combat several times, and you win with the team you have. And you're going to build on the strengths of that team. And that's signs of a good leader, that you're developing, you're growing, you're looking for those opportunities. Yes, you may have to pull people from different units, but you're still pulling from within the same organisation, the same company. Like, I could reach across to another function and pull someone with that skillset I need, but it's still from within seeking. And so, that's really powerful. And your team appreciates it when they know you're looking internally first, that you recognise their skills. Now, it does require you, as an individual, to want to upskill, to continue to be that learner, be curious, be challenged. That's what we're going to hit in this new era of AI, are you willing to learn a new way to work? It's not taking away your job, you're going to evolve how you do work.
So, for managers in the very beginning, if you focus on internal mobility, it is that kind of, "I want to hoard my talent. I have the best team, therefore, I don't want to let any of my team members go". But at the end of the day, your talent is, for us, it's Seagate's most precious asset. It's what makes us unique, the talent, the skills, the innovation, the hundreds of PhDs that we have in the company, those that don't even have the paper, but they're actually at the same skill set of someone with a PhD because they've done that learning through experience. I mean, you have to value your people. And I think if you get managers to let go and realise they will still be successful and you're actually helping the company grow by allowing that person to move, because if you don't, Seagate is going to lose that person. Not only you, the manager, are going to lose that person because they're going to go externally to the opportunity they're looking for, but Seagate's going to lose that person, your company's going to lose that person.
So, I think just getting managers to let go and realising that every time you bring on a new team member, gives you an opportunity to maybe lead a little differently.
[0:12:57] David Green: That's a shifting culture from maybe what you had before, where people would look outside. And obviously, as you said, for individuals, make them curious, make them focus on continual learning so they can develop their careers within the organisation. Within managers, it's to enable that and to not hoard talent, as you said. How did Gloat help you make that change?
[0:13:18] Patricia Frost: So, it gives you a platform to actually see your people. You can actually search. It does matching. So, it's already prompting individuals to say, "Hey, there's an opportunity, there's a project, there's a position". It allows managers to actually see it. And it's doing it where it's not just that paper resumé. There are things that if an employee puts in the information correctly in their profile, they can talk about passion. I could have an HR business partner who actually does Python programming in their personal time. They can input that into the platform. A manager would never know that. Or someone who is in sales and marketing, but is learning other things in law. Or it just goes across every function, which is just so powerful, because we all have our life that we were hired for, that we come to work, we were hired for this position; but we're all bigger than just that one position. We are all learning on the outside. We all have activities and passions, and the platform allows you to put all of that in there and enrich who you are as a person and who and what skills you can bring to work that go beyond what you were hired for.
I think also, it's a living platform. It's something that can be updated all the time, which is, again, very powerful.
[0:14:55] David Green: And, Rus, turning to you, I know you wanted to react to what you heard from Patricia there, talent mobility increasing. And Gloat really coined the term, Talent Marketplace, which has become more commonplace since you coined that, I don't know, back in 2017, I think it was. What are some of the other things that you've seen to solve that problem or challenge that Patricia's explained?
[0:15:23] Ruslan Tovbulatov: Yeah, David, you know your stuff. It was 2017, as early as back then where we started this talent marketplace movement. And we've evolved quite a bit since then, which we'll discuss. And Seagate's been a great partner for almost a large part of those years. But there are a number of things that Patricia said that I actually really want to underscore. One is this idea of the role of technology in all of this versus the mindset and the culture change that needs to happen. And I think it's really important for organisations to realise. I think that's increasingly happening. You're being forced to do that, I think, in the world of AI, where it's all shared talent. This idea of the traditional job structure or org chart, and that you report to one person or you have one career ladder. Anyone that was resisting that, I think it's all getting completely blown up now in the world of AI. You have no choice but to adapt to just say, "We have to approach things in a more agile way". We can't rely on the job architecture or traditional structures or the mindset that, "This is my team and no one else's". I think that's such an important piece of this, the culture change that needs to happen, I think it's going to be more important than ever.
