This paper provides an elaboration of mimesis to propose that human resource development (HRD) practitioners need to reconsider the potential of workers' learning through every activities and interactions at work. It proposes that the majority of learning across working lives likely occurs outside of being mentored, taught or guided through training programs by others (e.g. teachers or experienced co-workers etc) and their pre-determined intentions for what is to be learnt. Yet, many, and perhaps most, explanatory and procedural accounts emphasise these kinds of intentional interventions by others (e.g. educational and training programs), more than workers' actions as learners in and through their everyday work activities and interactions. Therefore, it seems important for HRD that these everyday learning processes to be understood more fully. Here, an account is advanced here of how workers' learning through everyday work activities and interactions, both remote from and when engaged with others, arises through mimetic processes (i.e. observation, imitation and action). This elaboration sets out some premises that might comprise the foundations for an account of workers mimetic learning in the circumstances of work, in ways that seems relevant to HRD practices and practitioners.