How does Generation Alpha think? Find out what Israeli Futurist Adi Yoffe has to say 

The skills for the future are flexibility and resilience and to be living the future, one has to become the future. Israeli author and Business Futurist, Adi Yoffe says that now is the time more than ever before to prepare for the surprises ahead as we get ready to work alongside Generation Alpha, or people who were born from the year 2010 onwards. Adi Yoffe is the Founder and Owner of Fast Forward | A Business Futurist Company. Edited excerpts:

BT: You call yourself a Futurist – who is a Futurist and how does it help to know what the future holds?

Adi Yoffe: A Futurist is a student of emerging trends and prepares for the time ahead as life increasingly gets disrupted by technology. I have been speaking about the future for years and nobody ever took that seriously until the Coronavirus pandemic hit and technology almost took grip over every bit of life and showed how life can be entirely onboarded on technology in no time at all. And then, people decided to take ‘Futurism’ seriously. We have to prepare because the world is changing and that too very fast.

BT: What are the skillsets for the future? Can one prepare now for 10 years ahead or 20 years ahead?

Adi Yoffe: The two dominating skills for the future are these: first, we will have to be armed with our resilience and second, flexibility. We have by now already learned that what has worked for us individually or as humanity in the past will not work in the future. The so-called tried and tested will be pointless when it comes to experiencing and thriving in the years ahead. Because things are moving and changing fast, the basic skill that one has to grow is agility. Agility helps people adapt fast and ride waves of change.

BT: What is the future of work? Is Generation Alpha going to be involved? What motivates them?

Adi Yoffe: There will not be any 'one size fits all' sort of solution for work. As we have seen with the Great Resignation wave last year and then the digital nomadism of people preferring to be flexible than being tied down to the desk. The future employee is not someone who you can bind to a 9-to-9 schedule. They are talking about a four-day workweek. The pandemic has shown how technology can be leveraged to maximise life and balance it. So, the future worker (Generation Alpha) will be largely focused on personal wellness and balance when it comes to using time and making money.

BT: Businesses are changing and with it the kind of jobs that are there now or are going to be there. What is the future of employment and work?

Adi Yoffe: There will be all kinds of work in the future, but they will be dynamic. People will be experimenting and continuously learning, unlearning, and re-learning. While doing all this, the future generation of workers will split their time between personal ambitions and professional commitments, simply because they will need to time to continuously upgrade their skills. Mental health and balance and finding a personal space of fulfilment will be important. They will do everything but with a very conscious approach.

BT: We have seen that world over, the young ones are raising a voice about the environment and sustainability in work, life, environment, and business. What is your opinion?
 

Adi Yoffe: Yes. The next generation workforce (Generation Alpha) will be able to understand and implement sustainability. They will be able to create balance in their own lives and seek mental and financial wellness and actually make it possible. As they do this, they will drive companies and organisations in the same direction. So that’s good news.

BT: What is the big game-changer for governance and corporate governance in a tech-disrupted new world? 

Adi Yoffe: The future discourse in the areas of governance and corporate governance are going to be about Web3, the Metaverse, and the decentralisation of economies and how governments are going to regulate or control that as people freely engage with the world beyond the boundaries of political divide and control as we have known them and bring forth new solutions and create new worlds that challenge and shift paradigms. 

BT: Should we then brace for the future? 

Adi Yoffe: What we have to do is, get skilled, become the future, and start living the tomorrow, today.