Then the technology. What's interesting about this is in many ways, some of these conversations, you could say, "Well, we've had internal job boards forever". But what had to happen actually is the philosophy had to get implemented into technology, meaning you can't build a system that's built on a traditional job architecture and think it's going to be dynamic or agile. So, one of the first things we did, and I think all of the new breed of technologies that are AI first have to do, is to build with AI first from the foundation. So, we, from day one in 2017, actually built what we called the Self-Evolving Skills Ontology. Before skills-based organisations were a thing, we knew that the currency cannot be the job. It can't just be looking at a resumé and matching someone to a singular job in a full-time position. We needed to actually have more data to make more informed decisions. So, we started looking at things as basically, the workforce in the currency of skills, and we built an AI to match that, based on skills, the right opportunities to the right people.
But what was most fascinating, and Patricia alluded to this, is when organisations started seeing the power of breaking down work in new ways. So, if you start realising, wait, when someone goes on maternity or paternity leave, maybe we don't have to just backfill that entire role. Maybe we can break that up into five or six responsibilities and actually backfill parts of it. Or when you need to launch a new product in a new region, maybe we don't need to go through the entire hiring process to just launch that one new brand of ice cream, or improve our infrastructure -- it's a true story -- is improve the infrastructure of our trading platform. Maybe we just need some part-time help from experts. And once companies started doing that, you started seeing all this incredible data emerge around deconstruction of work, the skills, and then now increasingly, the technology that companies have to bring to bear. So, once the mindset is there, wait, we can use all of these things to get work done, the technology then enables a lot of that.
So, we're starting to do a lot of that work. Patricia alluded to this product, the suite that we're working on with them, called Mosaic, and we really see that as the next iteration of the talent marketplace. So, we'll get into some more of those details, but I wanted to underscore some of the points that Patricia made.
[0:18:53] David Green: This episode of the Digital HR Leaders podcast is brought to you by Gloat. A new kind of workforce is emerging, one of people and AI agents working side by side. But while every executive is investing in AI, few are unlocking its real value. Why? Because real transformation doesn't come from technology alone, it comes from the people who know how to harness it. That's why Gloat built the world's first work and workforce operating system for the AI era. It's how leading enterprises are evolving their workforce into exponential contributors, people who can orchestrate AI, tech and skills to work at 10x speed, operate with AI fluency and stay ahead of change. With Gloat, organisations like Seagate, Novartis and Standard Chartered are turning AI hype into real productivity, by embedding it directly into the work people do and unleashing the full power of human AI teams. To see how your organisation can thrive in the AI era, visit gloat.com.
What made you choose Gloat over any other vendor, and maybe continue that partnership in the long term as well?
[0:20:24] Patricia Frost: So, first, it's the people that encompass Gloat. So, they put the customer first, which we're the customer, right? They're trying to empower us. And they take all of our feedback, positive and negative. It's just this constant relationship of, "This is working, this isn't working. Why? Is it on our end? Is it on your end?" And they don't get defensive about it. I mean, they really want to grow the platform, and then AI is just constantly evolving. And the fact that they're not sold on just this one iteration of their product, they're actually helping us solve our most critical people problems, right?
But I will tell you, and I said this the last time we were together, this is not an HR tool. I have to say that just very strongly, emphatically. This is an employee tool, this is a people-leader tool. This empowers the individual and empowers the people manager. It is not something that sits very exquisitely over in the HR world. This is to empower an employee to own their career, to own their development, their talent, which gets to our new -- we went from Career Discovery to TalentLink, because it's about everyone's talent. And the link is how we connect everyone. So, this isn't just something sitting in HR. This is truly to empower down to our most junior employee, up to the top leader, to see the organisation, but to allow everyone to see themselves, to have a long and very, hopefully, what I hope, a prosperous career at Seagate.
[0:22:10] David Green: Rus, I've been fortunate to attend and speak at Gloat Live, and I've spoken to a number of your customers. And what Patricia highlighted there, the fact that you want to learn the good and the bad and the indifferent, and you're learning with your customers, I certainly see that as one of the reasons behind the growth of Gloat. Is there anything else that you'd like to highlight to listeners?
