The success of e-learning in companies primarily depends on your employees' ability to learn independently. But how can you promote these self-learning competencies? We have compiled the 5 most important tips for you:
Reading Tip: We have already explained the term self-learning competency in another article and shown why this ability is so important in e-learning: The prerequisite for successful e-learning.
The training of your own employees continues to take place predominantly digitally in many companies. As a result, many HR personnel are increasingly relying on e-learning and time-shifted, asynchronous learning units. Independent learning by employees is more important than ever. In e-learning, your employees must take responsibility for their learning process. What sounds simple is a major challenge in practice: Many employees first need to learn this self-responsibility.
As the person responsible for training, you should specifically promote the self-learning competence of your employees before providing the first learning material. Only then can you be sure that they really have the necessary skills for independent learning.
Self-learning competencies are diverse
Self-learning competence has a lot to do with the self-responsibility of your employees. For you as a manager, this means giving up control and passing it on to your employees. They must take care of their own knowledge acquisition.
Self-learning competence is important at four points in the learning process:
Learning planning and organization: Your employees need to be well organized in e-learning. To do this, they require sufficient learning time, an optimal, individual learning pace, and suitable learning media.
The actual learning process: Learning is primarily determined by the content. To ensure that the learning process is successful, you should align it with the learning objectives.
The learning outcome: Control is important to ensure that learning is truly successful. The alignment between the learning objectives and the achieved learning level of your employees is crucial.
The coordination: Learning must fit into daily life. Coordinating learning with other areas of life is therefore especially important. Additionally, the exchange among learners increases learning success.
At all four points, your employees need the right competencies and resources. Learning processes always include both self-directed and externally directed components. E-learning is also partly externally directed, for example, through the selection of learning media. “Self-directed” does not mean “without guidance”. On the contrary: Therefore, we now reveal how you can promote the self-learning competencies of your employees.
How to promote self-learning competencies in e-learning
To enable your employees to develop self-learning competencies, you need to support them specifically. Therefore, the first step should be to assess the current state and promote your employees individually accordingly.
Three examples of targeted support:
Do some employees have problems with the technology? Then explain the course procedure to them, for example in a short video.
Other employees may find it difficult to find their own learning pace – support them here, for example, with a template for a learning plan.
For many employees, it is challenging to schedule sufficient time for further education: Fixed learning times can help here.
As the person responsible for training, you can promote the self-learning competence of your employees at various points:
So you promote self-learning competence: Own representation // based on: Research Institute for Operational Education
As the graphic shows, you can promote the self-learning competence of your employees at various points. With the following tips, you can succeed at all five stages of the learning process:
5 concrete tips for promoting self-learning competence:
Provide your employees with the necessary learning content and sufficient input, so they can learn independently.
Delegate responsibility to your employees and let them decide on the learning process themselves.
Create awareness for learning and inform your employees about the reasons and goals of your training.
Explain to your employees why the individual learning measures make sense and place them in the overall context of their work.
Provide fixed times for feedback, questions, and suggestions to address the needs of your employees.
If you empower your employees with this competence, both sides benefit: You as the responsible person can hand over the learning process to your employees, and they become independent from you as the course instructor in their learning process!
Conclusion: Self-learning competence as a key to effective e-learning
💡 Self-learning competence is the central prerequisite for e-learning in companies to be sustainable, because only those who can plan, steer, and reflect on their learning independently will use digital further education effectively.
Digital further education does not realize its potential solely through good content or modern learning platforms. It is crucial whether employees are able to actively shape their learning process. This includes organization, clarity of goals, self-motivation, and the ability to use feedback.
As the person responsible for training, your task is therefore not only to provide courses. You create the framework conditions, give orientation, and gradually transfer responsibility. At the same time, you remain visible and approachable as a companion.
When you specifically promote self-learning competence, a learning culture emerges in which employees do not perceive further education as a duty but as an opportunity for personal and professional development. Only then does e-learning shift from a mere format to a true success factor for your company.
Updated on 24.02.2026
