Training Industry Magazine - Summer 2023 - 17

W
ith more than 40 years of
experience in learning and
development (L&D), I've been
fortunate to have seen some amazing
technologies and methodologies come
and go. I've been on the " bleeding
edge, " typically by happenstance,
to some incredible new approaches
- eLearning, the internet and even
Microsoft Windows were all launched
within my professional lifetime. To show
you what I mean, I vividly remember
being asked, as a 21-year-old student
teacher in upstate New York, to arrive
at my assigned sixth-grade classroom
30 minutes ahead of anyone in the
building so I could load the cassette
tape " program of the day " in the TRS80
in the back of the classroom. This
allowed our 12-year-old students to get
their computer time for the day. That
was 1982. If you are not aware of what a
TRS-80 is, look it up. Your jaw will drop.
That was my foray into eLearning years
before that term even existed.
It's been a wild ride, to say the least. I've
seen fads come and go. I've seen our
industry enamored with what became
meaningless and, in some cases,
expensive trends, and I've seen us
ignore what could have been groundbreaking
methodologies. This article
is about one of those methodologies
that have been truly revolutionary
for me and many others - workflow
learning. Nothing, and I mean nothing
in my 40 years of working in this field
has been as powerful and impactful
for my work as workflow learning. Like
a dear colleague of mine says, " Once
you've seen this in action, you can't
unsee it, or go back to the way we used
to do all this. " It changes everything.
Here's why:
Understanding the Learner's
Journey to Performance
First, a definition. I'm a big vocabulary
guy! Don't get me started on
" microlearning. " Not because I don't
think it's a thing, but rather, if you put
10 L&D professionals in 10 different
rooms and asked for a definition of
microlearning you'll probably get
6-7 different answers. Words matter,
and when we're trying to add a new
approach, tool or strategy to our
learning portfolios, we need to be on
the same page as an industry around
what it means.
Words matter, and when
we're trying to add a new
strategy to our learning
portfolios, we need to be
on the same page.
Here's a definition of workflow learning:
Workflow learning is embedding learning
and support in the workflow to be
accessed while trying to perform on
the job. Notice the word, " while. " There
are a lot of learning and support assets
available in the workflow, but the learner
needs to stop working to consume them
- think learning management systems
(LMSs) and eLearning. Neither of these
is wrong or bad, they're just not workflow
learning assets. Workflow learning is
consumed while doing the work. It sits in
the workflow and guides the learner to
an outcome or brings them back to one
if they've failed and need to remediate.
Both instances are learning while doing.
Figure 1. Train, Transfer, Sustain
Mastery of Tasks
& Concepts
Competency on
the Job
Continuous
Improvement
Time to Competency
TRAIN - To Know
TRANSFER - To Apply
SUSTAIN - To Grow
TRAINING INDUSTRY MAGAZINE - SUMMER 2023 I WWW.TRAININGINDUSTRY.COM/MAGAZINE
17
https://trainingindustry.com/glossary/elearning/ https://trainingindustry.com/glossary/learning-management-system-lms/ https://www.trainingindustry.com/magazine
Training Industry Magazine - Summer 2023

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