Case studies

The company’s Wrocław branch was formed in 2019 from the merger of Polish forwarding company frameLOGIC with Sweden’s AddSecure, an industry leader in providing end-to-end Internet of Things solutions.

FrameLOGIC had already been operating in the market since 2004 and, prior to the merger of the two companies, was involved in the production of devices and software for vehicle monitoring and tracking. AddSecure’s Polish team continues to develop a proprietary IT system for fleet management (FMS) and transport management (TMS) for haulage companies across Europe.

AddSecure as a whole has more than 1,000 employees in 15 European countries, as well as in the US and Australia. AddSecure Poland is made up of 100 people, including a 30-person development department. The main market is Europe, but the company serves customers worldwide.

After the merger with the Swedish partner, the company’s language needs increased significantly. The organisation already spoke English when serving customers from Germany or the Netherlands. After joining forces, the need arose to train the entire team in a relatively short period of time so that employees could participate freely in the daily life of the company.

English became the language of internal communication. There was a need to cooperate in international teams and for Polish employees to actively participate in meetings. It was the active participation of employees in meetings that was one of the most important learning objectives for the company. The management emphasised the importance of freely presenting ideas and justifying one’s rationale in order to be perceived by Swedish colleagues as an equal business partner. The owners of the company were keen to ensure that every employee in the regular quarterly meetings not only understood what was being said to them, but was an active participant in events. This meant a strong emphasis on speaking competences.

The company also wanted foreign partners to be able to see how much content-related and technical competence the employees in Wrocław possess. This is greatly facilitated if they speak English fluently. Knowledge of this language also significantly improves employees’ chances of development and promotion within the company.

In the words of Marta Karel, People and Culture Manager, in our school they “found ears that listen” and a partner not only to conduct the language classes, but to assist them throughout the process: from the needs survey to the final report. It was this “handholding” and assistance at every stage of the process that captured the Management Board the most and led them to choose our school.

A thorough analysis of the company’s needs, followed by a detailed analysis of the needs of each potential student, helping the company to create rules and regulations for course participants, and being in constant contact and listening to the needs expressed – these elements were clearly seen by AddSecure as our strengths at the very beginning of our cooperation.

As is the case with any of those undertaking a partnership with us, the company’s staff underwent a two-stage language diagnosis combined with an individual needs analysis.

Approximately 50 employees currently participate in the classes, being at levels A1 to C1. Classes are conducted in small groups and individually. Lessons are held once a week for 60 minutes each for groups, while the frequency of individual lessons, aimed mainly at managers, is tailored to employees’ needs and responsibilities.

During the course of our collaboration, we regularly gather feedback regarding satisfaction with the classes, the language results obtained and the collaboration with us. Here are some comments on what makes us stand out according to our staff and management:

• “Prolang has delivered much more than we expected. It definitely exceeded our expectations.”

• “Prolang is characterised by an exceptional willingness to sew bespoke solutions, but really, this is not a platitude. Everything is done in collaboration with the company, we feel very well taken care of, from researching our needs, to proposing a collaboration and creating rules and regulations, to ongoing testing and reporting – we have rarely experienced such a ‘customer journey’ until now.”

• “Prolang has a unique selection process for groups – the two-stage diagnosis, which is not only a test but also an interview with a methodologist, allowed for a careful and thoughtful selection into groups, which translated into results.”

• “The lecturer is always prepared for the class, there has never been a situation where he asked “What was there last time?”.

• “The lecturer started by asking us about our expectations of the class, then checked that the topics and forms of the class were working for us.”

• “Prolang helped us to create the course regulations and to clarify the requirements for the participants. We were very comfortable with this joint creation of the training.”

• “Prolang has it in its blood to research needs and constantly check that we are going in the right direction. It collects and asks for feedback all the time and shows care for things at every stage of the collaboration.”