Learning in the flow of work is an expression first popularized by talent expert Josh Bersin, and it’s all about shifting our perspective on how we approach learning at work. In essence, the shift to learning in the flow of work is moving away from “going somewhere” to learn, and instead letting learning come to us naturally. It’s kind of like learning to do by doing, but with a twist.
So how do we let learning come to us? And what is the flow of work? Read on to find out!
For the most part, our flow of work is just the natural processes that make up our day. For most knowledge-based workers, this means a lot of emails, meetings, reading, and writing. Typically, that flow involves constantly having to absorb and distribute information; when we think about learning in the flow of work then, we should think about how to fit personal development in and around the flow of information that already surrounds us.
In a similar way, learning in the flow for skill-based work can involve learning that’s structured around a task, for example: consuming bite-sized content that educates someone on how to safely execute their assigned duties.
Josh Bersin talks about learning in the flow as making learning “almost invisible in our jobs”, meaning, learning is integrated with the work we’re already doing. This doesn’t mean ad hoc however (which happens on the fly and isn’t usually purposeful or directed), but rather, built-in.
Essentially, you want to think of ways that you can purposely bump into learning throughout your day. Almost like how you can intentionally run into someone you want to network with just by positioning yourself correctly in a crowded conference room, you want to position the content you need to consume at intervals which make sense according to the tasks you have to complete throughout the day.
For instance, maybe you’ve got a particularly tricky job on your plate in the afternoon that you’re not sure how to tackle; so before you start it, equip yourself with the knowledge you need to complete it. That’s learning in the flow!
Between all your emails and instant messaging channels you’re likely to get a lot of information coming your way. For example, a coworker might send you industry news or a long read that’s going to help you do your job better. The problem is, you’re doing something right now (correspondence) that you don’t want to be pulled away from, but you could bookmark these things to explore when you have some free time later.
Now, when you get a few free minutes, head back to these bookmarks to learn something new without interrupting your workflow!
While the idea of blocking time for learning is not what learning in the flow is all about, you’re probably already blocking time for other tasks you want to accomplish. So when it comes to learning in the flow, try to think about how you can coordinate your timeblocks to allow for bite-sized learning over the course of your day.
One of the keys to enabling yourself or your team to learn in the flow of work is to make knowledge easily shareable and easily accessible. Meaning if you have something you want your employees to learn, can they find it? If they need to Google something your company already has an answer for, there needs to be a way to present that information in such a way that makes your own internal knowledge network the go-to place to learn. This will allow people to learn in the flow and simultaneously avoid accidentally finding the wrong answer to any questions they may have.
Learning that’s integrated within your workday happens when you need it to, making it convenient but also contextualized. When you’re learning in the flow, you’re consuming content that adds a dimension to what you’re already doing, rather than trying to learn something which doesn’t have any bearing on the task at hand.
It’s also not like traditional learning, where you put maximal time and effort into learning something within a specified period. Instead, it should actually require very little effort to integrate naturally. That’s why learning in the flow has to be flexible.
Think about microlearning: these modules are tiny, and easily digestible, allowing you to learn something in just a couple of minutes, giving you the flexibility to add learning in where it fits with your work.
Try simply adding learning objectives into your workflow where you already have space (and where it makes sense based on the tasks you need to perform).
All corporate leaders, not just learning and development professionals should care deeply about getting their workforce adapted to learning in the flow. One critical reason is because data tells us that it’s almost four times cheaper to train current talent for new skills than it is to recruit new talent with those skills.
Another reason to care is that giving your employees better opportunities to acquire new learnings helps keep them engaged. According to data from an extensive LinkedIn member survey, 94% of employees said they would be willing to stay with a company that invested in their learning, but that in addition, the number one reason employees felt held back from learning was because they didn’t have the time.
Learning in the flow of work then not only helps engage and retain employees but also overcomes the oft-encountered hurdle of not having enough time set aside to learn. By incorporating learning into your employee’s workflow you’ll not only end up with a smarter workforce, but also build your reputation as a company that people want to work for because they feel valued.
