Published On: February 10, 2022By
Talented Learning Reviews

(Updated 2022)

Growth Engineering Logo

If you’re interested in a learning system provider with a focus on exciting learning efficacy, you’ll want to read this Growth Engineering review.

Founded in 2004, Growth Engineering is based in Windsor, UK, with additional offices in the US, Singapore and Australia. Their clientele is global and covers a range of industries, with a focus on consumer retail brands and hospitality. Growth Engineering wants to make the learning experience better and more engaging in a way that proactively and measurably shows a return on investment.

The team at Growth Engineering fundamentally believes that everybody is born curious and everybody wants to learn. But, they see that most education doesn’t engage the learner, so it makes little or no impact in terms of their behavior or their curiosity to learn more about a subject. For many years, Growth Engineering has been innovating and solving that problem with their solutions.

Solution/Products Offered

In this Growth Engineering review, we’ll cover their three primary products which are tightly integrated:

  • The Knowledge Arcade – a customizable mobile app that incorporates social learning and gamification into the learning experience
  • The Genie Authoring Tool – a sophisticated learning builder that makes it easy to create and gamify content that drives retention and performance
  • The Academy LMS – a learning management system based on pioneering research into brain science and containing features for content management, administration, assessments and more

Growth Engineering Target Market

Growth Engineering focuses on industries that tend to employ younger learners and millennials, such as retail and hospitality. This includes extended enterprise audiences in such areas where gig workers predominate.  Often they excel in the small and medium sized market, but also have very large clients.

Learn more about the Growth Engineering solution in the Talented Learning Center!

Product and Technical Strengths

To solve the challenge of creating an engaging, exciting learning environment, Growth Engineering has designed its platform to support interaction around learning, sharing and asking questions. The ultimate goal is to help customers create a high-performance learning culture, where people are able to learn at their own pace, experiment with new ideas and collaborate in real time.

They also incorporate brain science, particularly what is known about the limbic system and how it plays into motivation. There’s going to be more success with learners who have the desire to learn based on an environment that has elements of collaboration and competition, rather than one where learners must check a box on required training. Naturally, this environment is strongly branded to make the learning come alive and reflect the corporate identity.

The Knowledge Arcade

The Knowledge Arcade is Growth Engineering’s engaging learning environment condensed into a mobile application. The thought process behind the Arcade was to develop a training solution that would ensure everyone could access their training whenever and wherever they want. The modern learner uses their mobile devices in short, sharp bursts, and the goal was to have the mobile app blend seamlessly into the user’s life.

The Knowledge Arcade is a highly-customizable learning environment that always feels like the customer’s home; it never feels like a Growth Engineering product. This leads to an immersive experience that people want to be a part of multiple times a day. Product statistics showed that learners spent between 17 and 31 minutes per day on the app in 2019, presenting a tremendous opportunity for organizations to deliver content.

The Knowledge Arcade harnesses the power of push notifications to maximize engagement levels. Users can be alerted when new content is made available, when someone replies to a social post, when there is breaking company news and more. The notifications are highly customizable and can be targeted to individual audiences.

Within an Arcade mobile application, the user sees a gamified record of their learning adventure. The homepage is essentially a scorecard and launchpad for self-development. Features like streaks, and the desire to keep a streak going, keep users coming back to the platform. Users are also rewarded for actions, such as logging in, completing content every day and winning knowledge battles. Leaderboards spur users on, and progress bars provide visual indicators for skills gaps and where to target learning effort.

Clubs provide social functionality, and have a similar look and feel to other popular social media platforms. The social feed allows learners to ask questions and share their expertise through pictures, videos, links and documents, which can then be liked and commented on. Club posts can also be easily translated to unlock knowledge across languages. Social actions are gamified to encourage more participation. Clubs can also be used as a classroom tool to blend real world classroom events with online learning. For example, before a classroom event, an instructor can set up a club and provide useful pre-class videos or PDFs. During the event, the instructor might create a challenge overnight where learners must upload a video to reflect on their learning during the day.

The Arcade is strongly integrated with the LMS, although the two work independently. The Arcade can alternatively be integrated with a third-party LMS.


Join the Talented Learning Center as a free Basic Member and access a demonstration and business briefing of the Growth Engineering solution presented by Growth Engineering Managing Director, Juliette Denny.

