How AGI Replaced Assumptions With Data While Preserving Employee Trust

AGI has spent more than 50 years helping some of the world’s most recognizable brands bring their physical spaces to life through visual branding and signage. Behind the company’s steady growth lies a simple philosophy: Put customers first and stay true to your values, and business will follow.

That philosophy helped AGI grow organically from a $30 million business into a $400 million company.

As the growing organization embraced hybrid work and prepared for AI-driven ways of working, AGI applied that same people-first mindset to its internal operations. Rather than relying on assumptions, leadership turned to workforce analytics to inform its decisions. That led the company to adopt ActivTrak in ways that balanced workforce visibility with employee trust.

As AGI grew, maintaining accountability across teams became more challenging — especially after the company adopted a hybrid work model and require people to report to the office three days a week.

Leaders wanted to understand whether employees were as productive at home as they were in the office. They also recognized managers needed better support leading hybrid teams, setting KPIs and staying connected to employees they didn’t see every day.

“It’s really hard, accountability-wise, with managers and employees and this new hybrid remote work model,” said Jenn Fee, VP of People & Culture. “How do we manage accountability effectively and maintain our culture with our core values?”

AGI responded by investing in leadership training first. Then, when the program was complete, the company asked six graduates to evaluate workforce analytics platforms and determine whether a solution like ActivTrak could provide the visibility they needed without compromising trust.

Rather than rushing to adopt a new technology, AGI took an intentional approach.

After more than a year of research, the team returned with an unexpected recommendation: Don’t implement workforce analytics if it comes at the expense of employee trust.

Leadership agreed with the concern, but challenged the team to find a better way.

Instead of rejecting workforce analytics altogether, leadership developed a governance model designed to ensure the technology supported — and didn’t replace — good management. With that governance model defined, the team recommended ActivTrak as the solution that best aligned with AGI’s culture and values. Managers continued to lead through conversations, coaching and performance metrics. ActivTrak data would only be reviewed on a case-by-case basis after managers identified a documented performance concern.

“We consider ourselves friends and colleagues, and that’s part of the opportunity we had here with ActivTrak” said Fee. “We took this very seriously as we were slowly rolling it out. Preserving the dignity of our employees was one of the biggest reasons we moved so thoughtfully and methodically.”

Before expanding the rollout, AGI worked closely with ActivTrak’s Customer Success team to validate the data and ensure reports accurately reflected employee activity. That careful implementation gave leaders confidence that workforce analytics could strengthen accountability while reinforcing the company’s culture of transparency and trust.

Verifying remote and hybrid productivity with data

Like many organizations, AGI’s leadership questioned whether employees were as productive working remotely as they were in the office. ActivTrak gave the company objective data to answer that question.

“We wanted to know: Is remote work as productive as we thought it would be? Is our workplace policy working effectively? At some point, organizations take a shot in the dark in terms of what that combination should be,” Fee said.

After analyzing workforce activity, AGI found productivity was nearly identical across remote and in-office work. The data also revealed that many employees put in more hours when working remotely.

The findings gave leaders confidence in their hybrid work strategy.

“The assumption was quickly discredited by the data and the results that we saw from it,” Fee said. “Which was interesting, because it wasn’t what our executive team was expecting.”

Turning workforce data into coaching opportunities

Rather than using workforce analytics to discipline employees, AGI used it to start productive conversations.

For example, when ActivTrak surfaced potential false activity, leaders partnered with managers to understand the circumstances behind the data before taking action. In every case, the company led with curiosity and context, reinforcing accountability while preserving employee trust.

Managers addressed issues through coaching, transparency and clear expectations, leading to stronger engagement and better manager-employee relationships.

Preparing for the future of AI

Today, AGI is expanding its use of ActivTrak to better understand how employees work with AI. By identifying which applications employees use and where AI fits into daily workflows, leadership is building a clearer picture of how work is evolving.

These AI insights help AGI make more informed decisions about AI adoption, training and operational efficiency while staying true to its people-first culture.