Best Place
to Grow™

The Standard

The Employee Growth Standard

One reference framework for what a growth environment actually is: eight pillars, 73 indicators, four sources of truth and eight hard gates that cannot be averaged away.

8
Pillars
73
Indicators
4
Sources of truth
8
Hard gates

Document

Published

Employee Growth Standard - Version 1.0

Version
v1.0
Status
Published for pilot assessments
Publication date
2026
Effective from
First certification cycle
Next review
After the first completed pilot cycle

PDF publication coming soon. No document is offered before it exists.

The Employee Growth Standard is a private, independent reference framework published by Best Place to Grow™. It is not an ISO standard, not a government standard and not a legally recognised certification. Any future accreditation will be published here with its issuing body.

Changelog

  • v1.02026Current

    Initial publication: 8 pillars, 73 indicators, 4 sources of truth, 8 hard gates, Sustainable Growth as a binary gate and the fixed alumni redistribution rule.

  • v1.1PlannedPlanned

    First calibration release. Thresholds, indicator discrimination and weightings reviewed against pilot assessment data.

The version in force when an assessment opens governs that assessment to its end.

Four sources of truth

No single source can describe a growth environment.

40%

Employee Experience

Perception

Anonymous employee survey run by BPTG, never administered or filtered by the organization.

30%

Evidence

Proof

Documented policies, systems and artefacts verified criterion by criterion in the Evidence Room™.

20%

Outcomes

Results

Hard organizational data: internal mobility, internal hiring, promotion, reskilling, skill application.

10%

Alumni

Perspective

People who already left. The only source that can tell whether the growth held its value afterwards.

The referential

Eight pillars, 62 indicators

Every indicator is verified against a document, a system export or a measured outcome. Open a pillar to read the full indicator list - nothing is summarised away.

  1. LE01Access to learning
  2. LE02Protected learning time
  3. LE03Learning by doing
  4. LE04Skill acquisition
  5. LE05Recognized learning
  6. LE06Knowledge sharing
  7. LE07Individual learning agency
  8. LE08Future skills
  9. LE09Reskilling
  10. LE10Learning effectiveness

Indicator architecture

Every indicator is specified the same way

Every one of the 73 indicators follows the same seven-field structure. The fully specified definitions are published progressively with the Methodology Handbook; the examples below show the level of precision each indicator is held to.

FieldWhat it fixes
NameThe short label used everywhere, identically.
DefinitionWhat the indicator means, in one sentence, without jargon.
What it measuresThe condition being observed - not the intention behind it.
Evidence examplesThe artefacts that can substantiate it: policies, system exports, measured outcomes.
SourcesWhich of the four sources of truth contribute to it, and in what role.
Scoring approachHow the observation becomes a 0-100 contribution to its pillar.
ExceptionsWhen the indicator does not apply, and how the weight is redistributed rather than penalised.

Worked examples

CA01Career & Mobility

Internal mobility

Definition
The proportion of employees who changed role, scope or job family inside the organization during the period.
What it measures
Whether movement actually happens, not whether a mobility policy exists or is communicated.
Evidence examples
  • HRIS export of role changes over 24 months
  • Internal mobility policy with its effective date
  • Job architecture showing what counts as a move
Sources
Outcomes (primary), Evidence (policy and eligibility rules), Employee Experience (perceived ability to move).
Scoring approach
Rate benchmarked against the size and industry reference band, adjusted for headcount growth so that hiring waves neither inflate nor depress the result.
Exceptions
Organizations below the minimum headcount for a stable rate are assessed on qualitative mobility evidence instead, and the indicator is excluded from the pillar weight.
GL02Growth Leadership™

Managers assessed on people growth

Definition
Whether the growth of a manager's team is a formal, weighted component of that manager's own evaluation.
What it measures
Whether developing people carries consequence for the manager, not whether it is encouraged.
Evidence examples
  • Manager performance framework showing the criterion and its weight
  • Sample of completed manager reviews, de-identified
  • Compensation or promotion rules referencing the criterion
Sources
Evidence (primary), Employee Experience (whether managers behave accordingly), Outcomes (talent-sharing and internal promotion rates).
Scoring approach
Scored on presence, weight and application: a criterion that exists on paper but never affects an outcome scores materially lower than one that does.
Exceptions
Organizations without a formal performance framework are assessed on the equivalent mechanism they use, provided it is documented.
EF06Employability & Future

Skill application six months after training

Definition
The proportion of trained employees who are still applying the trained skill six months later.
What it measures
Whether learning changed the work, rather than whether learning was consumed.
Evidence examples
  • Post-training follow-up methodology and its response rate
  • Learning system records linked to role or project data
  • Manager confirmation sampled independently of the learning team
Sources
Outcomes (primary), Employee Experience (self-reported application), Evidence (follow-up process).
Scoring approach
Measured against the organization's own training volume, so that a small, well-applied programme outranks a large, unused catalogue.
Exceptions
Where no follow-up mechanism exists, the indicator is scored zero on evidence rather than excluded: the absence of measurement is itself the finding.
Methodology HandbookThe Principles

Grow Score™

A score that can be refused

The Grow Score™ aggregates the eight pillars across the four sources of truth on a 0–100 scale. It is a summary, never a verdict on its own: certification requires every hard gate to pass independently.

A good average must never compensate for the failure of a hard gate. Every gate is binary and independently assessed.

Sustainable Growth

Growth obtained by consuming people's health, personal life or long-term capacity is not growth. Sustainable Growth is assessed separately and is a binary gate: organizations that grow people at their own expense cannot be certified.

Eight hard gates

Hard gateRequirement
Overall Grow Score™≥ 70
Employee Experience≥ 60
Growth Leadership™≥ 55
Inclusive Growth≥ 55
Survey IntegrityPASS
Evidence IntegrityPASS
Sustainable GrowthPASS
Critical populationsNone below methodology threshold

STRATEX CONSULTING scored 72 overall - above the threshold - and was refused because 4 gates failed: Growth Leadership™, Inclusive Growth, Sustainable Growth, Critical populations. The case is an illustrative methodological demonstration, not a real assessment.

Read the methodologyOpen the STRATEX case