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The Academy LMS

In the LMS, the goal is to make the learning content as accessible as possible, so search functionality is front and center in the library. It’s as easy and familiar as finding Netflix content or Spotify songs. Users can also find content by categories and sub-categories.

Another interface tab is for a “to-do list” where administrators can push content that has a high priority for completion, such as for health and safety. For individual pieces of learning, users are given a breakdown of its contents, and what gamification elements are involved. Users can opt to download it for later or share it with colleagues via clubs.

The Genie Authoring Tool

Growth Engineering’s Genie provides the tools and templates for creating and gamifying content to promote excitement and delight. Within the Genie, designers can create assessments, classroom material, clubs, blogs and learning quests for battles. While designers can use Genie to create content, administrators can also upload third-party content or use any other authoring tool to populate the Arcade and LMS.

Battle of the Brain

Battles are an aspect of social learning within the Arcade and LMS that helps boost retention. The feature lets learners compete against each other in player versus player quiz battles. A user challenges an opponent, and five random questions related to a particular course or topic are drawn from a question bank. In addition to being a fun way to reinforce knowledge, the outcome of the battle is reflected on the leaderboard. If a learner doesn’t do well in the battle, they’ll be directed to remedial content.

Professional Services Offered

During system implementation, Growth Engineering also uses the system setup stage to help clients frame their understanding of, and strategize to achieve a high performing learning culture. Throughout the rollout, Growth Engineering provides guidance in areas like structuring a social learning calendar, how to apply gamification, and how to use the tools to create content. Branding is a key component of the implementation so that all the content templates are beautiful and appealing. Growth Engineering is also proud of its record on support and high Net Promoter score.

Opportunities for Improvement

It’s hard to be critical of Growth Engineering. They are pushing innovation in ways no one else is. However, they are behind on the live instructor-led aspects of learning management. In the age of COVID, integrations with Teams, Zoom or others is a key delivery method and something Growth Engineering should work towards.

My Assessment

There’s so much more that can be said about Growth Engineering and their innovative approach to learning engagement. The mobile application stands out for being its own platform and not just an afterthought or derivative of the LMS. The focus on gamification and social learning also brings engagement to a new level by fostering healthy competition. The combination of the mobile app, the authoring tool and the enterprise LMS puts Growth Engineering in a strong position to address a range of extended enterprise and internal learning requirements.

More Information on Growth Engineering

Learn more about Growth Engineering by becoming a free Basic Member of the Talented Learning Center:


2014 Growth Engineering Review

World, get ready for the next British invasion- here comes Growth Engineering,  their Academy LMS and their plucky view of learning management. This company is cool and they are at war with boring eLearning!

Growth Engineering entered the learning management market differently than most LMSs and it shows in their solutions, product, services and marketing. Eight years ago, instead of deciding to be a LMS, they decided to help organizations sell better.

Salespeople are a diva lot. They are busy, self-important, competitive and confident know-it-alls. It’s hard to teach them anything. (I know, I was a LMS salesman for 13 years. ) Growth Engineering deduced that the only way to change the behavior of salespeople, was to make the salespeople want to consume the content and want to come back.  (Sound familiar?)

They partnered with the U.K.’s top sales and marketing institutes and converted their proven ILT content into engaging, scenario-based, video-laden, gamified, social learning content. With the online version, salespeople can earn certification and accreditation in approximately 50% of the time and a fraction of the cost making it feasible for Growth Engineering to take an end-to-end sales improvement solution to corporations on a large scale.

Out of this the Growth Engineering Academy LMS was conceived. Gamification, social learning, motivation and fun are the foundation of the LMS, the content and other learning features are built around that. You don’t buy the Growth Engineering Academy LMS and they won’t sell it to you, unless you believe in the power of motivating learners though collaboration and gamification.

