By Con Gottfredson and Bob Mosher
To be clear, the title for this article isn’t meant to belittle microlearning in any way. Our intent is to convey that although microlearning and workflow learning are key members of the learning and job performance ecosystem, they aren’t the same. And, like wolves, workflow learning is mostly misunderstood, with many just starting to recognize its vital role.
The confusion between these two disciplines is tied to the reality that both workflow learning and microlearning can be readily accessed by performers from within their workflow. However, by nature microlearning requires learners to pause work to learn—and then devote even more non-working effort to transfer what they have learned to actual job performance. This takes valuable time and effort away from the work that employees have been hired to do. Not true with workflow learning. At its unique core, workflow learning occurs while people are actually working, without pausing or stopping their work. The transfer of knowledge and skills during workflow learning is simultaneous. Gloria Gery referred to this as “unconscious learning” (Snodgrass, 1998, p. 298). It’s as experiential as learning can ever get.
Learning While Working
Workflow learning is learning while working at all 5 Moments of Need. The following graphic shows these moments.
Although microlearning can and should play a supporting role in a workflow learning strategy, it’s a costly component. These “bite-sized” learning experiences require learners to briefly pause their work to complete the microlearning lesson. These micro-lessons are most impactful when closing a skill gap tied to immediate work requirements at the moments of Learn New or Learn More.
Stopping work to learn is costly. It’s also risky, and highly ineffective without intentionally orchestrated workflow learning, which always requires digital coach capabilities. In 1991 Gloria Gery defined a digital coach as “the use of technology to provide on-demand access to integrated information, guidance, advice, assistance, training, and tools to enable high-level job performance with a minimum of support from other people” (Snodgrass, 1998, p. 298).
Note that a digital coach isn’t defined as a technology. It is a methodology enabled by technology that integrates all the resources needed to support learning at the 5 Moments of Need. Central to this methodology is a model for how to orchestrate/integrate all the supporting resources at the job-task level. This approach is shown in the following Performance Support Pyramid:
The Pyramid shows different categories of supporting resources in a cascading order. The very top of the pyramid represents the different contextual ways that a performer accesses the steps of a specific job-task and the conceptual knowledge that supports it. As performers move down the pyramid for support, the resources being used require increasingly more time and effort to employ them. Microlearning lessons are accessed in the “Learning Resources” layer of the Pyramid in support of those tasks where the consequences of failure are significant to catastrophic.
Using a Digital Coach in the Workflow
Here’s how workflow learning operates with the help of a digital coach:
At the moment of Apply: Every time workflow learners use a digital coach to guide them as they perform the steps of a specific job task in the adaptive environment of the workflow, they are learning experientially while working.
The digital coach provides immediate contextual access to step-by-step guidance while performing a specific job task with intuitive access to all the supporting resources needed for that task at the moment of Apply.
At the moment of Change: Every time workflow learners use a digital coach to help reinforce a change in the steps of a task or different guidance or understanding about the task, they are learning while working at the Moment of Change.
The digital coach proactively pushes change notifications to performers with instant access to the level of change guidance needed to override deeply learned skills and related knowledge. Also, an adaptive learning support system pushes questions and/or microlearning lessons to learners in the workflow when the critical impact of failure to make the change is significant to catastrophic.
At the moment of Solve: Every time workflow learners use a digital coach to resolve a problem, they are learning while working at the Moment of Solve.
When things go wrong, the digital coach provides access to troubleshooting resources (e.g., FAQs, lessons learned, decision trees) and, when needed, guidance from others.
At the moment of Learn New: Every time workflow learners use a digital coach to learn how to perform a complex task with a high critical impact of failure for the first time, they are learning something New. These tasks require pausing work to learn.
The digital coach provides access to step-by-step job task guidance, along with access to supporting learning resources—especially microlearning lessons. Also, an adaptive learning support system pushes questions associated with new knowledge acquisition requirements to learners in the workflow.
At the moment of Learn More: Every time workflow learners use a digital coach to guide them as they perform the steps of a task similar to those in other tasks they have successfully performed, they are learning More as they generalize from an existing set of skills and experience to a similar set of skills.
The digital coach provides quick access to step-by-step job task guidance and fingertip access to additional levels of supporting resources, including microlearning bursts. Also, an adaptive learning support system pushes questions associated with expanding knowledge acquisition requirements to learners in the workflow.
Today, AI is in process of revolutionizing how we enable learning while working. Certainly, it is also accelerating the development and orchestration of microlearning lessons. Vital to this is ensuring that AI is acting according to a proven methodology and reliable content. In this regard, it’s crucial to understand that microlearning is not workflow learning. Microlearning is a key component in providing Performance Support Pyramid support to a workflow learning strategy.
Integrate Learning with Working
Don’t miss the Learning Guild’s Micro- and Workflow Learning online conference, February 11-12, 2026! Essential sessions address embedding learning in everyday tools, leveraging AI to create powerful microlearning, and bringing microlearning together with workflow learning. Register today to power up learning in your organization.
Image credits:
Top image: Moor Studio
Others: APPLY Synergies
