I read an interesting post last week from Scott McLeod about deeper learning in schools. The useful part for workplace learning isn’t in the education terminology but as a warning.

Schools often absorb new practice without changing much – the old model stays intact and low-level work gets called high-level work.

Workplace learning does this constantly. A course becomes an academy, a content library becomes an ecosystem, a workshop becomes capability building. Attendance becomes engagement and confidence scores become impact.

The language gets deeper but the work? Not so much.

Deeper workplace learning is not richer content, more reflection or giving people more resources and hoping they use them well.

It is learning that changes participation in the work. People make better decisions, produce better artefacts, and handle harder conversations. They notice different risks, so use judgement with more discipline. Teams change routines, not just intentions.

That is where the school model and the workplace model overlap – mastery, identity and making all matter.

But workplaces are different.

Agency is constrained by role, workload, regulation, systems, managers and incentives. Creativity is often not free expression but responsible adaptation inside real limits. Authenticity is not something we need to manufacture, because the real work is already there.

The question is whether the learning is connected to it. Most workplace learning still asks people to receive, discuss and complete.

Deeper workplace learning asks them to make, test, decide, improve and evidence.

That is a much higher bar, and it is why so much workplace learning can sound strategic while leaving the work untouched.