[0:22:32] Ruslan Tovbulatov: Well, Patricia and the team have been such a great partner. And I think her quote, that's another very prominent quote that I use often, because I think what Patricia has stated is what I think the leading companies that work well with us get, which is, "You can't approach this as an HR problem. You have to approach this as even a business problem". I think she said that at Gloat Live, our conference, and that really is near and dear to us, because the technology isn't built to be for HR and admins. It's meant for every employee, every manager and business leaders up to the C-suite. And what started absolutely as a career discovery and mobility tool, now all of that data is being used to power real work getting done. I look at some of these projects, they're not just developmental or fun things. It's not back-office stuff that people are doing just to put in. This is real work, like billions of dollars of productivity being unlocked, because you have people coming together to literally launch new products. In the pharma space, we've seen a project team actually come together to launch an entirely new drug on the platform. In technology companies and CPG companies, we see new products going to market. We see partnerships with third parties coming to life because of the platform.
So, I think Patricia's seen that and Seagate knew that from the beginning. Another thing that I always love, and I quote her, I think she was the first person to actually challenge us on the word 'project'. She said, "Guys, I think you're underplaying what the platform can do, because it's not a project, it's work. What you're doing is delivering work and work execution. And so, we need to almost rebrand this whole thing because it's not just about a project, it's about something more about getting work done". And so, that mindset, I think, has been so great with our relationship. And I think anyone that's been successful, I think, has that mindset.
Then quickly, the other piece, I think it's just important maybe now to say this, because Patricia reminded me. One of the reasons I think she's such a strong leader, and I just see the way they operate and how HR is positioned, not just as the HR department, but a core part of the business at Seagate, is partly because of the mindset that I think Patricia brings to her team. One of the things she said was, "It's not about perfection". And I think that's actually the problem with a lot of traditional HR processes. And I think it's actually what really hurt the skills movement, because people are still trying to get the perfect job architecture, the perfect career paths, and now the perfect skills ontology. But I think that is a futile exercise in a world of AI. The world is changing so much. It's impossible to actually build something that is perfect, because by the time it is, by the way, as I say, if you treat it like an academic exercise, it's going to be out of date. The book is already onto the next edition. And so, I think that mindset of agility and adaptability, I think is so important to anyone going on this journey. And Patricia has driven that in Seagate in spades, and I encourage everyone to really think about progress over perfection, especially in an AI world.
[0:25:57] David Green: I don't know if you want to respond to that a little bit, Patricia, because I'm certainly hearing that thirst for experimentation and continuing and doubling down on what works, but then maybe pulling back on stuff that doesn't work?
[0:26:11] Patricia Frost: So, we're going to roll out something new. So, when we're starting our fiscal year on 1 July, we do OKRs, Objectives and Key Results. So, as we roll out our OKRs, which is very manual, right, it's kind of static, they're not supposed to be static, but you write them up, you print them out. But as we put our OKRs as an individual, and then as a functional leader, into SAP SuccessFactors, we're then breaking down at the individual level, what are the tasks that you need to do? So, think about individual growing the company because it's all nested, it all links up. So now, that individual is looking at, "Okay, what do I need to do? How do I perform? What are my key results for this objective to be successful?" We're linking that with Gloat. I think Rus could talk about this. It will show us how you can get those tasks done with AI or where the human has to actually do the work.
But then we've also linked it to our learning platform, to Udemy, and if the individual needs to grow in a certain area for that OKR, for that key result to be successful, it will actually give them a learning path. So, think of that power. It's taking technology to empower you to be successful and what's going to grow the business. It still requires you to do the work. We may stumble a little bit as we launch this new aspect of doing the linking of the technologies, but we just rolled it out again. We did face-to-face rollouts in Thailand and Singapore just on TalentLink, because we need everyone to enrich their profile and go beyond just the resumé, enrich truly what they're passionate about, the skills they have, where they see themselves in the future.
