Push and Pull: Why Employees Don't Want to Learn When We Want Them To

L&D has a strange habit.

We decide what people need to learn, assign the training, send a notification — and then wonder why they don't want to learn.

Sometimes they genuinely don't want to.

But sometimes they do.

Just not now.

And I think this “not now” is quite important.

Push

Push learning is pretty straightforward.

The organization knows that a person needs to learn something.

So it says:

— you need to take this course;

— you've been assigned a webinar;

— you need to study this material;

— you need to complete the program by Friday.

In corporate learning, it is almost impossible to do without push.

There is mandatory training.

There are new products.

There are changes in legislation.

There are safety requirements.

There are strategic programs.

You can't always wait for people to discover a need for themselves.

So push isn't going anywhere.

But there is a problem.

The organization may know what a person will need at some point, but it doesn't necessarily know exactly when they will need it.

And that's where pull comes in.

Pull

Pull starts with the person's task.

Not:

“I've been assigned a course on handling objections.”

But:

“My client is objecting to the price right now. What should I do?”

That's a completely different kind of motivation.

The person is already in a situation where the knowledge has value.

They aren't learning “for the future”.

They need to solve a problem now.

So they look for information, ask a colleague, open an instruction, look at an example, or ask AI a question.

And if we can give them the right information at that moment, that is also learning.

Sometimes very effective learning.

Why AI changes the picture

Generative AI has made this story particularly interesting.

Previously, pull learning often looked like this:

“I don't know something → I search for an article → I find a document → I read it → I try to figure it out.”

Now you can ask:

“The client sent me this email. How should I respond?”

And get an answer.

Of course, that doesn't mean every AI answer automatically becomes good learning.

But the interaction model itself is changing.

People no longer necessarily need to know where the right knowledge is located.

They can describe the task.

And I think that's a major shift for corporate learning and knowledge management.

But pull doesn't replace push

It's easy to go too far in the other direction.

To say:

“Now employees will learn by themselves. We don't need courses anymore.”

I don't think that works either.

People don't always know what they don't know.

A new manager may think they are perfectly good at giving feedback.

Until one day they discover that their team sees it differently.

An employee may never search for information about safety because they don't realize they're breaking a rule.

So push is needed to establish a baseline.

Pull helps people when they are dealing with real work.

I don't think the two should be treated as opposites.

So where does the LMS fit?

A traditional LMS is very good at push.

Assign.

Notify.

Complete.

Check.

Record.

Certify.

Pull is more difficult.

Because employees don't wake up in the morning thinking:

“Today I want to open the LMS and find something useful.”

They have work.

A client.

A task.

A deadline.

So pull becomes much more natural when learning is available close to the work context.

In a CRM.

In an ERP.

In an HRM system.

In a corporate knowledge base.

In a work chat.

In an AI assistant.

And I think there is an important difference between these two approaches.

Push says: “You need to learn this.”

Pull says: “You need this right now — here's some help.”

A good development system needs both.

And there's one more important thing

I think pull learning also shows the boundary between learning and performance support.

Suppose an employee keeps forgetting five steps in a procedure.

We could send them to a course.

Or we could give them a good checklist.

If the task gets done correctly, the second option may be much more useful.

And this brings us back to a simple question:

Do we really need the person to learn something — or do we need them to do something correctly?

Those are different tasks.

Sometimes we need both.

But not always.

That's why I wouldn't say the future belongs to push or to pull.

It's probably about combining the two properly.

An organization needs to be able to tell an employee:

“Here's what you need to know.”

And at the same time give the employee a way to say:

“Here's what I need right now.”

The first is push.

The second is pull.

And a good L&D system needs to hear both.