Polygon cuts course creation time by 80% and scales to 18 markets with Sana

Carrie-anne Lindsay · Group Digital Learning & Development Business Partner
Stephen Ridgway · Group Learning & Development Manager at Polygon Group
Polygon Hero

8

hours to create content vs. 40 hours in previous platform

75

content creators compared to 10 with previous solution

224

hours of admin work freed up per year

Challenge

With 8,000 employees across 18 countries, Polygon was struggling to maintain consistent training across its rapidly expanding operations. Their outdated LMS was hard to use, slowed down onboarding, and lacked modern technology like AI. Course creation was time-consuming and complicated, discouraging subject-matter experts from sharing their knowledge with the organization. Polygon needed an intuitive LMS that could streamline content creation across 10 languages, enhance collaboration, and improve the overall learning experience.

Outcome

Sana transformed Polygon’s training approach, cutting course creation time from five days to one day and streamlining translations. Its user-friendly platform sparked a surge in content creation, empowering teams to share knowledge and adapt materials globally. Real-time tracking has also enhanced management oversight. With Sana, Polygon is building a global learning culture, improving employee competence, boosting efficiency, and solidifying its position as a market leader.

Company size

8,100

Industry

Property Damage Control

Founded

2010

Headquarters

Stockholm, Sweden

Finding an LMS that could keep up with rapid expansion

Polygon is a global leader in property damage restoration, with 8,100 employees operating in 18 countries. In recent years, we've grown rapidly—both organically and through acquisitions. Most Polygon employees interact with customers every day, often operating autonomously, so learning needs to be a part of their everyday work. Finding an easy-to-use learning platform that made relevant content readily available was key to our success. Sana’s platform, which we’ve internally branded PolyPro, has enabled us to achieve this.

We need to guarantee that every new hire is effectively onboarded, and that all of our training efforts are consistent across countries—especially because we have teams collaborating on projects from different markets. Maintaining this consistency is crucial to avoid any negative impact on our end customers. Ultimately, our goal is to be the market leader in every region we operate in. In order to achieve that, we need to support our teams with strong learning and development (L&D) through each stage of the employee lifecycle.

With a two-person L&D team at the Group level supporting teams with learning objectives across the organization—and the contract ending for our previous solution—we had the opportunity to explore alternatives. We recognised that new and evolving technology, as well as enhanced features, would better support our growing needs.

Our previous LMS supported our learners well, but we struggled with navigating and finding content, tracking and managing team progress, and labor-intensive administration. Creating content was also a major hurdle, making it difficult for subject-matter experts (SMEs) to create and release content. We had valuable expertise scattered throughout the organization, but because of multiple platforms and processes involved in content creation, we knew we were missing opportunities to share it efficiently across our decentralized teams.

When our contract with the previous LMS provider came to an end, we saw an opportunity to find a different solution. We needed an LMS that was user-friendly, made content creation quick and easy—across multiple languages—and supported collaboration between our global teams. But we didn’t just want a provider. We wanted a supportive, flexible partnership—one where our ideas and feedback were valued, where customers could learn from each other’s best practices, and where we could help shape the platform’s future. After evaluating several options, we narrowed it down to three providers, and during the selection process, Sana stood out.

In our first demo, we were blown away by Sana. We asked them to take a 10-page document and create a course in English, Swedish, and German—live during the call. They completed all three courses in just 45 minutes. The speed, efficiency, and ease of use were exactly what we were looking for. The translation accuracy was impressive too—around 95%. This was the moment we knew Sana was the right choice.

After that, choosing Sana felt natural. We were confident the platform could help us foster a culture of continuous learning across Polygon, empowering employees at all levels to create high-quality content, and collaborate effectively across borders. The platform aligned with our vision for the future of L&D at Polygon and we felt that Sana was the right partner for us.

“Creating a learning course used to take us five days, and now it takes just one day—and that’s in multiple languages. It’s been a game-changer for our team.”

From five days to same-day course creation

Switching to Sana has transformed how we create content here at Polygon, and truly democratized the process. By removing technical barriers and simplifying content creation, we’ve unlocked the wealth of knowledge that exists within our teams.