So now that you know what learning in the flow is, why it works, and why you should care, how can you integrate it at your workplace? Here are three ways to integrate learning into the flow that you can start doing today.
If your company already has an intranet or other internal system where employees can find things they want to learn, that’s great, but keep in mind that often these sources can be difficult to navigate.
Make it easy for employees to find the knowledge they need by creating a standardized method for info-sharing among your workforce, and house it all in one place. This can be as simple as a Google Doc or a Slack channel, just make sure it’s searchable and navigable.
One step beyond creating a culture of learning is to actively let employees know that it’s all right for them to learn a task they’ve been assigned as they complete it. Often in workplaces, employees feel pressured to complete a task they aren’t familiar with and are afraid to ask for help.
When you clearly outline in a public place (your source of truth Doc for example) how to do certain tasks, employees will feel less intimidated and are also less likely to procrastinate on tasks; instead, now that you’ve armed them with the knowledge they need to do something, they’ll learn a new skill.
One of the best ways to help people learn is to meet them in a medium that works for them. This could be through audio or video content, for example, but whatever the format, it will be most effective in the flow as micro-content that an employee can quickly ingest to help them do what they need to do in a particular moment.
Traditional learning can feel like a long and arduous journey for employees, and it only comes in one kind of package—big, course-based modules that require vast swathes of a person’s time. If you’ve already got those sorts of resources, try to adapt that content you’ve already built into something more engaging, digestible, and time-sensitive.
Learning in the flow of work is completely shaking up the way we learn at work and is a fantastic way to get employees learning things that actually help them succeed in the moment. At its core, learning in the flow offers convenience for workers, cost and time savings for employers, and ultimately makes organizations stronger by making them smarter.
Integrating learning within the workflow of employees might have been difficult at one time, but it isn’t today. Often it’s as simple as breaking information businesses already have into smaller bits of content and simply housing it somewhere that everyone has access to.
With more ways to record and distribute content than any other time in history, employers are well equipped with the tools they need to deliver microlearning right now. All that’s left to do is get started!
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Learning in the flow of work is an expression first popularized by talent expert Josh Bersin, and it’s all about shifting our perspective on how we approach learning at work. In essence, the shift to learning in the flow of work is moving away from “going somewhere” to learn, and instead letting learning come to us naturally. It’s kind of like learning to do by doing, but with a twist.
So how do we let learning come to us? And what is the flow of work? Read on to find out!
For the most part, our flow of work is just the natural processes that make up our day. For most knowledge-based workers, this means a lot of emails, meetings, reading, and writing. Typically, that flow involves constantly having to absorb and distribute information; when we think about learning in the flow of work then, we should think about how to fit personal development in and around the flow of information that already surrounds us.
In a similar way, learning in the flow for skill-based work can involve learning that’s structured around a task, for example: consuming bite-sized content that educates someone on how to safely execute their assigned duties.
Josh Bersin talks about learning in the flow as making learning “almost invisible in our jobs”, meaning, learning is integrated with the work we’re already doing. This doesn’t mean ad hoc however (which happens on the fly and isn’t usually purposeful or directed), but rather, built-in.
Essentially, you want to think of ways that you can purposely bump into learning throughout your day. Almost like how you can intentionally run into someone you want to network with just by positioning yourself correctly in a crowded conference room, you want to position the content you need to consume at intervals which make sense according to the tasks you have to complete throughout the day.
For instance, maybe you’ve got a particularly tricky job on your plate in the afternoon that you’re not sure how to tackle; so before you start it, equip yourself with the knowledge you need to complete it. That’s learning in the flow!
Between all your emails and instant messaging channels you’re likely to get a lot of information coming your way. For example, a coworker might send you industry news or a long read that’s going to help you do your job better. The problem is, you’re doing something right now (correspondence) that you don’t want to be pulled away from, but you could bookmark these things to explore when you have some free time later.
Now, when you get a few free minutes, head back to these bookmarks to learn something new without interrupting your workflow!
