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

Employees have just 24 minutes a week for formal training, about 1% of a working week. That gap is why learning in the flow of work (LIFOW), delivering knowledge at the moment of need inside the tools people already use, shows up on every 2026 trend list (including mine).

The common proclamation is something like "bring the learning to the people" or "merge work and development." Which, duh. Work has always included learning, from interactions, from risk, from mistakes. That part isn't new.

What's new is L&D's actual ability to design and deliver it at scale. And that's exactly where most organizations fall down: LIFOW can only transform your learning strategy if you can prove the content is working. Otherwise, you're just contributing to the growing readiness debt. Let's make sure you don't fall into that trap.

Learning in the flow of work isn't new

Work and learning have always been intertwined. That hasn't changed. What's shifting is our concept of the workplace itself.

While in some industries the workplace has remained a constant, in others it's now a coffee shop, a couch, or a phone on an evening commute. That's the paradigm I would argue organizations need to design around. Supporting employees who are working differently (and thus learning differently than before), as well as employees in more traditional workplaces.

The goal of learning in the flow of work is to reduce the friction between how people are working and where they're learning.

When to design learning in the flow of work

As the name suggests, learning in the flow of work is prompted by… the work. That means you have to anticipate the moments when someone needs to reinforce training they've already received, tackle a complex task, or close a knowledge or skill gap.

Once you've identified what's prompting the need, you need to figure out the best way to remedy it. That could be a one-pager, a training video, or another resource. Here are a few examples.

Example: Justdiggit

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.

When learning in the flow of work isn't enough

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:

1. 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.
2. 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.

Now, in both cases, you can still use LIFOW as a support mechanism. If there's an incident, you can post a quick safety training 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 roleplaying with an AI coach.

Note: in working environments where roles are highly prescriptive and have low autonomy, it can be more challenging to design LIFOW. There's less incentive to seek out learning, and therefore more learning may need to be pushed to the employee.

When learning in the flow of work fails to deliver

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.

Here's my hypothesis as to why: organizations are replacing structured programs with LIFOW, rather than treating LIFOW as connective tissue that reinforces skills or refreshes knowledge. 

While this approach is one way to reduce training costs, it often comes at the expense of sustained development. The only way to know for sure is to evaluate the LIFOW you deliver, to understand what is or isn't working, and why. That way you can join the 12% of L&D organizations who are confidently embedding LIFOW in their development strategy.