We had, and I didn't get a chance to tell you this, I don't think you know, I think, so I got 90.7% updates in Thailand and our Thailand workforce. That's incredible, so that's first step. But then we need everyone, when they go in and do their OKRs, to actually see the prompts. And it's a one-click. They're in SAP SuccessFactors, they click, this will take them to a Gloat or into our TalentLink, or it'll take them to Udemy, it'll start to feed them. Because it's really about, people like to be in control, right, we know that. Humans like to be in control. So, what we're trying to do is give them that aspect where they control how they can be successful. But we're going to give them the tools to do that.
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You mentioned then, Patricia, TalentLink, and my understanding is you initially branded the platform, Career Discovery, internally but now it's TalentLink. Can you talk a little bit behind the reason for that shift?
[0:30:14] Patricia Frost: Yeah, I think in the beginning it really was about where we were on that journey of how do you see your career at Seagate, and it was very focused on internal mobility. And then, TalentLink is really everyone taking a moment to look at their talent, their skills, but talent means everyone. So, again, I go back to this isn't an HR platform, this is a platform for every employee. And then the link is, you can get matched with other people of similar interests, you can see that project's work that needs to get done, but it really is powerful for managers. And this goes back to my previous career of, managers have to be able to see their teams. And how do I empower a manager to go in and look at their team differently from a skills aspect, so they can really see what training do they need to bring to the team? Or if we have to go and externally hire, which we will do external hires, but we're doing that very surgically, what is it that we have a gap, and who are we trying that we think will augment and make our team better, not duplicative, but will actually grow our team, grow our talent base, help Seagate move with efficiency and effectiveness? So, I think for us, that's the TalentLink.
Then, Link to Me also links all the technology. So, we're not trying to throw a lot of technology at the employees. We're talking about three platforms we're linking together where it's one click. And it will show them the power of the technology that we're focused on. So, I think that's important, right?
[0:31:57] David Green: Yeah, it is. And, Rus, you might want to come in at this point, and just talk what that means from a globe perspective.
[0:32:04] Ruslan Tovbulatov: Yeah, I love this story actually, that Seagate has been on in the journey from Career Discovery to TalentLink. And one of the reasons I particularly love it is because I'm a marketer and I know the importance of positioning and what message that sends when a platform is launched, a technology is launched. And I think Career Discovery was the perfect name for the use case that Seagate had at the time. And if you think about what was happening post-COVID, great resignation, how do we empower people with the right careers, the advice I actually give to anyone doing any of these initiatives, whether it's with Gloat or anyone else, is think about the positioning to give yourself the most flexibility for the future. And so, I love MasterCard calls theirs Unlocked. Molson Coors just launched one called Untappd, which might be the most creative I've heard. And what that allows you to do, and that's why I love TalentLink, you just saw what Patricia did there.
When they renamed it TalentLink, I don't think we were even thinking about technology as part of the talent. But what that name allows us to do is we realise, wait, there are going to be technology agents as co-workers. That's talent. So now, this platform has this flexibility and the ability to actually adapt to whatever changes. Who knows what happens next, right? It's almost impossible to predict these days. So, I love that story and actually encourage anyone going on this journey, really be thoughtful of how you name the platform. You can always position it, and of course it's going to be about empowering employees and allowing them to discover opportunities and careers, all of that, but that can be a part of the story. As you think about all the different use cases for managers, for leaders, etc, the more flexibility you have at the top-level name, the better it is. And so, I'm really excited of the repositioning.
That kind of brings us to where we are now. What I think started, even for us at Gloat, as a platform to retain talent, to see opportunities within a company, it's become so much more, kind of like I was alluding earlier, where it's become a platform to get work done. And increasingly now, because of AI, the question of who gets the work done is as relevant as ever before, because it's not just about the talent on your team, the people on your team, or the people outside of your team, it's increasingly the technology that can support all of that. So, our belief there is the answer isn't just throwing more agents or more technology at the problem. It kind of is the same as we started the conversation with. It was never for us about external recruiting. I think actually, HR might have the same issue here to think, "Oh, well, we'll just get more agents or more technology". The key for us and in our partnership and how we're thinking about it is, how do you empower the talent you have and the people you have to wield this incredible superpower they've been given with AI?
