Learning in the Flow of Work: How to Design for Impact

Learning and Development Evangelist at Synthesia

Learning has always happened at work

Decades of learning science show that knowledge is situated, meaning it is a product of the context and culture in which it is developed and applied. Put simply, where you learn something influences how you learn something.

For workplace learning, that means work and learning have always been intertwined, with workplace learning existing on a continuum of planned, structured experiences to spontaneous, unstructured experiences.

What's shifting is our concept of the workplace. While in some industries the workplace has remained a constant, in others it is now a coffee shop or a couch. Or a cell phone on an evening commute.

In 2018, Josh Bersin conducted research on workplace learning, finding that employees have an average of 24 minutes per week for formal learning, about 1% of a working week. So, he introduced LIFOW as a paradigm shift in how organizations design for learning.

Learning that employees want

I'm a naturally curious person. I love learning. (Learner is my number one theme in CliftonStrengths, so clearly I'm in the right profession). What that means is I'm motivated to seek out knowledge for my own edification. LIFOW makes it easier for people like me to find well-designed content.

But it also makes it easier for people who are only looking for information when they need more support. That could be:

A sales rep is about to jump onto a call with a prospect. They know the pricing model recently changed, but they want a refresher on the nuances. Fortunately, there's a 30-second video sitting in Salesforce about the changes and a script for how to address objections.
A new hire is starting their second week. They can't remember the steps for a workflow, so they ask an internal AI agent that searches the onboarding learning content and surfaces the interactive demonstration.
A manager is preparing for a meeting where they have to deliver constructive feedback. They remember learning a framework in their development program (S-B…something), so they go into their manager's Slack channel. An infographic of SBI is a pinned resource.

In each of these scenarios the learning need is prompted by the work, be it a knowledge gap, task complexity, or a time-sensitive incident.

When (not) to design LIFOW

I read something earlier this year that proclaimed courses, and by extension, 'traditional' or 'structured' L&D is dead. It was LIFOW or bust. (I'll get t-shirts made for us.)

I disagree.

LIFOW does not replace formal learning experiences, especially the ones designed around discussion and problem-solving. Instead, it serves as the connective tissue, helping employees apply the skills they've learned, get feedback on that application, reinforce the knowledge, and get just-in-time support.

There are two factors to consider when determining whether or not to use LIFOW:

Do I have to verify the outcome to a reporting body? If you are responsible for reporting on the outcomes of a training to legal, regulatory, or safety authorities, then I would strongly recommend against LIFOW. Compliance training is the most compelling use case for keeping an LMS for most enterprises. There's a reason why.
Does the learning require sequential scaffolding? Skills take time to build. If a learning experience needs scaffolded progression, where foundational knowledge must be in place before progressing to a more advanced experience, then LIFOW could fragment the learning. You can't reinforce something that hasn't been conceptually grasped yet.

Now, in both cases, you can still use LIFOW as a support mechanism. If there's a safety incident, you can post a quick reminder video on an intranet's homepage to remind everyone of best practices. Once someone has progressed through a structured learning experience, they can get reminders to practice, perhaps with an AI coach for reinforcement.

Here are a few examples of how that could work.

Use Case	Design Approach	Why
A software engineer encounters an unfamiliar API while building a feature	LIFOW	Learning is triggered by a real work demand, at the moment of need, inside an existing workflow
A people leader is rolling out a new performance review process across their team	LIFOW + Structured Learning	Structured program builds the foundation for how to run the process; LIFOW supports application and reinforcement when individual conversations get complicated
A nurse completing mandatory annual medication administration certification	Structured Learning	The outcome requires documented, verifiable completion with a paper trail for regulatory and patient safety accountability
A customer success manager onboarding into a new product line	LIFOW + Structured Learning	Sequential scaffolding is required to build foundational product knowledge; LIFOW supports application and reinforcement between structured stages
A warehouse operative needs to follow an updated picking procedure after a process change	LIFOW	Short, contextual, triggered by the task, exactly the conditions where LIFOW works best

Remember how earlier I said our workplace is evolving, but not for everyone? For farmers and pastoralists in East Africa, their workplace continues to be the land. And LIFOW works for them too.

Thanks to organizations like Justdiggit, they no longer have to wait for a trainer to travel to them to deliver a session on how to dig semi-circular bunds to capture rainwater and reduce erosion. They can be on their land, on their phone, watching a video, pausing and rewinding as needed, while they follow the process.

LIFOW needs a measurement plan

Four years after his seminal study on LIFOW, Josh Bersin conducted follow up research. As of 2022, most organizations considered LIFOW the gold standard for workplace learning, and yet only 12% felt they do it effectively.

That gap is a measurement failure.

AI is making it easier for learning designers to design and deliver more personalized content at scale. But as a profession, we haven't been able to realize the same gains in how we evaluate that content.

How are we measuring LIFOW? Not just conceptually, but tactically.

Tracking LIFOW beyond your LMS

You can embed microlearning into a Slack channel or an intranet, but you need that content to be packaged in xAPI so it can report tracking data back to a Learning Record Store.

SCORM is designed for LMS delivery and won't capture engagement that happens outside of it. Without the right infrastructure in place, you're distributing content with no way to know whether it's working.

Given the potential volume of content that may be delivered in the flow of work, I recommend identifying what "good enough" (more on that here) impact measurement looks like for each piece of content. That means one metric that you can reliably and predictably collect that shows the impact.

With this information, you should be able to confidently say something like, "With this LIFOW content, we expected behavior X to change; we see evidence it did or didn't; metric Y moved in the expected direction or didn't. Here's what we'll keep doing, stop doing, or adjust."

I'll use an example from a sales enablement team we work with. A new rewards program had been rolled out at their organization, and yet sales reps were not promoting the program on calls. This was surfaced in analysis of call transcripts. So, they created a microlearning to remind reps about the program: what it was, what was in it for them. After sharing this content, they saw a six-figure increase in rewards program revenue and a 61% increase in mentions of the program on calls.

Amy Vidor

Amy Vidor, PhD is a Learning & Development Evangelist at Synthesia, where she researches learning trends and helps organizations apply AI at scale. With 15 years of experience, she has advised companies, governments, and universities on skills.