Growthspace CEO Omer Glass On Outcome-Driven L&D, Measuring Results, and The Principle of Sprinting

Written by Omri Hurwitz

Measuring Learning & Development (L&D) impact is just as vital as investing in one. Without effective measurement mechanisms, it becomes challenging to gauge the actual impact of these initiatives. A robust assessment of L&D impact serves as a crucial feedback loop, allowing companies to evaluate the effectiveness of their training programs and make informed decisions for future investments.

On today’s episode of Startups On Demand, I am joined by Omer Glass, CEO and Co-Founder of Growthspace – an outcome-driven employee development platform that transforms L&D into a business-critical function. We talk about the inception of the company, Omer’s career trajectory, and the importance of sprinting.

Omri: Welcome to the show, Omer! Can you talk a little bit about your background and how you founded Growthspace?

Omer: I always try to focus on things that will help me grow as a person. I always try to do things that excite me and the result of that is that it changed a lot over the years. First, I decided to study psychology because I wanted to be a therapist until I realized that I didn’t really want to. Then, I wanted to focus on behavioral economics so I did my master’s. And then I decided that I wanted to be an entrepreneur and so I started my first startup – it was called Careerology which was basically an online school for career development, not far from what we’re doing today just B2C versus B2B. That didn’t work and it basically failed. After that, I was exposed to the world of management consulting. So I decided that I wanted to be a consultant. Then I started working for one of the top firms in various countries like the US, Singapore, the UK, and Turkey for a while. Then I decided that I wanted to go back to entrepreneurship again. so I basically stopped what I did. I left my consulting job after five years and started my entrepreneurial journey. I probably started with 30 different ideas or small startups until Growthspace came along.

Omri: What was the first initial problem you wanted to solve with Growthspace?

Omer: It actually started with my co-founder, Dan, who gave me a call in 2018. Back then, he was the COO of a fast-growing startup and they had the volunteer attrition problem so people just started leaving them. He tried to understand what’s the root cause of this problem and it appeared that people were leaving because they didn’t feel that the company invested enough in their development. So he said, “Good, so we identified the problem, we have money, let’s spend money on the problem and try to solve it.” So he brought a lot of learning & development solutions you could find out there. But you also need to know if this investment creates any impact on the business. Then he measured the results after spending a lot of money on various learning development solutions, and after six months, there was basically no impact, so he called and asked me, “Omer, how do you create effective employee development?” He knew I had some experience in this space and I told him I don’t think anyone really knows because they do not use data. 

Usually, in order to understand if something works or something doesn’t work, you measure it. If it’s good, you’re scaling. If it’s not good, you’re killing it. They do not really have the right compass to understand if they’re doing something right or not. I said, “Okay it’s an interesting mountain to climb,” so we started Growthspace and that’s kind of like the backstory. 

Omri: Since they weren’t tracked, did those solutions not work because they weren’t optimized, or because they didn’t work at all?

Omer: It’s a chicken and an egg problem. Because if you’re not measuring the problem, it may work and it may not work but you don’t have this try-fail repeat mechanism. It’s kind of like just doing something and you don’t know if it works, and then you’re doing it again and again and again and again, then you’re not having the evolution. The nice thing about our evolution as creatures is that you try bringing something out to nature and then nature says something, and if it’s good, you survive and you will basically pass it in your genes; and if it’s not good, it will not. Seeing if it works, you grow, and if it doesn’t work, you stop it. 

Measurement is one problem, but the core problem is efficiency and how relevant are the things that organizations offer their people to the actual needs of the people. The things they spent money on weren’t really efficient, weren’t accurate, and basically weren’t good enough.

Omer: How does the Growthspace tracking work – from onboarding, testing, and optimization, to reporting?

Omer: So usually when organizations are trying to solve big problems for a population, they will segment their people based on what they’re trying to achieve because there are specific patterns. For example, people who are individual contributors become new managers – usually, it’s one of the best populations an organization invests in because they lack a lot of management and leadership capabilities. So while they were great individual contributors, it does not necessarily mean they know how to manage a team, manage team meetings, provide feedback, delegate, etc. So let’s take this population of new managers, or new managers in transition. Organizations will onboard our platform, and group, and then decide how they want to develop them. They can use their internal experts like internal mentors for that. They can use Growthspace experts. We have over 2,000 experts in over 50 countries and you can do it one-on-one and you can do it in a group setting. But let’s say you already defined the program and what you’re trying to do, then you need to ask yourself “What am I trying to achieve?” Organizations are usually trying to achieve three things which are performance, promotability, and attrition. 

Going back to Dan’s example. So performance is basically you’re trying to make people better. You’re trying to make managers better. Promotability, you want to help them prepare for the next stage, so basically you’re tracking the odds of them being promoted. And attrition, you’re trying to lower it. I would claim that attrition is a byproduct of development and not by what you’re trying to achieve because if you develop people they will stay. And then we will do an AB test with them. So let’s say a new managers program – what you’re trying to improve is their productivity as managers. You will try to connect to the metrics that the company is already measuring through their HR Analytics, etc. 

Omer: Is Growthspace bringing the KPIs of organizations into your platform?

Omer: Our platform is capable of measuring the KPIs but we found that usually people are trying to move their KPIs and not our KPIs. So you will define a very specific metric you’re trying to move. When you’re trying to prove the impact, you will basically do an AB test. 

For example, it’s a sprint, so five sessions with an expert on a very specific outcome and a specific skill. So we will ask the direct manager and the individual what they’re trying to achieve. They will go through the sprint or the program, whatever they define, and then afterward, we will ask both of them “Have you witnessed any change in the outcome that you outlined at the beginning of the sprint?” That’s how we track the impact.