So, what we're building, called Mosaic, is this new offering where it's taking the best of the talent marketplace. So, you see the skills, the ontology of skills, the ontology of the talent and the work, but also technology. And that technology, without getting too geeky, today might just be a foundation model, "Oh, we have access to Claude from Anthropic, or we have access to OpenAI, and that might help me with some writing or some creative". It could also be software, by the way. It could be Canva helping you with designs; it could be Copilot helping you actually as a partner thinking through things, or accelerating the work you're doing; and eventually, it becomes agents. And we're testing that even within Gloat, agents to actually automate entire workflows. But we really fundamentally believe that humans have to be the orchestrators of all of this. You almost have this orchestra. We believe humans are the conductors, but all of this is going to supercharge them.
So, we're really excited to be working with Seagate on this. And we have a lot of investment and thought going into this area, because we believe it's the logical, honestly, next iteration of what we've been doing for all these years, and is definitely what I think enterprises like Seagate could really benefit from, and people can benefit from, in this AI era.
[0:36:15] David Green: Really exciting, Rus, and thanks for laying it out. I actually think the two of you are both great marketeers, by the way, listening to the conversation over the last 30 minutes. Patricia, I'll let you respond to what you just heard from Rus as well, but I also maybe mix it with, let's double-down on the AI piece. I know you made a bold move at Seagate recently. You've paused hiring, particularly in the US, and reinvested that budget into AI tools for your people, as Rus explained there. I'm curious, what's the response been from your workforce so far?
[0:36:49] Patricia Frost: Maybe a little anxious, and I'm having a leadership team meeting next week to really lay out my strategy. And my strategy is like, "Before we go and do that external hire, let's take the resources from that rec, let's invest it in an AI toolset". So, for me, it's getting everyone the Office 365 license and the Copilot across all the platforms, because I need everyone to have the same advantage. So, right now for the last few months, we've had a team of 40 from my team and it's been really powerful, but I can get excited and I can go and say, "Hey, this is how I use AI as my thought partner, this is where it saved me so much time". I mean, literally I was doing a board presentation, it saved me over eight hours of work. I mean, it was incredible. And so, I can get excited, and then I look at my team and they're just staring at me and I go, "But you don't have the same capabilities that I have". So, it falls flat.
So, now is to say, okay, I need to uplift my entire team. I'm investing in this, and we are going to go on this AI Aware for another year that you all can envision, because it's the power of us. It's the power of every one of my employees to say, "You are going to rewrite how you work. This is not going to be pushed down from on high, we'll do it bottoms up. How do you look at your workflow? What are the tasks that you need to get done? Where can AI assist you? Where is it truly the human does the work? And let's rewrite our organisation and how we come to work". And I think that will take some of the fear away, because I think some of them are saying, "Well, if I take on these tools, my job's going to go away". No, your job is just going to evolve differently. And I need them to embrace agentic AI, and where do we feel comfortable that an agent can do work from one end to the next, and we are confident that it's delivering the right results? And so, I need them to think about their roles, because they're at the tactical edge. They're touching it, they're doing the work, so where can that AI truly assist them? And then we'll evolve what our work structure should look like and how we come to work and how our jobs evolve.
But I need everyone on the journey together and I want to be very transparent and I want to have these conversations. And I do think we'll have the laggers. I do think we'll have people who say, "I refuse". And unfortunately, we're a tech company, it's all about data for us. That may be a problem in the future. Like, if you just are going to be stubborn and say, "This is how I do my job", then that's another story, that's a different conversation we're having. But I need everyone to embrace it, and it's not going to be perfect, as Rus said, it's not going to be perfect. But let's look at where it can bring us the most value and empower us where we feel comfortable, and share, collaborate on the journey together. So, my goal, I hope, by the end of the year is we're really talking about how we're going to work differently. And to me, it's all about the growth of the company.
