Polar Puffs & Cakes

For close to a century, since 1926, Polar Puffs & Cakes has been woven into the fabric of Singapore's food landscape. From its iconic curry puffs and chicken pies to freshly baked sugar rolls and all-time favorite cakes enjoyed across generations, the brand's longevity has been built on consistency, craftsmanship, and trust. This year, Polar marks its 100th year, with close to 400 staff, 38 outlets and over 150 takeaway counters islandwide sustaining that consistency at scale remains no small feat.

Polar’s workplace learning transformation began in 2021, when the company took its first deliberate step to strengthen workforce capability through the Learning Enterprise Alliance (LEA) initiative with the Institute for Adult Learning (IAL).

Laying the Foundations with LEA 2021

As a heritage food services enterprise operating close to 38 outlets, Polar recognised the importance of equipping its operations staff with clear competencies and consistent service standards. While the company already had an on-the-job training (OJT) programme in place, it was developed prior to the introduction of the Skills Framework and did not fully reflect evolving job roles, digital processes, or revised service expectations.

Through the LEA 2021 project, Polar worked with IAL to:

• Adopt the Skills Framework for Food Services as the backbone of its competency development
• Review and enhance its existing OJT programme
• Develop a structured training roadmap for operations staff
• Map OJT content to relevant Technical Skills and Competencies (TSCs)

The focus was not on quick fixes, but on building a system that could support consistent training across outlets and future workforce needs.

A critical part of this journey was capability transfer. Operations leaders, supervisors, and training staff were involved directly in the redesign process, gaining a clearer understanding of how structured workplace learning could support service consistency, productivity, and staff development.

Between September and November 2021, 12 polar employees, including area managers and supervisors, completed the WSQ Workplace Learning Facilitator programme, not only  for their own development, but to form a core group that  could champion and sustain the OJT rollout across all outlets independently. Equipped with these capabilities,  the team proactively piloted the first module, testing and refining assessment checklists in real outlet conditions.  This hands‑on approach strengthened operational readiness and ensured Polar was well prepared to scale the programme efficiently and consistently across the business.

The LEA project marked a shift, from informal, experience-based training towards a more systematic, Skills Framework aligned approach to developing frontline capability.

By the end of LEA 2021, Polar had established a revised OJT blueprint aligned to the Skills Framework, developed a cohort of trained facilitators capable of sustaining workplace learning, and a clearer roadmap for scaling training across operations. With these foundations in place, Polar was ready to take the next step.

Extending the Transformation with NACE@IAL 2023

In 2023, Polar continued its workplace learning journey through a NACE@IAL consultancy project, shifting focus from OJT redesign to digital learning capability.

When Polar's Learning & Development (L&D) team reviewed the mobile learning modules they had been building on their ArcLab platform, the feedback was clear: the content was too dense, engagement was low, and retention was weak. The team producing the content had never been formally trained in mobile instructional design, and it showed. Rather than outsourcing the problem, Polar saw an opportunity to strengthen internal capability for the long term.

Through the NACE@IAL project, Polar worked with IAL to:

• Build the training team’s instructional design capability for mobile learning
• Develop clear templates and frameworks for bite-sized content
• Create and pilot mobile learning modules aligned to operational needs
• Establish assessment methods to measure learning effectiveness

Rather than outsourcing content creation, the emphasis was on enabling Polar’s internal team to design, develop, and refine learning modules independently.

Polar’s management explained the thinking: "The goal is to optimise the performance of our retail team by offering them an extra avenue for learning through online training. The key to success lies in the quality and design of these e-learning modules. To ensure the modules' effectiveness, the L&D team needs to develop a systematic approach to creating content that is both structured and broken down into manageable, bite-sized portions.”

By the end of the project, two mobile learning modules had been developed by the training team, built using a newly acquired 'Absorb, Do, Connect' instructional design framework and practical content templates they could reuse for every module thereafter. The modules were piloted with learners, refined, and rolled out to the wider operations team, with a target passing rate of 90% as the benchmark for learning effectiveness.

Cherry Bajaro, L&D Manager, reflected on the shift:
 

"Developing e-learning modules have been a challenging but valuable experience. Based on the new knowledge gained, we intend to develop additional e-learning modules addressing various aspects of the service crew’s job responsibilities.”

Valerie Chuang, Senior L&D Executive, captured what the shift in approach meant in practice:
 

"Bite-sized means focusing on one specific, small aspect of a topic, explained thoroughly, following a clear structure of what needs to be done, how to do it, and why. It takes more time to create content this way, but it greatly enhances understanding for every learner."

A Continuous Journey of Capability Building

At the time, with over 300 employees and 100 retail staff as the intended beneficiaries of the mobile learning rollout, the scale of this people-first commitment was already tangible—and has since grown alongside the organisation.

The LEA project strengthened the structural foundations of workplace learning, competency frameworks, OJT systems, and internal facilitators. The NACE@IAL project then built on this foundation, enhancing the organisation’s ability to design and deliver learning in new, digital formats.

Across both projects, the common thread was capability transfer. Polar’s teams did not just receive solutions, they developed the skills and confidence to build, adapt, and sustain workplace learning systems that aligned with their operational realities.

For a heritage brand committed to growing sustainably while providing livelihoods for its workforce, this journey has reinforced the value of investing in people as deliberately as it invests in product quality.

Looking Ahead

The journey is far from over. With plans to extend the training roadmap to Polar's Factory and Production department, bringing the same structured, Skills Framework-aligned approach to a new part of the business and with the L&D team continuing to deepen their professional development in learning design, Polar's investment in its people continues to compound. Its experience shows that workplace transformation does not happen in one leap, but through deliberate, sustainable steps that progressively strengthen confidence, capability, and ownership over time.

Polar's story is one of many. IAL's Learning Enterprise Alliance and NACE@IAL consultancy projects are designed to help enterprises at every stage of this journey.

Looking to strengthen your workforce through practical, sustainable workplace learning? Discover how IAL’s Learning Enterprise Alliance and NACE@IAL consultancy projects support enterprises in building Skills Framework-aligned training systems that grow with your business. Connect with IAL to explore how your organisation can begin or deepen its own workplace learning transformation.