The GROWTH® Model: A Universal Framework for Measuring L&D Outcomes in an AI Age

For decades, learning and development (L&D) professionals have wrestled with a simple but vital question: How do we measure the true impact of learning?

Frameworks like Kirkpatrick’s Four Levels and Will Thalheimer’s Learning Transfer Evaluation Model (LTEM) have shaped the conversation. Each brought valuable insights. Yet both were designed in an era before digital ecosystems, people analytics, and AI-powered decision-making transformed how organisations learn, adapt, and grow.

At Gallus Insight, we asked a new question: What would a universal model for measuring learning and growth look like if it were designed today, for a world where people and organisations leave digital traces of how they develop?

The answer is the GROWTH Model (Gauging Return On Workplace Training & Habits), a framework that defines measurable outcomes for learning, growth, and performance at individual, team, and organisational levels.

 Why Current Models Fall Short

Kirkpatrick’s Model has been influential since the 1950s, but it is training-event centric. It captures reactions, knowledge, behaviour, and results — yet it struggles to connect to broader organisational growth and rarely fits into today’s data-driven environments.

LTEM, introduced in 2018, is a powerful critique of shallow metrics such as “attendance” or “completion rates.” It helps L&D professionals reflect on whether they are measuring at deeper levels of learning transfer. However, LTEM is essentially a diagnostic lens — it does not provide a universal framework for evidencing impact to business leaders or for integration into AI-driven analytics.

 In short:

•  Neither model is AI-ready.
• Neither offers a universal measurement language that can scale across industries.
• Neither is sufficiently boardroom-friendly to evidence the value of L&D in terms executives care about.

The GROWTH Model

 The GROWTH Model was designed to overcome these challenges, the model is:

• Universal - applicable across industries, cultures, and geographies.
• AI-ready - structured to integrate with digital exhausts, behavioural data, and learning ecosystems.
• Business-aligned designed to translate growth outcomes into language understood by boards and executives.
• Scalable - capable of working at both micro (individual learner) and macro (enterprise-wide) levels.

At its heart are five thematic growth outcomes . These outcomes reflect that any corporate training activity should have a clear outcome, and that out come will fall within one of these categories:

 How Organisations Can Use the GROWTH Model

 The GROWTH Model isn’t just theory, it’s designed for practical adoption:

• L&D Leaders can use it to move beyond smile sheets and completions, evidencing real growth that aligns to strategic goals.
• HR & People Leaders can apply it to track workforce capability development, talent mobility, and culture change.
• Technology Providers can embed it into dashboards and AI decision/Design engines, offering clients a standardised way to evidence impact and optimising content quality.
• Executives can use the outputs to make informed investment decisions about skills, learning, and workforce development.

Example: Imagine a global bank applying the GROWTH Model. Instead of simply reporting that 80% of staff completed a compliance module, they can evidence how staff have developed decision-making confidence, how teams have improved collaboration, and how this supports risk reduction at an organisational level. Further more, the results can be fed back into any automation tools to further optimise the next piece of content.

 Why Now

The future of work is defined by AI, automation, and rapid skills transformation. Traditional L&D metrics cannot keep pace. Organisations need a framework that not only shows whether people learned something — but whether they grew in ways that make the business more resilient, agile, and competitive.

The GROWTH Model provides exactly that: a universal, future-proof measurement standard for the age of AI and workforce analytics.

GROWTH is designed by analysts to be ready for an age of AI

Conclusion & Call to Action

The Growth Model moves learning measurement beyond the limits of the past. It redefines L&D outcomes as measurable, business-relevant, and AI-ready.

Ask your Learning Tech providers whether they are implementing GROWTH.

Download the white paper to explore the model in more detail.

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Contact us to discuss partnership, licensing, or integration opportunities derek@gallusinsight.com

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