What makes this LMS so gamified and social?  Here are some examples:

  • The email invite to first log on to the system tees up the game and what you are in for.  In fact, all the email notifications are configurable but come preloaded with engaging marketing and gamification sample text for each of the dozens of notifications.
  • You log on to the system for the first time and they have a real-time tutorial overlay helping you log in, introduce you to the gaming features and your “mission”.
  • A personal Facebook type feed of posts from other users, learners, admins, trainers, executives is the main focus of the homepage.  You can comment on their comments and give them a thumbs up.
  • Users start earning “Achievements” from minute one.  I earned an achievement badge for my first log on, launching my first piece of content, logging on late at night and updating my profile (there are also many more triggers that you can use to award).
  • Anybody can assign anybody ad-hoc “praise” that goes on their record.
  • You earn points for content consumed, earning badges, leveling up and all of this is displayed via leaderboards and news feed in a competitive way — all visible from the main user homepage.
  • The content itself has gaming as part of the instructional design, so gamey content delivered via a gamey LMS making every aspect of the solution fun for users.
  • You can tie your personal Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn accounts and share achievements.

Growth Engineering has a primary focus on how to improve internal and external sales organizations, but their LMS, by success, has found its way into supporting enterprise solutions and all their training needs.  Now they are going global and organizations can license the Academy LMS standalone or with their sales or custom content.

My Assessment:  If you want to make your sales channel better and your organization does not have a LMS,  Growth Engineering is a no-brainer.  If you are looking for your first entry into eLearning and you want to start with solving a problem vs. installing a LMS, Growth Engineering is a great idea. If you are looking to get into a features/technology battle with your potential vendors, then Growth Engineering is probably too focused on impacting change for you.

Licensing and Certification Features:

  • Can set learning to provide a certification upon completion and be good for x days
  • Also can certify through the concept of assignment of points and awarding of badges

Adaptive Learning Features:

  • Configurable roles feature with about a dozen functions that can be included/excluded
  • Can make content assignments one at a time, or filter to get a group and select all to assign content or multiple pieces of content.
  • Via gamification elements of quests and missions, content can be assigned to a level and as a learner completes the level, they can level up.

eCommerce Features: 

  • Growth Engineering solutions are typically not about selling content.  They make the assumption that if there is commerce, it is happening outside the system on a business to business basis, and then the solution is designed for any type of users including internal and external sales channel
  • They can integrate with ecommerce products when required, but not home grown, nor core functionality

State and Global Taxation Support:  None

Social Collaboration Features: 

  • Most tightly integrated social learning features we’ve seen
  • Feels like Facebook with learning wrapped around
  • Running comment wall with ability to Like or comment
  • Integration with Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook
  • Tied tightly with gamification awards notification, display and progress
  • Concept of creating expert and tutor groups to help others

Mobile Features:

  • You can access from a mobile web browser but there is no responsive design so it gets small in a hurry
  • At the end of June 2014, they are introducing responsive design for end users as well as iPhone and Android native apps

Gamification Features:  

  • Points, levels, badges, leveling up, leaderboards, trophy case and challenges
  • Gamification is in the heart of this LMS –it’s not just an add-on
  • Great diversity in the award types and ability to create your own
  • They have about a dozen blog posts on all aspects of gamification here

Virtual Classroom Features:

  • Generic integration with any webinar tool via a field to put in the webinar URL
  • Interactive classrooms allows instructors to interact with class by using polls, assessments, surveys, marking attendance all with real time reporting

Globalization Features: 

  • Language translations for eight languages in core product plus the ability to translate into any language you need
  • Provides the admin ability to see all languages side by side for each label in the system and modify anything to your liking

Technology: 

  • 100% cloud SaaS solution hosted via Rackspace

Integration:

  • Generic integration into virtual classroom tools
  • SCORM 1.2 and upcoming Tin Can 1.0
  • Bulk user upload via spreadsheet
  • Any other integration (HR, Workday, LDAP, Google Apps) or data load is a custom effort requiring Growth Engineering professional services.  You can read more about their API and integration approach here and here.

Reporting:

  • Reporting is probably the weakest aspect of this solution as compared to other solutions.  You can access the basics reports on users, courses, completions, but no ad-hoc reporting and limited configuration options.
  • However, updates coming at the end of June 2014 include more configurable reports, scheduled reports, admin and manager dashboards

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About the Author: John Leh

John Leh is Founder, CEO and Lead Analyst at Talented Learning and the Talented Learning Center. John is a fiercely independent consultant, blogger, podcaster, speaker and educator who helps organizations select and implement learning technology strategies, primarily for extended enterprise applications. His advice is based upon more than 25+years of learning-tech industry experience, serving as a trusted LMS selection and sales adviser to hundreds of learning organizations with a total technology spend of more than $100+ million and growing. John would love to connect with you on Twitter or on LinkedIn.

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