Last year was the year Generation Alpha started making its cultural presence known, at least online. If you’ve been pestered for Drunk Elephant products or baffled by a slay TikTok meme, you’ve probably met an Alpha IRL.

Now aged 14, the eldest Alphas are coming fast up the track. Comprising almost two billion people globally, this is the largest cohort in history. They’re set to disrupt culture, the economy, and our workplaces, presenting a huge opportunity to those who understand them.

We only need look back to the impact of millennials and Gen Z coming of age to see the risks of sitting and waiting. The world knew they were coming: Google search terms data confirms a spike in queries about both generations well before they flooded the workforce. There was no legitimate reason to be surprised, yet big businesses completely failed to get a head start on who they were, how they were different from their predecessors, and what to do about that.

The result? Start-up companies wooed the cream of entrepreneurial talent who value freedom and flexibility in their careers, leaving corporates looking sluggish and outdated.

The fact is, there was no reason to be flummoxed by millennials and Gen Z, and the same should go for Generation Alpha. Now is the time to start assessing any gaps in your business and understanding the people who’ll inevitably be filling them.

It’s not too early to start getting to know Alphas better. We can start by engaging with their parents, if they’re already in your workforce. Another proactive way to connect with Alphas is by partnering with schools. If businesses can get to grips with any skills gaps or social challenges they’re facing now, we can start to proactively support educators and families to support them down the line.

We can also ask whether culture runs on predictable, recurring cycles. If so, can we use these to confidently predict fundamental traits of a demographic just by knowing what year they were born? According to Fourth Turning theory developed by Strauss and Howe, we can.

The idea is that culture goes through recurring 20-year periods:

• High
• Awakening
• Unravelling
• Crisis

Each of these cycles gives rise to a set of common traits and expressions in the resulting generation. Baby Boomers are independent, competitive and goal-oriented? Entirely expected from a generation born into a “High” golden age of capitalism. The fact that church membership is steadily climbing in post-pandemic years? A predictable manifestation of spiritual awakening following times of chaos, according to Strauss and Howe.

The cultural cycle ramping up to the arrival of Alphas was shaped by a catalogue of destabilising events. Recession, climate change, the Trump presidency and Brexit dominated headlines and conversations. That was all before living through the unexpected disruption and trauma of Covid, followed by massive geopolitical conflict creating yet more global instability.

Unlike their millennial parents who distrusted institutions, Fourth Turning theory tells us that Alphas are likely to seek structure, belonging and community. Having witnessed parents struggling with climbing mortgage rates, redundancies, and repeated financial crises, they’ll also be inherently cautious with money and prioritize economic stability.

A year’s worth of employee research conducted with my company Brandpie’s clients shows that stability is already a priority career consideration among Gen Z—followed by stability, salary, flexibility and career progression, in that order. This emphasis on stability will only increase for Alphas.

Whereas millennials were known for chopping and changing roles, their kids will want to feel rooted. Complex, multinational organizations will benefit from offering secure career paths with well-structured development and progression. Unilever is taking strides here, running diverse development programs from grad level through to retirement that give people scope to upskill and try out different roles within a stable working environment.

Along with valuing stability, people who have lived through crisis have a greater need for community. When it comes to their careers, Alphas will want opportunities to be part of something meaningful and enduring. Schemes like corporate volunteerism will resonate well with them.

The knock-on effect on workplace culture will be interesting. You can’t fake community in a massive organisation. Neither can you mandate what those networks will look like in a business. People may revert to hobby-based communities such as local sports clubs to build a sense of connection.

One way to nurture community-driven organizations is to give autonomy to smaller groups with shared common interests, letting them develop their own mini cultures and support networks. Deloitte runs Diversity Networks connecting people who share characteristics such as gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, and neurodiversity. Programs like this may well gain traction as they facilitate people with shared values to come together.

Another force set to impact Gen Alpha is the rise of multi-generational workplaces. More than 2.8 million children are born globally every week, and the retirement age is increasing. By the time Generation Alpha start their careers, we’ll see five generations together in a single place of work. We’ll need to find ways to support them and tap into this breadth of perspectives.

One way to improve synergy and share skills is with reverse mentoring, where a more junior employee takes on the role of mentor for a senior employee.

Companies including Accenture, Target, Cisco, General Electric and United Healthcare have seen a powerful impact on culture and innovation from reverse mentoring schemes. At BNY Mellon’s Pershing, retention rates increased to 96% for millennials who took part as mentors.

On the flipside, it helped senior executives understand younger people’s misperceptions about working in financial services. They went on to use these insights to shape future recruitment strategy.

Shadow boards, where younger, non-executive employees partner with senior board members on strategic initiatives, can also positively bridge generational divides. Gucci, Mövenpick Hotel Groups, and TotalEnergies have already done this. As well as encouraging mutual respect and understanding, shadow boards proved a safe way to test out new initiatives before launching them at scale.

When we welcome new generations into our businesses, we must be mindful of wider dynamics that impact them. We’re at a point where intrigue about Generation Alpha is growing. Rather than wait to be bamboozled, let’s get curious about the context and dynamics shaping them now.

For Gen Z, social movements like Black Lives Matter and #MeToo brought diversity and inclusion front of mind as they joined the workforce. Let’s start thinking now about the cultural movements shaping what matters to Gen Alpha. When we get to know their challenges, concerns and priorities, we can start to figure out how to support them into the world of work.