Table of Contents
Employee confidence is essential for success, which is why employers should make nurturing it a priority. Despite often being thought of as something you either have or don’t have, confidence levels can certainly change over time. With a positive work culture and the right level of support behind them, employees can gain confidence in the workplace and thrive, which in turn has a huge impact on company-wide performance.
Studies have shown that self-confidence is a key determinant of workplace success. No matter how skilled or hard-working an employee is, if they lack confidence in themselves and the work they’re doing, they’ll perform below their potential. So, how can businesses make employees feel self-assured and build a more confident, successful team? Here are seven techniques that can help.
-
Treat All Employees with Deep Respect
It may sound obvious, but treating employees with deep respect and connecting with them personally can make a huge difference to their confidence levels. As well as making your people feel listened to and appreciated as individuals, this will help you better support them. By learning more about your employees, their individual strengths and weakness and the kind of projects they thrive on, you can work with them to better leverage their skills.
-
Assign Projects That Challenge Them
One of the common reasons employees leave a job is because they don’t feel challenged at work. To ensure your people don’t feel stagnated and help them build confidence, managers can assign tasks that will push them out of their comfort zone. These projects should be challenging yet achievable. If they’re too difficult or beyond the individual’s current skill set, you risk setting employees up for failure and could knock their confidence rather than nurture it.
-
Provide Guidance and Support
Be mindful about the way you present new tasks to employees who lack confidence. Let them know why you’ve chosen them for this particular project by highlighting which of their skills make them a good fit. Ensure you provide additional details to help them get started. Otherwise, they may feel as though they’ve been given an impossible task.
-
Recognise Their Efforts and Give Praise
If you want to foster a positive work culture, build relationships with employees and boost confidence throughout your company, you need to be celebrating successes. Positive feedback has been shown to alleviate the negative effects of stress on employee performance. Yet it’s been reported by the O. C. Tanner Institute that 45% of UK employees feel underappreciated at work. Providing positive feedback will motivate employees, boost morale and increase confidence, plus it shows you appreciate all the hard work they’ve been putting in.
-
Have Them Help One Another
Another way to boost confidence among employees is having them teach one another. Take note of their best skills and have them share these with others on the team — if they’re told they’re great at something specific, they’ll be more likely to have the confidence to talk about it with their peers. Their knowledge and guidance may also help a colleague work on a weakness of their own.
-
Help Them through Mistakes
For employees who lack self-confidence, even the smallest of mistakes can be discouraging. As an employer, you should encourage your teams to analyse and learn from their mistakes, helping them realise that failure is a step to success.
-
Hire a Coach for Your Organisation
Statistics from the International Coaching Federation show that many executives who hire coaches experience greater company-wide success and satisfaction among employees. A business or executive coach with accredited coach training can be an indispensable asset to your organisation, leveraging their expertise to help employees stay motivated and optimistic. Hiring an external coach encourages employees to have valuable conversations about their goals and any hurdles they may be facing without causing any conflict of interest. An experienced coach will help your people work through confidence-blockers and overcome these for greater workplace success.