While the idea of blocking time for learning is not what learning in the flow is all about, you’re probably already blocking time for other tasks you want to accomplish. So when it comes to learning in the flow, try to think about how you can coordinate your timeblocks to allow for bite-sized learning over the course of your day.
One of the keys to enabling yourself or your team to learn in the flow of work is to make knowledge easily shareable and easily accessible. Meaning if you have something you want your employees to learn, can they find it? If they need to Google something your company already has an answer for, there needs to be a way to present that information in such a way that makes your own internal knowledge network the go-to place to learn. This will allow people to learn in the flow and simultaneously avoid accidentally finding the wrong answer to any questions they may have.
Learning that’s integrated within your workday happens when you need it to, making it convenient but also contextualized. When you’re learning in the flow, you’re consuming content that adds a dimension to what you’re already doing, rather than trying to learn something which doesn’t have any bearing on the task at hand.
It’s also not like traditional learning, where you put maximal time and effort into learning something within a specified period. Instead, it should actually require very little effort to integrate naturally. That’s why learning in the flow has to be flexible.
Think about microlearning: these modules are tiny, and easily digestible, allowing you to learn something in just a couple of minutes, giving you the flexibility to add learning in where it fits with your work.
Try simply adding learning objectives into your workflow where you already have space (and where it makes sense based on the tasks you need to perform).
All corporate leaders, not just learning and development professionals should care deeply about getting their workforce adapted to learning in the flow. One critical reason is because data tells us that it’s almost four times cheaper to train current talent for new skills than it is to recruit new talent with those skills.
Another reason to care is that giving your employees better opportunities to acquire new learnings helps keep them engaged. According to data from an extensive LinkedIn member survey, 94% of employees said they would be willing to stay with a company that invested in their learning, but that in addition, the number one reason employees felt held back from learning was because they didn’t have the time.
Learning in the flow of work then not only helps engage and retain employees but also overcomes the oft-encountered hurdle of not having enough time set aside to learn. By incorporating learning into your employee’s workflow you’ll not only end up with a smarter workforce, but also build your reputation as a company that people want to work for because they feel valued.
So now that you know what learning in the flow is, why it works, and why you should care, how can you integrate it at your workplace? Here are three ways to integrate learning into the flow that you can start doing today.
If your company already has an intranet or other internal system where employees can find things they want to learn, that’s great, but keep in mind that often these sources can be difficult to navigate.
Make it easy for employees to find the knowledge they need by creating a standardized method for info-sharing among your workforce, and house it all in one place. This can be as simple as a Google Doc or a Slack channel, just make sure it’s searchable and navigable.
One step beyond creating a culture of learning is to actively let employees know that it’s all right for them to learn a task they’ve been assigned as they complete it. Often in workplaces, employees feel pressured to complete a task they aren’t familiar with and are afraid to ask for help.
When you clearly outline in a public place (your source of truth Doc for example) how to do certain tasks, employees will feel less intimidated and are also less likely to procrastinate on tasks; instead, now that you’ve armed them with the knowledge they need to do something, they’ll learn a new skill.
One of the best ways to help people learn is to meet them in a medium that works for them. This could be through audio or video content, for example, but whatever the format, it will be most effective in the flow as micro-content that an employee can quickly ingest to help them do what they need to do in a particular moment.
Traditional learning can feel like a long and arduous journey for employees, and it only comes in one kind of package—big, course-based modules that require vast swathes of a person’s time. If you’ve already got those sorts of resources, try to adapt that content you’ve already built into something more engaging, digestible, and time-sensitive.
Learning in the flow of work is completely shaking up the way we learn at work and is a fantastic way to get employees learning things that actually help them succeed in the moment. At its core, learning in the flow offers convenience for workers, cost and time savings for employers, and ultimately makes organizations stronger by making them smarter.
Integrating learning within the workflow of employees might have been difficult at one time, but it isn’t today. Often it’s as simple as breaking information businesses already have into smaller bits of content and simply housing it somewhere that everyone has access to.
With more ways to record and distribute content than any other time in history, employers are well equipped with the tools they need to deliver microlearning right now. All that’s left to do is get started!
