There's not much workflow to it. Unfortunately I don't use the watch for much other than two very useful functions: 1) getting bumped when there's an incoming notification, or getting a hard to ignore vibration when I have an incoming call; 2) using the "find my phone" feature, which is super convenient compared to logging on to icloud.com, and makes your phone play a ping sound even if it's otherwise silent.
Sometimes I have to turn on sound on the phone for things like Waze or for playing videos or music. But the ringer stays off (due to settings).
The connection with the iPhone and Mac seems fine. However, with my watch (1st generation) a couple of updates ago the lost phone ping feature got a new unwelcome degree of latency. It can now take up to 30 seconds for the phone to ping, where it used to be immediate. I don't know if this is the case for newer models. Nor could I say whether the problem is on the watch side, or the phone side (doesn't matter, I guess). But at least it still works.