[0:40:34] David Green: And, Rus, just bringing you in here for a moment. Obviously, you're working with several organisations at Gloat, many of them also pioneering organisations, if I can say the word pioneering; I can now. What stands out about the way that Seagate has approached this transformation?
[0:40:53] Ruslan Tovbulatov: So, I love the way Patricia is talking about this. And honestly, it inspires me anytime I talk to her, and I talk to some amazing partners, like we have with Tanuj at Standard Chartered Bank, or the team at Mastercard, because the reality is, I think, HR is at a true inflection moment. We saw that during COVID, right? We said, how is HR going to step up during this digital transformation acceleration? And you saw that happen, right? HR leaders stepped up right next to the CEO. But this moment is a little bit more scary, I think, for HR, especially in the sense that I know this data I believe I saw from you, David, that only 7% of CEOs consider the CHRO AI-savvy. And what gives me hope, hearing people like Patricia, is that there are opportunities for HR to actually lead this transformation, not just get consumed by it. And let's be realistic here. There is a real battle going on between IT and HR right now. Because are you going to believe that the future of the workforce is all digital? Or do you believe that humans are going to be at the helm? You know what our belief is. We think humans have to be at the helm. But this interplay and collaboration between IT and HR and the business is so important.
So, when I hear Patricia speak, just the language she uses, the examples, the leading from the front, I think that's just so incredibly important for every leader listening to this and everyone in HR to really challenge themselves, how can we be the change agency and be partners to the business on a transformation that is happening, whether we like it or not, right? So, let's lead instead of being consumed by it. And then how we do it, I'll just quickly touch on two things and this could be a whole separate podcast, but I think the framework is actually still similar. I think there's a mindset and a technology thing here. On the mindset piece, Patricia again said this really well, and it's about people actually believing that this is something that can be good. And it's about the positioning, sure, top down, but it's people feeling empowered by this moment. And one of the terms we've been using is that we fundamentally believe that the age of the IC, the Individual Contributor, is over. Because every individual now can be an exponential contributor, because you now don't just have yourself or your knowledge, you have an army of resources around you.
I said, you have Canva for design, you have OpenAI to help you with copy, or CLAW to help you with copy with, if you prefer that. You have video creation tools that can create Super Bowl commercials now. I don't know if you saw that, but the NBA finals just showed a totally AI-generated commercial made in Google VEO. The world, if you just think about that as an individual, anything you dream up, you have the potential to do. So, there's a mindset thing that I think we need to support as leaders, but individuals also need to believe that this isn't about AI taking your job, it's about getting superpowers, and I really believe that. I know a lot of people will get impacted, there will be negative repercussions potentially, but if you approach it with the mindset, you can thrive through it and actually, I think, do more than you've ever imagined as an individual or even as a leader.
The second thing, and again I won't belabour this because we've been chatting for a while, but on the technology side, I think it's so important, as Patricia alluded, you have to create a, "What's in it for me?" for people. Just giving them more agents or saying, "Here's a Copilot license, figure it out", that's not how you drive literacy or mastery or inspire people to do it. You have to actually put it into the flow of work. One of the examples Patricia talked about is the prompting. Most people fail with AI, and there's a lot of data around this, of the millions, and actually tens of billions now being invested versus the actual impact companies are seeing and the actual adoption. There's a huge gap, which we're calling this AI productivity gap. And I think the reason for that is because people aren't being given these tools in the flow of work, or tied to the things they're trying to achieve. And so, that's our goal with Mosaic, is prompt a person, as they're trying to get work done they need to get done, with the right technology, and actually even give them the exact prompt to copy and paste. So, instead of them figuring it out on their own, here's a prompt you can copy and paste to get the outcome you want.
So, I think this idea of the leadership from the top down with people like Patricia really being the change agents here, not being afraid of it, but leading from the front, and then the mindset shift and the technology to power that, I think, are all really critical. And we're just really lucky to have a partner like Patricia and Seagate on this journey.
