During these (please forgive us for using this phrase) uncertain times, it may seem like the world can’t possibly get more confusing. Well, hold on to your chairs: we need to talk about Gen Alpha.

Gen Alpha, which includes those born roughly between 2010 and 2024, is primed to make its workplace debut by 2028, and by 2034, millennial, Gen Z, and Gen Alpha workers will make up 80% of the labor market, according to the World Economic Forum. (Millennials made up 36% of the workforce, while Gen Z accounted for 18%, according to 2024 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.)

“Organizations, professionals, HR professionals alike have to really tune in. And this isn’t a get-to-know this generation and then put it on the shelf for five or 10 years. We have to constantly be revisiting this conversation and trying to understand the nuances of every generation,” said Ryan Jenkins, generational expert and author of The Generation Z Guide and The Millennial Manual. Generations’ formative years, he said, can offer HR “big clues” about how they can prepare for their future workforce.

For more on how HR can prepare for Gen Alpha’s workforce entry, keep reading here.—MC

It’s open enrollment season for many employees. And hopefully, it’s not the first time this year that they’re hearing about electing benefits.

“We should be talking about enrollment in the summertime,” Melissa Foster, VP and head of enrollment at Prudential Group Insurance, said during a recent episode of HR Brew’s People Person podcast. More specifically, “August, if not July.”

Why so early? Because it’s “not just checking a box,” Foster said. It should be viewed as “a strategic moment to actually engage with employees and get them to understand all the work that goes into building that total rewards package.”

Foster discussed the importance of open enrollment, and how HR pros can make the most and best of it for employees, with Kate Noel, SVP and head of people operations at Morning Brew.

For more from our conversation with Foster, keep reading here.—VV

It’s splitsville for Eli Lilly and CVS Caremark.

Beginning in the new year, pharma giant Eli Lilly will switch its pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) from CVS Caremark, one of the Big 3 PBMs that control about 80% of the pharmacy market, to Rightway, a much smaller alternative PBM founded in 2017, spokespeople for the three companies confirmed to Healthcare Brew.

The switch is “substantial,” according to Antonio Ciaccia, CEO of drug pricing nonprofit 46brooklyn Research and president of consulting firm 3 Axis Advisors. Drug manufacturers “spend a good deal of time blaming PBMs for problems in the marketplace…but then simultaneously, their companies contract with those same PBMs when it comes to their own employees,” he said.

For more on Eli Lilly’s PBM switch, keep reading on Healthcare Brew.—MA

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