Various aspects of the present disclosure generally relate to wireless communication. In some aspects, a wireless communication device may perform a first polar code encoding process on a first transmission of a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) process; generate a second transmission of the HARQ process by relocating a portion of bits in less reliable positions of the first transmission to more reliable positions of the second transmission of the HARQ process, wherein the less reliable positions and the more reliable positions are evaluated based at least in part on a channel transform, wherein the channel transform is based at least in part on the first transmission, the second transmission, the first polar encoding process and a second polar encoding process associated with the second transmission; and transmit the second transmission of the HARQ process. Numerous other aspects are provided.