The success of e-learning in companies depends primarily on the ability of your employees to learn independently. But how can you promote these self-learning skills? We have summarized the 5 most important tips for you:
The further training of one's own employees continues to take place predominantly digitally in many companies. Many HR managers are therefore increasingly relying on e-learning and time-delayed, asynchronous learning units. In this context, independent learning by employees is more important than ever. In e-learning, your employees must take responsibility for their own learning process. What sounds simple is a major challenge in practice: many employees first have to learn to take this personal responsibility.
As the person responsible for further training, you should actively promote your employees' self-learning skills before you provide the first learning material. Only then can you be sure that they really have the necessary skills for independent learning.
Self-learning skills are diverse
Self-learning competence has a lot to do with the personal responsibility of your employees. For you as the person responsible, this means giving up control and transferring it to your employees. They must therefore take care of acquiring knowledge themselves.
Self-learning competence is important in four places in the learning process:
Learning planning and organization: Your employees must organize themselves well in e-learning. To do this, they need 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 the learning process is successful, you should align it with the learning objectives.
The learning outcome: Monitoring is important to ensure that learning remains truly successful. Comparing the learning objective with the learning level achieved by your employees is crucial here.
Coordination: Learning must fit into everyday life. Coordinating learning with other areas of life is therefore particularly important. Exchange among learners also increases learning success.
Your employees need the right skills and resources in all four areas. Learning processes always contain self-directed and externally-directed parts. Even e-learning is partly externally controlled, for example through the choice of learning media. "Self-directed" does not mean "without guidance". On the contrary: that is why we will now tell you how you can promote your employees' self-learning skills.
How to promote self-learning skills in e-learning
To enable your employees to develop self-learning skills, you must provide them with targeted support. Therefore, as a first step, you should assess the current status and support your employees individually based on this.
Three examples of targeted support:
Do some employees have problems with technology? Then explain the structure of your course 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 difficult to schedule enough time for further training: fixed learning times help here.
As the person responsible for further training, you can therefore promote your employees' self-learning skills in various areas:
How you promote self-learning skills: Own illustration // based on: Forschungsinstitut für Betriebliche Bildung
As the graphic shows, you can promote your employees' self-learning skills at various stages. With the following tips, this can be achieved at all five stages of the learning process:
5 concrete tips for promoting self-learning skills:
Give your employees the required learning content and enough input so they can learn independently.
Hand over responsibility to your employees and let them decide on the learning process themselves.
Create awareness for learning and tell your employees the reasons and goals of your training program.
Explain to your employees why the individual learning measures make sense and place them in the overall context of their work.
Offer fixed times for feedback, questions, and suggestions to respond to your employees' needs.
If you equip your employees with this skill, both sides benefit: you as the person responsible can hand over the learning process to your employees, and they are independent of you as the course instructor in their learning process!
Conclusion: Self-learning skills as the key to effective e-learning
💡 Self-learning competence is the central prerequisite for e-learning to have a sustainable impact in companies, because only those who can plan, control, and reflect on their learning independently can use digital further training truly effectively.
Digital further training does not unfold its potential solely through good content or modern learning platforms. The decisive factor is 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 further training, your job is therefore not just to provide courses. You create the framework, give orientation, and gradually transfer responsibility. At the same time, you remain visible and approachable as a guide.
When you promote self-learning skills in a targeted manner, a learning culture emerges in which employees do not perceive further training as a duty, but as an opportunity for personal and professional development. That is precisely when e-learning transforms from a mere format into a real success factor for your company.
Frequently Asked Questions and Answers
What does self-learning competence mean?
Self-learning competence describes the ability to plan, organize, control, and reflect on one's own learning process independently. This includes time management, clarity of goals, and the selection of suitable learning strategies, among other things.
Why is self-learning competence important for e-learning?
With e-learning, employees often learn with flexibility in terms of time and place. For this to work, they must take responsibility for their learning process and, for example, be able to independently manage learning times, learning pace, and progress.
How can companies promote their employees' self-learning skills?
Companies can provide orientation and appropriate learning content, facilitate fixed learning times, make learning objectives transparent, and create regular opportunities for feedback and questions.
Does self-directed learning mean that employees do not need support?
No. Self-directed learning does not mean learning without guidance. Those responsible should create suitable framework conditions, provide orientation, and be available as a contact partner in case of questions or difficulties.
What role do learning times play for independent learning?
Sufficient and consciously planned learning times help employees integrate further training into their daily work routine. They prevent self-directed learning from being permanently displaced by day-to-day business.
