AI & The Future of Talent w/ Donald Knight – The Shaker Green Room at RecFest USA, Ep. 19

[Music] who are you and why are you here uh who am I uh first of all chatt and cheese fan no Donald Knight I serve as group senior vice president for people in culture uh for the Warner Brothers Discovery uh and more importantly I’m dalen and Avery’s dad so that’s a little bit about me very nice let’s go back to this Chad and cheese fan I want to about that come on question is do do you mandate that everybody listen to it that’s the big that’s the big question it’s funny you say that so Ariana moon hit the stage earlier today with Tim sack she I used she used to be on my team when I was at greenhouse and yes I believe that anybody inside of our profession has a responsibility to do what I call inbound and outbound leadership so the inbound is what leaders are sending to you right so whether it’s Bon or Chad and cheese or anything that people might be reading chro daily the outbound though I think we have a responsibility to go figure out who are the folks that are bringing the right conversations and elevating the right subjects in our profession for us to learn from and in my opinion y’all are doing that and so that’s why I’m a fan and so yes it’s not mandated but it’s strongly encouraged volun Toto so other than Chad and cheese what what nugget of advice would you give to your peers that they should really focus on on in this upcoming year the advice that I would give to my peers for the upcoming year is I believe it’s going to be two th my prediction my hypothesis is that the talent Market is going to be 2022 all over again what I’ve seen this year myself included is this has been the year where we’ve seen Executives making their changes yeah right there’s been a lot of scarcity on going public companies have not been able to perform thus the hiring has been lower so you’ve seen companies coaching Executives those executives are going to have to build out their teams and so I believe next year that’s when you’re going to see greater movement from the VP all the way down to the senior manager level so it’s going to be some Topsy turv if you will similar to 2002 when you could go literally across the street and get $40,000 more for the exact same job and the exact same job offer at at Company B so the things I I need our teams to focus on and this is what I just told our team in La I just left a lot in La the thing that I’ve been telling them they got to focus on is really two things the first one is go clean up all of our terrible processes if you are not deploying automation right now if you’re not if if there’s a process that you feel like has been painful for your team you got to go fix that now because next year it’s going to affect way more people right the second thing I think that they have to figure out is what is our value proposition everybody’s talking about employer branding I’m like okay that’s cool but like your benefits are no longer part of the Val value proposition most companies have the same set of benefits you got to be able to Di B in on culturally and from a growth and development perspective what can you offer me at Chad and cheese that I can’t go get at anywhere else do you hear we have no benefits that anyone wants he didn’t leave the office he left a lot he left lot I want to visit I want to dig into this 2022 uh prediction yeah money was free tech companies were loading up on people just so other people couldn’t get them are you envisioning that or are you envisioning more of the Z coaching getting leads of the company or all of the above I mean if we’re talking specifically tech there are tons of people right now that are at companies where they’re wait waiting for um a liquidity event yeah yeah right that’s that’s part one part two there’s tons of companies that raise money with bad evaluations so they raised money prior to this dip give you a good example I believe the instacart CEO she’s a phenomenal human being and she just took on CEO within the last you know last few years but instacart before they went public they thought they were a $30 billion valuation oh yeah only to find out from the market you’re a $7 billion valuation and so there’s there’s they’re not the only ones though right there’s other companies out there where people are still checking in every day cuz they’re waiting on a a liquidation event or liquidity event and then the other the other half of the Tech Community in many cases they have a bad valuation and so what does that tell me that means Talent is ready to move they’re just waiting for the right reason One Good Reason is oh my buddy Chad who I had the greatest growth and development on two three years ago just became the chro at a new company Chad says hey Don I want you to come work for me oh yeah right movement that’s movement and so I think you’re going to see a lot of that that I’ve already seen the executives playing the musical chairs this year yeah uh again myself included you’re going to see you’re going to see those folks next year I’m still waiting for that build stop to bounce back I mean look that’s a good example though right pelaton founder oh yeah starts a company after his 40s has a $4 billion valuation right now his he’s worth I think 300 million which is still again rich people problems but that’s not not nearly the same $4 billion valuation as before and so I think you’ll also see greater consolidation in the market particularly in our field right we’re seeing that yeah we’re seeing that now so in 2024 thus far what what’s been the biggest surprise for you that’s happened in our space too many chro are laggers when it comes to artificial intelligence yeah explain they’re allowing their fear and anxiety to be the reason why they won’t go test and figure out practical applications yeah for the tools and while they’re doing that their competitors who are more excited and eager to test the tools are creating such a wide divide between them that I don’t know if they’re ever going to be able to catch up up like