Self-Confidence In Online Training: How To Inspire Your Audience
Self-confidence is vital to the success of your online training program. Not to mention, your organization’s bottom line and customer satisfaction scores. Employees who complete eLearning courses and tasks successfully tend to believe in themselves. On the other hand, employees who fail in online training develop a sense of insecurity. It is the duty of every organization to break down online training into manageable milestones for every employee, to boost motivation and self-assurance. Here are the top tools to use to facilitate self-confidence in online training.
1. Incorporate Simulations To Improve Performance And Build Real-World Experience
Integrate simulations in your online course design to allow employees to mimic real-world processes. Some employees tend to doubt their skills. Simulations give employees an opportunity to measure and hone their talents without the fear of negative consequences. Allowing employees to practice real-life happenings helps them learn from the mistakes they make. Knowledge of what to do and what not to do increases self-confidence among employees and reduces on-the-job errors. Your employees are more confident in the workplace because they’ve experienced similar challenges before. Even if it was in a virtual, risk-free environment.
2. Integrate Branching Scenarios To Explore All Possible Outcomes
When employees are not sure which outcomes their actions will bring, they tend to doubt themselves and venture into the unknown. One such case is trying new tasks at work that don’t typically fall into their job description when a co-worker is out sick. You can build on their self-confidence in online training modules by including branching scenarios. These give your employees the chance to test how they would react to problems without worrying about repercussions. Testing the outcomes of various reactions to common challenges also equips employees with essential problem-solving skills. Having the right skills reduces uncertainty and increases the self-confidence among your audience.
3. Pair Up Self-Doubting Employees With Self-Assured Co-Workers
Create a mentorship program in your online training course. Let the more experienced and self-confident employees mentor those with little experience or little confidence in themselves. Mentorship helps employees to acquire new skills. Keep in mind that learning from a peer is often more enjoyable than learning from a manager. This approach to facilitating self-confidence in online training encourages collaboration among employees. Through collaboration, employees learn new skills from each other and benefit from one another’s unique experiences. New skills help employees to build on experience and talent, which increases their self-assurance. Online mentorship programs should always be supervised. Even the best employees can pass on incorrect information or conflicts can arise. Supervisors should be available to moderate what employees share within these programs and to intervene where appropriate.
4. Create A Supportive Online Training Environment
Incorporate online discussion and FAQs in the online training program and provide extra eLearning resources such as informative links to employees. These platforms allow employees to reach out to their instructors and peers whenever they need help completing a task. Forums offer a place for healthy discussion of eLearning course content and increase the pool of knowledge. Trends in each industry keep changing over time. Thus, your online training must adapt to equip employees with the information they need to keep up with the times. New problems and tasks in online training programs can greatly lower self-confidence. Having enough support tools and self-guided resources boosts confidence so they can take on any obstacle that comes their way.
5. Offer Employees A Microlearning Online Training Library
Aside from improving online learner motivation and memory recall, microlearning resources improve self-confidence in online training. Microlearning online training libraries offer employees bite-sized online training material. They form a quick point of reference for employees on various practices around the organization. When employees have these libraries, they can look up something quickly and avoid making the wrong decisions. These online training repositories allow employees to improve their knowledge without disrupting their busy schedules. They’re also able to improve on their weaknesses and be confident in what they do.
6. Set Realistic Online Training Goals
When you set the bar too high, you wreak havoc on the self-confidence of your employees. They keep second-guessing everything they do because they do not want to impede goal attainment. When they do not attain these goals, their self-confidence plunges. It’s a vicious cycle. Thus, you should divide the online training course into manageable and trackable milestones. In doing so, you will be able to set goals for each milestone and avoid setting complex and unachievable learning objectives. Better yet, let your employees choose their own goals so that they have direct input on the online training process. They know what they’re capable of and how much training they can handle in the specified time frame, as well as what they can achieve without compromising their on-the-job performance. For example, completing all the modules in a week may put too much pressure on them and their workload.
7. Empower Them To Choose Their Own Path
Employees who are empowered to take charge of their own online training are more confident in the workplace. They have the ability to focus on their own strengths and weaknesses in order to continually hone their talents. But they also recognize that the organizations trust their judgement enough to pick their own path, instead of dictating how and when they participate in the online training program. The company’s confidence in them prompts employees to build their own self-confidence, in turn. You can incorporate clickable maps, eLearning course catalogs or training contracts, which allows corporate learners to sit in the driver’s seat.
Using these 7 tips, you can raise the self-confidence of your employees in online training and achieve better performance in the workplace. Remember to design an online training course that caters to all types of online learners in the organization. At the same time, provide positive feedback regularly to corporate learners with a low self-esteem to boost their confidence. A little encouragement goes a long way.
As Stephen R. Covey, the author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal, so aptly put it: "To change ourselves effectively, we first had to change our perceptions". Read the article The Importance Of Raising Self-Confidence In Online Training to discover how perceptions about ability and talent may impact your corporate eLearning strategy.