[0:45:32] David Green: Patricia, what does the next chapter of the journey look like? And actually, right at the start, you mentioned that you're not just responsible for people, you're responsible for places and communications, I think, at Seagate. Maybe you can talk a little bit to that as well, and how that helps you, as a Chief People Officer, maybe reach more parts of the organisation and its customers than it would as a more traditional Chief People Officer role.
[0:45:56] Patricia Frost: Yeah, I'm fortunate because I can see all aspects of an employee's life while at Seagate. And what Rus said, so we as CHROs, but everyone in the C-suite owns this, and I believe every people leader owns this, we own the employee experience. So, employee experience is the type of facilities you work in, the tools that you have, the technology, everything that's going to allow you to be productive and effective and efficient at work, right? That's not just a CHRO, we own the employee experience journey and every touch point, but that's every leader owns that. But I think this is where CHROs and their HR teams can really make an impact, is how is technology truly going to empower all these different jobs and functions that you have in the company? And if we look at ourselves first and show we're willing to change, and will people be impacted? Yes, they will, but what I'm hoping is they're impacted in a way because we're going to change their role.
Again, if you're not willing to grow, if you're not willing to learn, if you're not willing to develop into a new area, because the world is changing, that's on the individual. But I do think this is an area to where we can grow together. And I think we can. I'm hoping Seagate will be, in a year, that AI-driven company, and I hope we have developed AI-driven leaders and AI-driven employees, that they're not afraid, and we will give them the right tools. We're not going to throw so many tools at them, but give everyone the right tools. But you have to be willing to fail too. Like how many times do we add an app to our phone, and if within the first 15 minutes the app doesn't give us the right experience, we delete it? Well, employees will do that with software that we roll out in the company and AI tools that we roll out. So, just even with Gloat, as we went to TalentLink, we had to do those face-to-face sessions so they could feel the power of what it is.
So, really excited, because we rolled this out to our hourly workers, I call them manufacturing specialists because they do the bulk of the work at Seagate to produce our product, and this is really a passion of mine. We haven't solved it yet, Rus, you know this, is how do we get this technology into the hands of our workforce that doesn't sit at a laptop, doesn't have a desktop type device, and how we're going to lead them into this future? And we showed them TalentLink and the manufacturing specialists were so excited that they could see what skills do they need even at their level, because we are going to bring more factory automation and it's just going to keep evolving. Automation in the factories is going to keep changing. Well, they want to be on this journey too. So, that was really exciting to see them just get on. We had kiosks set up so they could log on and see what the future looked like. So, it impacts every worker, every type of worker. It's going to hit from our factory floor all the way up.
But I'm excited about the journey. I think we have to rewrite how we come to work. And I think companies, we have to be willing to fail, we have to be willing to not get it right the first time. But I always go back to what problem are we trying to solve, what technology we're going to try to use to solve it? After a year, if it doesn't work, toss it out, go try something else, right? And why have I been so excited about this relationship with Gloat? I mean, Gloat has been in the AI business for over a decade. You're seeing AI companies sprout, a lot of seeds have been planted and they're all sprouting right now and growing. But Gloat has been working in this space from the beginning, and they have evolved it and they have been learning, and it's not something that's a fly-by-night company. So, that's where I was so willing to make the investment. And they're willing to continue to modify. If they were sold on just, "This is it, this is the platform and you just deal with it", that's not who they are. And they're going to listen to us and give us feedback and we're going to keep automating things, like succession planning, how do we automate that? How do we automate our organisation talent reviews? I mean, there's so many opportunities to automate within the HR space, but that isn't just for HR. Those are for your people managers. That's for your teams to see themselves. So, I go, "This is us, as HR, to find the right technology that's going to help us get there".
[0:50:41] David Green: And Rus, before we wrap up, and I think you've talked a bit to this, as AI skills, talent marketplaces converge, maybe some insights on what you're seeing on other organisations, how Gloat is preparing for what's coming next. I know you've talked a lot to that at the moment. And maybe bring out something I think that I listened to there in Patricia's last answer around user experience. How are you thinking about user experience at Gloat?
