ActivTrak’s remote-first model gives employees flexibility, but it also requires intentional systems for connection, performance, and accountability. As the company grew across 35+ states, its lean People team focused on building a consistent manager experience rooted in a simple guiding principle: Lead with Empathy. With Lattice, ActivTrak gave managers shared tools for recurring 1:1s, feedback, performance reviews, engagement surveys, and updates, helping turn leadership expectations into repeatable habits. Today, 75% of employees have recurring 1:1s scheduled in Lattice, more than two-thirds have received feedback from a manager or peer, and ActivTrak’s most recent performance review cycle reached 99% completion. The company also saw 91% participation in its annual engagement survey, maintained eNPS above 60, and sustained strong retention across the organization. ActivTrak is a 2026 winner of Lattice’s Leadership In Action Award.
Managers are the primary source of clarity and connection in a remote-first company. Lattice gave us the system to deliver that consistently across the company.
Remote-First Growth Made Manager Consistency Essential
When ActivTrak became remote-first at the end of 2020, the decision was closely tied to both its product and its people philosophy. The company builds workforce productivity and analytics software that supports remote and hybrid work, and internally, ActivTrak saw an opportunity to operate in the same flexible, distributed way its customers do.
At the time, ActivTrak had roughly 65–75 employees. Today, they have grown to over 160 employees across 35+ states. While the company maintains a small headquarters in Austin, more than half of its employees are located outside the Austin area.
That growth created an important challenge for the People team: How do you create connection and accountability when people are not gathering in the same office every day?
ActivTrak’s answer was to build manager enablement into the systems employees and leaders already use. The company uses Lattice for recurring 1:1s, feedback, engagement surveys, performance reviews, and updates, creating a shared foundation for how managers support, develop, and hold teams accountable across a distributed workforce.
For ActivTrak, the goal was not to recreate office-based habits virtually. It was to build a remote-first culture with intentional systems, clear manager expectations, and tools that made consistent leadership easier to practice.
Calene Horton, Director of People Operations at ActivTrak, says one of her early responsibilities was figuring out how to build a remote-first culture through the right tools and processes.
“I don’t think anyone has figured it out perfectly, ‘how do you run a remote company?’” Calene says. “But I think we do a really good job of that in terms of what we have in place for our employees.”
As ActivTrak scaled, the People team anchored its manager enablement strategy in a guiding principle: Lead with Empathy. For ActivTrak, that meant equipping managers to foster trust, clarity, and connection so employees could do their best work across a distributed environment.
The company’s leadership approach is built around the belief that managers have the greatest influence on employee engagement, performance, and growth. In a remote-first workforce, that influence becomes even more important: Managers are often the primary source of guidance, coaching, support, and accountability for their teams.
That focus has helped ActivTrak preserve a strong culture while scaling. Calene pointed to consistently high eNPS, strong engagement survey participation, and strong retention across the organization as signs that employees continue to feel connected to the company as they grow.
Turning Manager Expectations Into Everyday Habits With Lattice
Today, ActivTrak’s use of Lattice is tuned to the recurring manager and employee rhythms that keep teams aligned. 1:1s, feedback, and performance reviews are valuable tools for supporting these rhythms.
For ActivTrak, 1:1s have become one of the most important ways to reinforce that flow. Calene described 1:1s as one of the company’s favorite and most widely used Lattice features because they give both managers and direct reports ownership of the agenda.
In a remote-first company, a 1:1 is one of the recurring spaces where employees can raise questions, align on priorities, discuss blockers, and build stronger relationships with their managers.
Feedback is another habit ActivTrak has embedded into the company’s operating rhythm. Early on, ActivTrak connected Lattice feedback to a public Slack shoutouts channel. As the company's recognition program has expanded and evolved, employees continue to use feedback and shoutouts through Lattice to recognize their peers.
Performance management has also become more structured through Lattice. Before using Lattice, ActivTrak did not have a formalized performance review process. With the platform in place, the People team built a review process, gathered feedback, and iterated on the cadence over time. That willingness to adjust helped ActivTrak create a process that employees and managers could sustain. In its most recent cycle, the company reached a 99% performance review completion rate.
For a lean People team, Lattice support has been essential. For much of ActivTrak’s recent growth, Calene and the company’s VP of People led the entire People function for more than 160 employees.
Lattice gave the People team a consistent program foundation without requiring every process to be manually rebuilt or managed from scratch.
“Lattice is integral to how our lean People team supports employee growth and development as we scale,” Calene says.
Helping New Managers Step Into Leadership With Structure and Support
One of the biggest leadership transitions comes when an individual contributor becomes a manager, especially when they're leading former peers. ActivTrak helps new managers navigate that shift with Lattice, learning resources, peer conversations, and coaching. Rather than building their management approach from scratch, new leaders step into an established framework with shared 1:1 templates, performance history, and workflows that help them build trust, establish consistency, and lead with confidence.
That structure answers some of the early questions that can otherwise feel overwhelming: How should I run a 1:1? What should I know about my team’s recent performance? What have employees been focused on? What conversations have already happened?
Historical performance reviews and feedback are another important source of context. Access to previous reviews helps new managers quickly understand what their team members have been focusing on and where they may need support.
The support does not stop with tools. ActivTrak also provides new leaders with onboarding and other learning opportunities, including resources focused specifically on the shift from peer to manager.
That combination is what makes the approach work: Lattice provides the process and visibility, while coaching, learning, and peer support help managers develop the judgment and confidence to lead well.
Using Engagement Data to Strengthen Manager Enablement
Balancing empathy and accountability shapes how ActivTrak uses engagement data. When survey insights show that employees or managers need more support, the People team treats that as an enablement opportunity.
Lattice has helped the People team distinguish between individual contributors, first-level managers, mid-level managers, and executives when looking at engagement data. That gives them a clearer view of how different populations work.
When the data showed that mid-level managers were feeling overwhelmed, they used the insight to identify a specific enablement need: delegation. The team then focused on helping managers learn how to hand off work more effectively to their teams.
Lattice’s AI tools have also helped ActiveTrak analyze responses to open-ended engagement survey questions more efficiently and objectively.
“The AI functionality in Lattice Engagement is fantastic because it helps us look at the broader picture," Calene says. "It’s easy to focus on one or two comments, but Lattice helps take out some of that bias when we’re reading through feedback.”
That listening culture is reflected in ActivTrak’s engagement outcomes. The company reported 90%+ participation in its annual engagement survey each year, and eNPS consistently above 60.
For ActivTrak, those numbers are not the end of the story. They are signals that ensure the company’s systems, manager habits, and leadership philosophy sustain a strong employee experience as the company grows.
Key Takeaways
- 75% of employees have recurring 1:1s scheduled in Lattice, creating a consistent space for managers and direct reports to align on priorities, discuss blockers, and build stronger working relationships in a remote-first environment.
- More than two-thirds of employees received feedback from a manager or peer, reinforcing feedback as an everyday habit and helping ActivTrak sustain connection and recognition across a distributed workforce.
- 99% performance review completion in ActivTrak’s most recent cycle, after the People team used Lattice to build, refine, and sustain a structured review process that worked for employees and managers.
- 90%+ participation in the annual engagement survey each year, giving the People team a strong data set for understanding employee sentiment and identifying manager enablement needs, including delegation support for overwhelmed mid-level managers.
- eNPS has remained consistently above 60, signaling that ActivTrak’s systems, manager habits, and leadership philosophy are helping sustain a strong employee experience as the company grows.
- Consistently strong retention, reflecting continued employee connection as ActivTrak scaled its remote-first workforce across 35+ states.
