Gen Z is seeking out skills from TikTok and YouTube, but L&D shouldn’t see it as a threat

On TikTok, the current most popular social media app in the world, it’s not uncommon for users to claim they’ve learned more from watching videos on the platform than they did attending school.

The same may be true for the workplace: It only takes a quick, cursory search on TikTok to pull up learning content on prompt engineering for ChatGPT, computer programming, or Excel.

Though such skills training might traditionally fall within the purview of a learning and development (L&D) department, young workers have shown an increased willingness to seek out these opportunities without help from their employer. In a recent survey conducted by workforce analytics firm Visier, 22% of respondents aged 18–25 reported turning to TikTok to learn new workplace skills. Some 31% said they consulted YouTube, while 12% reported turning to LinkedIn.

“One thing that we know about members of the workforce who come from Gen Z is [that] their educational choices tend to be very pragmatic, very practical,” Jonathan Finkelstein, founder and CEO of Credly, a digital credentialing platform, told HR Brew. “They need to be as discerning about where they choose to spend their time learning,” as where they work.

Some HR leaders are seeking to tap into the Gen Z mindset by incorporating content from social media and internet creators into their L&D offerings.

Taking a wide view of L&D. Gen Z is entering the workforce at a time when many traditional life milestones look increasingly hard to attain. The high cost of living is a top concern for both Gen Z and millennial workers. In a 2023 Deloitte survey, 46% of Gen Z respondents reported taking on a second job to get by.

Against this challenging economic backdrop, Gen Z workers want to understand how the skills they’re learning in their jobs will serve them later on in their careers, Finkelstein said.

“This is a generation that will not be satisfied purely with a library of learning content,” he said. “They need to understand…how will this advance my earnings potential, how will this advance my ability to grow in my profession?”

For younger generations, L&D opportunities is the top consideration after work-life balance when choosing an employer, according to Deloitte. But not all learning happens within a company, and recognizing the value of skills that employees pick up outside the job can benefit both individual workers and employers, Finkelstein said.

Workers who use Credly, which provides digital “badges” to reflect their skills, can track both skills they acquire in the workplace and those they’re developing outside of their jobs, he said. Validating skills that employees pick up outside of traditional L&D pathways may go a long way with Gen Z workers, who value authenticity, he added.

Incorporating social media, with caution. For Deloitte, catering L&D investments to Gen Z and millennial workers is essential, as employees from these generations make up 86% of the consulting firm’s workforce, according to Neda Schlictman, its chief learning officer and managing director.

But given there’s a risk of misinformation on platforms like TikTok and YouTube, Deloitte has been careful when curating L&D content from external sources, she said.

Early on in her tenure at Deloitte, where she started in 2008, Schlictman said she was hearing from workers who would access learning opportunities through channels like Google and YouTube.

Today, Schlictman told HR Brew that Deloitte is focused on making “sure that our people are accessing trusted, external information.” On Cura, a digital learning platform, employees can access learning content from sources like Udemy, LinkedIn Learning, and TEDx. These vetted sources are available in addition to Deloitte’s own internal L&D offerings. Though Deloitte spends a significant amount of money each year developing its own proprietary content, “we’re also cognizant that if we want to be fluid…we have to partner with other outside providers,” Schlictman said.

Despite the potential pitfalls of mining social media for workplace training, Kat Norton, aka “Miss Excel,” told HR Brew that big employers appear to be open to the idea of working with online creators on L&D, at least in her case.

Norton, who shares Excel tips primarily on TikTok and Instagram, has been brought in by companies including Microsoft, Kraft Heinz, and Enterprise Rent-A-Car to help train employees on the software. She said she believes employers are interested in her services because she has found a way to make Excel training fun.

“A lot of people aren’t actually taking trainings and doing them, because they’re boring,” Norton said of traditional L&D offerings. “I’m going to make this as entertaining as possible for you.”

Still, Norton stands ready to adapt should her classes feature workers who are less media savvy than the Gen Z or millennial set. “I’m not gonna start whipping out TikTok examples in the wrong crowd.”