Previously, creating just one course could take three to five days—if we were lucky. It was a daunting task, involving so many touchpoints, a lot of coaching, and a complicated process to load content into the previous LMS. The experience was clunky and time-consuming, which led to challenges with SMEs creating content. We were missing out on opportunities to share knowledge across countries simply because our people didn’t have an easy way to share it.

Partnering with Sana has enabled us to open the floodgates for content creation. The platform’s intuitive, user-friendly content editor has empowered our employees—even those without a background in L&D, from departments like HR, operations, and finance—to create courses quickly and easily. We can sit down with an expert in the morning, talk through their ideas, and by the end of the day, they’ve published their course.

We’re also saving time and money on translation. In the past, translating a course meant duplicating it, exporting it, sending it to an external agency, and waiting weeks for it to come back. Then we had multiple feedback rounds with SMEs in each country, updates from the translation agency, and finally imported it back into the LMS. The process was neither slick nor efficient. Now, we can streamline the entire process with Sana’s built-in translation feature, which allows us to create multilingual courses almost instantly.

The platform’s editor feels familiar and accessible for our content creators. It allows users to select card types—like flip cards or interactive quizzes—that automatically adjust to different screen sizes, making the experience consistent no matter what device they use. This familiarity has encouraged a “give it a go” mindset among our employees, and we’ve grown from having just a few people creating content to around 75 employees across different countries contributing. It’s amazing to see this level of engagement.

The platform also allows real-time collaboration on courses, making it easy to edit and review content. We’re no longer dealing with back-and-forth emails or a complex interface. Instead, our small L&D team can focus on enhancing the learning experience and coaching our creators, so our content is engaging, interactive, and tailored to the needs of our employees. We’ve made such big strides, we can now shift our focus to our biggest challenge: ensuring course quality and consistency across the business. This is our focus in early 2025.

We’ve always said that we want PolyPro to be the shop window for our learning, and it’s fulfilling that role, although there’s still a lot for us to achieve. We have more than 800 courses on the platform, and 40-50 in-person events in the UK and US. With the new Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) requirements, we’ll be encouraging all countries to use these in-person event features so we can better report on training across different regions.

Sana has not only made content creation more efficient, but has enabled us to easily share and engage with knowledge across Polygon. By empowering employees to easily create, share, and localize content, we’re building a culture of continuous learning and collaboration.

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Increasing collaboration between global teams

One of the developments the L&D team is most proud of is how Sana has helped bring our global teams closer together. With 18 countries, sharing knowledge efficiently used to be a real challenge. But thanks to Sana's collaborative features, connecting and working together has become so much easier.

A great example of this is our "Create and Collaborate" sessions. These monthly digital get-togethers allow our content creators from across the company to attend optional drop-in sessions to share best practices, showcase their work, and learn from each other. Using Sana's live feature to facilitate these sessions, we focus on course creation, branding, and accessibility standards, making sure that everyone is aligned on how to consistently create high-quality training materials. For instance, someone from the US might present a course they developed, and then a team from France or Germany can easily duplicate that content and edit it to fit their market and needs.

Before Sana, this kind of cross-country collaboration wasn’t happening as frequently. Our previous platform didn’t support the kind of seamless content sharing we have now, which meant each market was largely isolated in how they approached L&D. The L&D team also spent a lot of time training people on the technical aspects of our authoring tool and LMS, and very little focusing on how to create compelling and engaging content.

Now we have the ability to create courses in one country, and share or adapt them for others. This supports our aim to create consistency across borders, which is especially important when teams in different countries collaborate on cross-border contracts. This has been a huge shift for us, and it ensures that no matter where someone works, the training is consistent and aligned with our standards.

These collaborative sessions allow us to take a big step towards our vision of fostering a culture of continuous learning, and are helping us build a cohesive, global learning community.

“We’ve gone from just a few people creating content to 75 employees across 18 countries. Sana’s platform has improved collaboration and knowledge-sharing inside Polygon, making us more efficient and connected globally.”

Higher customer satisfaction with blended learning paths

From a learner’s perspective, we've received such positive feedback from our employees, and it seems to be changing the way they perceive L&D. One of the reasons is that we are creating an experience that’s more personalized with blended learning programs to boost understanding and retention.