there is companies right if you’re still trying to figure out how to build an AI policy you’re behind you’re behind in the velocity of tech right now if you’re behind you’re so to AI real quick you’re presenting tomorrow on this topic what are you going to be discussing so we’re talking so tomorrow I believe right right we’re at recfest shout outs to Jamie and the team so we’re here at recfest I I believe that it’s incumbent on Talent position leaders and recruiters and Sorcerers to grab their own paintbrush and to me that tool meaning AI the A and the I inside of paint I believe that tool can allow them to figure out how can they drive their own value as an individual even if the company is choosing to lag behind and so the idea tomorrow is to try to figure out okay at the company that you’re at today and the way that you contribute to Bringing amazing talent to your organization what are you trying to paint what are you painting on your canvas because if you don’t use AI tools today or your company doesn’t have a AI policy or they’ve chosen to be a lagger and not deploy AI inside of the organization effectively they’re harming your career and if you want to be marketable moving forward you need to go grab your own tool and figure out how you deploy that for your own growth and development regardless of what Jersey you have on well much like we’ve seen with most of the the best sourcers are that are out there they learned Boolean string they learned how to dig into Google they they they started to find I mean really they were they were curious intellectually curious about how they could use this new tool and they are the best in the business and and it wasn’t because the company told them to go do it so I I appreciate that 100% so looking forward 2025 what’s your main focus for 2025 I you already talked about ripping stuff apart and all getting a paint brush is what what’s the main focus for Donald I my main focus right now for 2025 is you know I work for one of the greatest storytelling companies of all time at Warner Brothers Discovery and I believe in 2025 from a people and culture perspective there’s so many new talented people that are entering that storytelling business and I want them in a Warner Brothers Discovery Jersey I want the greatest writers and the greatest producers producers to seek out our production houses to be able to bring their dreams to reality and so in order to do that though that means I got to go find them when the people are saying like I was laughing with Brian Fink who’s a great ta professional earlier today and we were talking about all of us remember when you sourced that one Talent where you were like they’re going to go on to be do great things I want to go find those people and the only way I’m going to find that is I got to make sure that we equip our team with not only the tools but the time needed to invest in those tools to figure out how we can go uncover who those talented human beings are so we can build relationships with him so I’m curious about that you know the writer strike recently Hollywood uh AI fears I’m curious what I’m hearing from you is like it’s it’s there’s never been a better time to be a creative but on the other hand why do we need Riders when we have chat GPT why do we need artists when we have dolly or other tools like that so so make a case for the future of humans versus all these tools are coming out to replace them or mid journey I I don’t I don’t even think that’s a hard case to make um AI did not think of itself I I I believe if you look at large language models today which most people are using it from a prompt engineering right so you enter a prompt and it feeds you something back right all it is doing is looking at Mega Parcels of data in regurgitating a new piece together puzzle for you for your consideration but the greatest creatives and the greatest stories have always came from humans I believe the opposite which is this is the time that you want to get closer to human creatives because the stories that we can now Envision of the future now you have tools that can help you somewhat test out better plots or better scripts or better story lines or how do I write a story that’s a romance uh story that appeals to both uh Boomers who are living longer and have tons of money but also Jin Z who is openly willing to talk about their feelings in the workplace how do I write that movie and I don’t think I’m going to go get that from a tool that’s just regurgitating pieces of information that’s already out there so I believe if we deploy these tools the right way The Human Experience should become a better experience whether you’re a recruiter a sorcerer or even a a Storyteller it should become become better because now you can actually submerse yourself more into the creative side of the house and a lot of like the mundane routine things yeah you know go deploy some automation for those things I think you just wrote uh La next year’s Oscar award winner baby boomer meets Jen Z get off my yard and tell me how you feel I mean look we’re trending we’re already trending I mean we got Beetlejuice which just did 145 Million last week in the Box off not creative though it’s a it’s it’s digging up an old movie from the have have you gone to see it alien same you have to go see it it’s a reimagination it’s pretty cool um and then we got some other great movies on the way penguin we got the Joker she’s going to be really good so I’m excited I think it’s a great time to be a creative and I believe on this planet we have more creatives who have not been able to tap into their creative genius because they’ve been bogged down in careers that have not allowed them to flex that creativity My Hope Is that tools like AI will encourage them to embrace their full creative s well even without AI a great Storyteller a great creative Donald Knight Donald thank you so much thank you for having it’s amazing thank for let me those shirts too I’ll see what I can do all right I know a guy enjoy the show man thank you appreciate it [Music]