[0:51:07] Ruslan Tovbulatov: Either way, everything we've been doing for the decade, as Patricia said, that we've been doing this with AI at the core, has almost led us to this moment where if you think about HR as a conduit to getting work done, to driving productivity in the organisation, to actually seeing and mitigating risk in the organisation, I think for the first time ever, AI is actually empowering HR in a way that has never existed before. And so, if you find a way to actually take all this hard work we've all been doing on this journey, right, understanding the skills of the workforce, trying to understand the work that's being done in the workforce, and now try and understand the technology, which by the way, is being modelled after people, we are the people leaders. So, when you think of that understanding, if you've built that core understanding, which we've been at hard work building what we call this multi-ontology workforce graph, to then put that in the hands of people and managers and leaders, I think the opportunity is massive for organisations to move, I said that it's the end of the individual contributor to the exponential contributor. We actually think it's the evolution from an incremental impact and change to exponential impact and change.
But I think companies can actually evolve and have disproportionate amount of impact now if they can leverage all of this foundation that we've built around skills and technology and with work at the centre. But it requires people like Patricia. It's the mindset. I just encourage every HR leader to really listen to the language Patricia uses, to the behaviours she role models, even the way that she inspires her team. I see her at conferences, putting the people first and her own people first and empowering them to try new things. You're not always going to be perfect, you might fail, but we'll learn fast and we'll adapt and we'll always be close to the business and always be empowering the business. I think that mindset is so, so critical. So, I'm just lucky that Patricia specifically has been on this journey with us and a brand as storied and respected as Seagate has been on this journey with us, and we're just excited for what's ahead.
[0:53:23] David Green: Fantastic. Well, Patricia, Rus, it's been a fantastic conversation. I've learned a lot, I know our listeners will as well. And I know that many will be inspired by what they've heard as well, and the fantastic work that you and the team are doing at Seagate, Patricia. Before we go, can you let listeners know how they can find you on social media and follow all the great work that you're doing? I'll come to you first, Patricia, and then to you, Rus, to wrap.
[0:53:50] Patricia Frost: The best way is on LinkedIn, Patricia Jones Frost. So, you can find me on LinkedIn. Feel free to reach out.
[0:53:56] David Green: Perfect. And Rus?
[0:53:59] Ruslan Tovbulatov: LinkedIn as well. If you can spell the name, you'll find me. Not many Ruslan Tovbulatovs out there, but also follow Gloat on LinkedIn and visit gloat.com. We publish a ton of great research and insights, and we just look forward to engaging with many of you. And hopefully, you found this conversation inspiring.
[0:54:18] David Green: And Rus, you make quite a lot of the videos from your Gloat Lives available as well, don't you, for people to watch? So, if you want to hear more from Patricia, you may be able to find some videos featuring Patricia on there.
[0:54:31] Ruslan Tovbulatov: Yes, there's a great video actually with Patricia, a couple of them actually, a little bit of another podcast we did, and her on stage. So, yeah, I encourage people to listen to that to go even a layer deeper on some of this.
[0:54:44] David Green: Perfect. Well, thank you, Patricia and Rus. Look forward to maybe seeing you both at a Gloat Live in the not-too-distant future.
[0:54:51] Patricia Frost: Thank you.
[0:54:52] Ruslan Tovbulatov: Thank you so much.
[0:54:54] David Green: A big thank you again to Patricia and Rus for joining me today. And a big thank you to you, our listeners, who tune in each week to learn more about this exciting, evolving field. If this episode inspired you, please consider subscribing and leaving us a five-star review on your favourite podcast platform. Your support enables us to keep bringing you powerful insights and engaging conversations every week. To connect with us at Insight222, please follow us on LinkedIn, check out our website at insight222.com. Also, if you're interested in the latest trends in HR and People Analytics, don't forget to sign up for our bi-weekly newsletter at myHRfuture.com. That's all for now, thank you for tuning in and we'll be back next week with another episode of the Digital HR Leaders podcast. Until then, take care and stay well.