Generation Alpha – born between 2010 and 2024 – will be entering the professional world in just a few years’ time. Is your organisation prepared for what they will bring with them?

Over the course of my career as a social researcher at McCrindle, I studied the behavioural patterns of every living generation. 

None has demanded more urgent strategic attention than Generation Alpha. Born between 2010 and 2024, the oldest members of this cohort will begin entering the workforce within the next few years – bringing with them a set of expectations, values and capabilities that will test the assumptions underlying most organisations’ talent models. 

For HR practitioners looking beyond the immediate pressures of today, the question is no longer whether to prepare for Generation Alpha, but how. 

Drawing on research I co-created with McCrindle, I have distilled that answer into six foundational pillars for a future-ready talent strategy.

1. They are ‘Generation Glass’ – and they’ll orchestrate, not just execute

Gen Alpha was born in the same year the iPad was released and Instagram launched. We call them Generation Glass because they have interacted with portable digital devices since they were in nappies.

In the workforce, this means they won’t be scared of AI; they will manage it.

Their first jobs will likely involve managing a fleet of specialised AI agents. This means HR needs to help businesses redefine junior job descriptions today in order to prepare. 

Shifting away from hiring for data entry or report drafting, we must look for prompt engineering mindsets and the ability to audit automated outputs. Their value lies in their ability to master the judgment calls that machines cannot yet make.

Questions HR should consider today:

• Are our current entry-level job descriptions still fit for purpose, or are they artefacts of a pre-AI operating model that we haven’t yet had the courage to redesign?
• When we assess junior candidates today, do our frameworks reward prompt engineering intuition and critical evaluation of automated outputs, or are we still optimising for skills that AI will render redundant?
• Have we defined – at a role level – where human judgment is genuinely irreplaceable, and are we building that into how we hire, onboard and develop our earliest-career talent?

2. The “KIPPER” effect: Earning years will start later
Research shows a significant shift in the adult life stage. Gen Alpha will stay in education longer and start their earning years later.

In Australia, we’ve already seen the rise of the KIPPER (Kids In Parents’ Pockets Eroding Retirement Savings), as adult children stay home well into their late 20s to offset the financial cost of prolonged study.

For HR, this means the entry-level candidate of 2036 might be 24 or 25 years old with multiple degrees, but zero real world professional experience. 

This means employers won’t be able to measure maturity through tenure. Instead, they must evaluate professional readiness through their cross-section of solved problems across different micro-credentials and project-based work.

Questions HR should consider today:

• Are our hiring criteria inadvertently filtering out high-potential candidates by conflating age or years of experience with professional readiness, and what would it take to rebuild those criteria around demonstrated capability instead?
• Do our assessment frameworks have the sophistication to evaluate non-linear pathways – micro-credentials, project-based portfolios and self-directed learning – or are we still anchoring to the degree-plus-internship pipeline as a proxy for competence?
• As the average age of entry-level candidates rises, how will we redesign onboarding and early career development to meet people who are academically advanced but professionally uninitiated?

Ashley Fell is speaking at AHRI’s National Convention and Exhibition. Sign up today to hear from Ashley on preparing for demographic shifts in the workforce.

3. Professional intuition must be built through micro-apprenticeships

The biggest risk of automating ‘grunt work’ is that we remove the sandbox where young talent traditionally learns the nuances of an organisation. This suggests that the long-form apprenticeship model is dissolving.

To counter this, HR could implement high-intensity micro-apprenticeships. 

Junior staffers shouldn’t just see the final HR strategy; they need to be “in the orbit” of senior leaders to witness the debates, trade-offs and pivots. By exposing them to strategic decisions  early, we help them build the contextual muscle memory that AI simply cannot provide.

Questions to ask:

• When we automate routine tasks to drive efficiency, are we inadvertently dismantling the informal learning infrastructure that has always converted raw talent into seasoned professionals? Do we have anything intentional to replace it?
• How much genuine exposure do our junior employees have to the messy, contested reality of senior decision-making?

4. Career portability: The “18 jobs, 6 careers” reality

The average tenure in a role has already shortened to just under three years. If this continues, Gen Alpha will have an average of 18 different jobs over six distinct careers.

We need to stop viewing job hopping as a red flag and start seeing it as career portability.

HR practitioners should coach managers and leaders to embrace the revolving door – making it easy for great talent to leave and return years later with new, external skills.

Questions to ask:

• Do we have the infrastructure to make departure graceful and return frictionless – alumni networks, re-onboarding pathways, knowledge transfer protocols?
• If long tenure increasingly signals insularity rather than commitment, how do we redesign performance and progression frameworks to reward breadth of experience and the cross-pollination of ideas, rather than years served?

5. Gamified mindsets and interactive agency

Millennial gaming was often passive, but Gen Alpha has been building entire worlds in the Metaverse via Fortnite and Roblox since primary school. They are not a “seen and not heard” generation; they are used to having agency.

This interactive upbringing translates to a workplace expectation for collaborative leadership rather than top-down hierarchies. 

They will likely be more confident in questioning established processes. HR should harness this by involving them in strategic decisions early, matching their gaming-bred ability to make rapid-fire strategic trade-offs with the organisation’s long-term goals.

Questions to ask:

• When a junior employee challenges an established process, do our managers have the capability and the instinct to engage that challenge productively?
• Are we actively creating forums where Gen Alpha’s capacity for rapid strategic thinking and comfort with ambiguity can be directed toward real organisational problems?

6. The intergenerational knowledge exchange

As the most formally educated generation ever – with 1 in 2 predicted to obtain a university degree – Gen Alpha will bring unparalleled fluid intelligence to your teams. 

However, they may also be less proficient in practical skills and interpersonal social formation due to screen saturation.

The solution is a two-way street. We need reverse mentoring where Alphas upskill older generations on emerging tech, while Baby Boomers and Gen X pass down the crystallised intelligence, such as negotiation and persuasion skills. 

The arrival of Generation Alpha is not simply the next turn of the generational cycle. It represents a fundamental redesign of what human contribution at work looks like, how it is developed and how it is led. 

The organisations that will be best positioned in 2036 are not waiting for that moment to arrive – they are making deliberate structural choices today. The six pillars I’ve outlined here are a starting point for that work.

Ashley Fell is a social researcher and upcoming speaker at AHRI’s National Convention and Exhibition. Sign up today to hear from her and other global thought leaders.