For example, in our Technician Development Program, water damage technicians—who go into properties after they’ve been flooded to restore them—start with six core self-paced modules. Our team of technicians is diverse; some are seasoned professionals, while others are just starting out, so we needed a training program that could adapt to these different skill levels.

Then we take it to the next level with blended learning programs, where we combine different types of learning activities, such as online courses, live sessions, and on-site assessments. After completing the self-paced modules, our technicians participate in live discussions where they work with real-life case studies. They explain how they would handle the situation, guided by an expert who offers feedback and insights.

These sessions are recorded and transcribed, so they can use Sana’s AI-enabled search to revisit and review specific material whenever they need it. That’s one of the most beneficial features, and it’s having a real impact on how people work. For example, if a technician is out on a job and suddenly thinks, “What’s the best way to tackle mold?” they simply type that question into the search function, and the information is right there.

That’s when we feel especially proud of how we’ve developed content on the platform—when it’s making a real difference in the moment, helping our people on the job. We’re actively building out this kind of content now, and can’t wait to see how it’s helping our people. We’re creating a library of searchable, on-demand knowledge. In the past, if someone wanted to refresh their knowledge on a subject, they would have to revisit an entire course. Now, they can quickly search for key points, and immediately find the exact action or insight they need.

We will always need employees to do a certain amount of upfront training but we want to provide them with the information they need, when they need it. And the Technician Development Program is just one example. We’re also developing personalized learning paths for our Business Development Specialists in the US. Even our compliance training benefits from the search functionality. It means that our employees not only absorb the content, but can access it whenever they need it.

And our managers are seeing the benefits. We've created customized dashboards for each country, enabling managers to monitor their teams' learning progress in their native languages. It’s allowing managers to offer more individualized support to employees. And those managers are becoming more engaged, taking ownership of training at a team level—something that has been challenging in the past. They’re proactively addressing skill gaps, and contributing to building a stronger, more capable workforce.

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Streamlining and automating mandatory training

Sana has helped us streamline and automate key parts of our mandatory training, particularly when it comes to onboarding and compliance. What used to be a manual and time-consuming process is now more efficient.

One of the biggest improvements has been automating program enrollments. In the past, we had to manually assign training to each new hire, which in total took about 28 working days a year in admin time. New employees are now automatically enrolled in their required training when they start, giving them immediate access to vital information from day one. In our previous system, they had to wait 24 hours before they could even log in, which caused frustration and extra back-and-forth with HR and IT. With Sana, they jump straight into their training.

Even though we’re just starting to do employee onboarding in PolyPro to complement existing processes in each country, those programs are evolving to better meet the needs of new hires. Instead of overwhelming them with long, drawn-out training periods, we’re incorporating learning at key moments that are directly relevant to their roles. As new employees start their jobs, they get access to specific training modules that align with their tasks, so they quickly find the guidance they need.

Every employee at Polygon is also required to complete between three to five mandatory compliance courses, depending on their role. These include topics like the code of conduct; equality, diversity and inclusion; antitrust; anti-corruption; and IT security. There are also country-specific compliance courses, like health and safety regulations that vary from region to region.

We’ve set it up through our active directory, so even though we have a number of Human Resources Information Systems (HRIS) in different countries, we can still automatically assign and notify employees about their required training. This removes the burden for HR and managers to constantly remind people, and employees know that it's their responsibility to complete their training.

Insights dashboards also make it easier for compliance officers and managers to track who’s completed what, without needing to manually generate reports. This is reducing compliance risks, ensuring that all employees maintain the necessary certifications, and adhere to company policies.

Driving future growth with AI-enhanced learning

As we look ahead, we're excited about how Sana is going to support our growth. Our goal is to build a culture where every employee feels safe, competent, and valued, with continuous learning at the core. With Sana's innovative features—like AI-driven content creation and better collaboration tools—we're set to take our learning initiatives to the next level.

As we continue to grow rapidly, PolyPro will play a crucial role in making onboarding smoother, and ensuring consistency for new teams. By automating training programs and providing immediate access to resources, we'll bring new employees on board effortlessly while keeping our high standards of service.

Sana isn't just a learning platform for us—it's a strategic partner that's helping us realize our vision for the future.

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