How 18 Hours of Live Training Became a 4.5-Hour E-Learning Program

For international organisations, onboarding new employees is often far more complex than simply scheduling a few days of training. This is especially true when the product is niche, complex, and requires not only technical knowledge but also a broader understanding of business processes.

This was exactly the situation our client, the Dutch company Dycotrade, was facing. Dycotrade develops an ERP system for organisations engaged in wholesale raw materials trading. The company operates internationally: its clients are spread across the globe, and its employees work across several countries. In this kind of environment, knowledge transfer becomes not only a learning issue, but also a matter of business continuity.

The situation: difficulties training new employees

Like many growing international companies, the client faces employee turnover. In this case, the impact is particularly significant because training each new employee requires a considerable amount of time, attention from internal experts, and organisational effort.

The product employees work with is far from standard. It is built on specific business logic, which means that new team members need to understand not only the system itself, but also the core trading principles reflected in it. Training of this kind cannot be limited to showing features on a screen. It also has to explain why processes in the system are structured the way they are, how they relate to real trading practice, and how different decisions affect one another.

Before the project began, training was delivered live. This meant setting dates, bringing groups of participants together, coordinating trainers’ schedules, and making sure people were able to attend. In some cases, it also involved travel. The logistics functionality alone required three full days of training, adding up to 24 hours of learning activity.

This model worked, but it had clear limitations. Training happened when it could be organised, not when a specific employee needed it most.

The challenge: make training more accessible without lowering quality

The client’s goal was not simply to replace live training with another format. They needed a solution that would reduce repeated time and cost investments while preserving the quality of the content.

The key question was highly practical: how do you ensure that a new employee receives the knowledge they need at the right time, regardless of whether a training group has been formed or a trainer is available to deliver a session?

To solve this, the existing training materials had to be reviewed and transformed into content suitable for self-paced learning.

The solution: from 18 hours of recordings to 7 modules in the LMS

At the start of the project, the client shared video recordings of three days of live training. Altogether, this amounted to around 18 hours of content.

Live training recordings are always valuable, but they are rarely suitable for direct transfer into e-learning. Such recordings naturally include repetition, spontaneous digressions, audience questions, and longer transitions between topics. All of this has its place in a live session, but self-paced learning requires a different logic.

Our task, therefore, was not to simply “fit” the recordings into a digital format, but to distil their core value. We reviewed the entire material, selected the most important content, organised it into a clear structure, and created a learning path that employees could follow step by step, at their own pace.

The final result was 4.5 hours of e-learning content, divided into 7 modules. All modules were uploaded to the client’s learning management system (LMS), making them available to employees whenever they were needed.

Why this project mattered to the client

The value of this project was not only that the training content became shorter. More importantly, the training became easier to access, more flexible, and more consistent.

The client reduced the costs associated with organising live training because there was no longer a need to constantly coordinate sessions, schedules, and expert time for repeatedly delivering the same content. At the same time, the principle of access to training changed: employees no longer had to wait for the right date or for a group to be formed. They could start learning when they actually needed it. The organisation also gained greater consistency, as key knowledge was now delivered to all employees in the same clear and structured way.

Why this matters for global organisations

In international companies, training is directly linked to how quickly a new employee becomes independent, how many internal resources are needed to prepare them, and how effectively the organisation retains important knowledge as it grows and changes.

When training depends entirely on live sessions, the organisation inevitably becomes dependent on calendars, logistics, and people’s availability. When part of that knowledge is transferred into a well-designed e-learning solution, it creates more flexibility, clarity, and continuity. That was the most important outcome of this project: training became available not when it happened to be possible to organise it, but when it was actually needed by both the employee and the business.

In conculsion

This project once again showed that e-learning creates the greatest value not when it simply replaces a live format, but when it enables an organisation to train people more precisely, more flexibly, and at the right moment.

When 18 hours of live sessions are turned into 4.5 hours of clearly structured content, both the employee and the organisation benefit: one can learn exactly when needed, while the other can transfer essential knowledge faster, more consistently, and more efficiently.

The author of the article, Agnė Ignotienė, is an e-learning developer, training effectiveness consultant, and lecturer. She works with organizations that seek to turn learning and development into tangible value: from learning strategy and competency logic to e-learning solutions, processes, and effectiveness evaluation. Agnė is the initiator of the annual study “Training Plans and Priorities in Lithuania” (“Training Plans and Priorities in Lithuania”).