Remote and hybrid work are no longer edge cases. Nearly half of all roles now fall into one of these categories — yet many culture systems were originally built for in-person teams. At the same time, leaders continue to cite culture as one of their strongest competitive advantages.
For remote-first companies, this creates a real challenge: how do you intentionally build culture, reinforce shared values, and recognize the people who live them, without daily, in-person interaction?
Structured, a fully remote marketing agency, set out to answer that question with greater intentionality and structure.
Founded in 2018, Structured has grown steadily into a 60-person, fully remote agency. For much of its early growth, the company operated without formal people systems in place — relying instead on trust, strong leadership, and shared values.
As the team scaled, leadership recognized that sustaining growth would require a more intentional approach. Retaining talent, supporting development, and strengthening culture across a distributed team became critical priorities.
To lead this effort, Structured hired Andrea Evans as VP of People.
From day one, Andrea knew that connection had to be designed — not left to chance — in a remote-only environment. Without hallway conversations or informal check-ins, people needed new reasons and spaces to build relationships.
Andrea introduced a series of weekly rituals that created both formal and informal opportunities for employees to connect. Employees commented that the rituals:
These moments became the connective tissue that helped Structured maintain a sense of community — even at a distance.
With stronger connections taking shape, Andrea turned her attention to clarity.
Structured already had a strong set of Company Values that articulated how employees were expected to show up — with each other and with clients. What was missing was a consistent way to reinforce those expectations, understand how well they were showing up across the organization, and connect them to growth and recognition.
Without this closed loop, even well-defined values risked becoming aspirational rather than actionable.
To address this, Andrea implemented Incompass as a way to create structure, visibility, and consistency across the company. The platform made it easier for teams to reflect on how work was getting done — not just what was being delivered — and gave leadership a clearer, organization-wide view.
Andrea chose Incompass for four key reasons:
Connection and clarity only go so far without accountability.
Andrea recognized that culture is reinforced when people see that shared expectations actually matter — and that those who live the company’s values are recognized and rewarded. In a remote environment, where observable behaviors are harder to spot, this requires better data and more rigor.
Like many organizations, Structured was making significant investments in its people without having a clear, objective way to understand how those investments aligned with values and impact. Goals often focused on what needed to be done, but not how work was expected to happen — and assessments were often subjective or inconsistent.
Incompass helped close this gap. The platform provides employees with personalized summaries and recommendations while also giving leaders instant organizational calibration. This made it possible to assess alignment more objectively and make decisions with greater confidence.
With Incompass in place, Structured was able to run quarterly cycles that help the team reflect on how well they’re living the company’s values. In 2025, Structured plans to expand this further by using Incompass’s goals functionality to track progress in a more structured, quantitative way.
This data will be used to:
As CEO Jake Schmidt shared:
“I am thrilled that we now have data that show who is living our values and can confidently tie bonuses and other rewards to this. I believe this will be a critical building block for our future success.”
Building culture, connection, and accountability has never been more important — especially as more employees push back on return-to-office mandates.
Structured’s experience shows that strong culture doesn’t require an office. It requires intention, clarity, and systems that reinforce what matters most.
Andrea’s approach highlights a few essential principles:
What works today may evolve tomorrow — but when culture is built by design, teams are better equipped to grow together, wherever they work.
Curious to see how Incompass works? We'd love to chat, or try it yourself!
