Advantive is a SaaS company that delivers purpose-driven software for specialty manufacturers and distributors, helping them scale efficiently and operate more profitably. As Director of Learning and Development, Bob Bednarz leads global enablement initiatives focused on accelerating employee growth and unlocking potential across the organization.
For Bob, learning isn’t just about delivering information; it’s about helping people develop skills and retain what they learn faster. His goal is to shorten the time it takes employees to reach key milestones, compressing what once took two to three years into six to twelve months, or less. Achieving that at scale, with a lean L&D team, required a new approach to content creation and engagement.
Maintaining engagement while operating at lean capacity
Advantive’s L&D team operates lean by design. Bob wears multiple hats, balancing facilitation, content creation, and program design while supporting over 600 employees globally, in addition to customer training.
Video has always been central to Advantive’s learning strategy, especially for self-paced and on-demand content. Creating a video that stayed relevant and engaging over time was difficult.
“One of the biggest challenges with traditional video is that it becomes outdated quickly,” Bob said. “You might record an hour-long training, and 30 or 40 days later, it’s no longer accurate. Then you have to rerecord the entire thing.”
Another major constraint was reliance on subject matter experts. Advantive’s technical experts are often customer-facing, and carving out time for them to record training, let alone create an engaging video, was challenging.
“They don’t always have the skill set to record engaging training,” Bob explained. “And we don’t always have the time to pull them away from customers.”
The result was slow production cycles, outdated content, and limited ability to scale learning programs without increasing workload.
Finding a faster way to create engaging learning content
Bob’s first impression of HeyGen was shaped by necessity. With one of the leanest L&D teams he’d ever worked on, he needed a way to create content faster without sacrificing quality or engagement.
“I needed to be able to create content faster,” he said. “At the time, it was really just me and one other person supporting hundreds of employees.”
What immediately stood out was HeyGen’s ability to turn text-based training into engaging video, while adding a human element through avatars. “One of the biggest challenges in self-paced learning is engagement,” Bob said. “People need an emotional connection to retain information.”
By using a studio avatar, often modeled after himself, Bob could create a sense of presence and familiarity, even in asynchronous learning. “If learners see a person, even an avatar version of me, they’re more likely to retain what they’re learning,” he said.
Enabling realistic role-play without live coaching
One of the biggest breakthroughs came when Bob began using HeyGen’s interactive avatar capabilities.
“The magic moment for us was seeing the avatar come to life,” he said. “But more importantly, it was the LiveAvatar and being able to role-play.”
Bob demonstrated a simulated interview scenario for a leader he reported to, showing how employees could practice real-world skills, such as interviewing or performance conversations, without needing a live coach present.
“That was the moment we realized we could help people develop skills without needing a coach sitting with them for hours,” he said.
This opened the door to scalable practice built directly into self-paced learning. Instead of relying on 90-minute workshops or one-on-one role-play sessions, employees could now practice in realistic scenarios on their own schedule.
“I didn’t think we were there yet with AI,” Bob said. “But this made it possible.”
Streamlining content updates and multilingual delivery
HeyGen also transformed how Advantive handles content updates and localization.
Instead of rerecording entire videos to make small changes, Bob could quickly update scripts and regenerate content. “If we need to make an update, it’s much faster than rerecording a three- or five-minute video,” he said.
The team also began experimenting with generative video creation, turning prompts or PowerPoint-style content into polished videos in days instead of weeks.
“Often we have ideas, but bringing them to life visually used to take weeks,” Bob said. “Now we’re doing that in days.”
For customer training, translation became significantly easier. Advantive primarily operates in English, but global customers require training in other languages. “Being able to upload a video and quickly have it available in multiple languages has been huge,” Bob said.
Building a foundation for faster, scalable learning
Since adopting HeyGen, Advantive has seen clear, measurable gains.
Bob estimates a 50% reduction in the time required to create self-paced learning content. In one recent example, a voice-over PowerPoint training that would previously take several days was completed in just two to three hours. “That time savings is the biggest metric for us,” Bob said.
Beyond efficiency, the reclaimed time allows Bob to focus on higher-impact work, such as facilitating sessions, engaging with employees, and supporting leaders, rather than spending hours producing content.
“If I’m saving time, I’m also saving money,” he said. “And I can spend more time in front of people, which ultimately drives engagement and retention.”
What Bob values most about HeyGen is that it continues to evolve. New features continue to expand what’s possible for learning and development teams. “We’re still just scratching the surface,” he said,
His advice to others getting started is simple: jump in and experiment. “The more you play with it, the more you learn how to use it,” Bob said. “And spend time building your studio avatar. The better you do that, the more lifelike and engaging the experience becomes.”
For Bob and the Advantive L&D team, HeyGen has become a foundation for faster, more engaging, and more scalable learning.
“If you want to save time, generate content faster, and create learning experiences that people actually connect with and remember,” Bob said, “HeyGen is absolutely worth trying.”
