SCANNER FREEMONT / Data Analyst
Freemont is responsible for the digital conversion of survey responses while adhering to strict quality standards set forth by its managers. Freemont began its career at TruScore in 1996 as a Data Analyst and quickly became pivotal to TruScore's success. As the years passed, Freemont has slowly matured into part-time Data Analyst while also holding many positions in the work environment including On The Floor, On The Empty Desk, and Hold The Door (AKA Hodor).
RON SACCHI / Master Coach
A former Operations Manager in the High Tech Industry, Ron Sacchi brings decades of leadership and management experience to the organizational development and the executive coaching arena. An energetic thought-leader with a track record of success in all areas of Human Capital development, he has consulted and coached managers in start-ups, joint-ventures, high tech, pharmaceuticals, and media. Because of his business acumen and creative approaches to behavioral change, he is respected in the HR community specifically for the ability to direct, motivate, influence and inspire leaders to improve performance.
Holding an MBA from Saint Mary’s College, Mr. Sacchi is also licensed in various management, leadership and psychological profiling tools.
CARLANN FERGUSSON / Master Coach
Carlann inspires leaders to reconnect to their individual purpose and lead with contagious energy. She ensures leaders gain deep self-awareness and eliminate self-sabotaging behaviors. Her guidance is based on coaching, training and selecting hundreds of executives across diverse companies as well as her own journey into the executive ranks.
Carlann is the author of the highly acclaimed book The Insightful Leader: Find Your Superpowers, Crush Limiting Beliefs and Abolish Self-Sabotaging Behaviors (Praeger, June 2018). She holds a master’s degree in Industrial-Organizational Psychology. Her thirty years of experience include leadership roles in Fortune 500s, the private sector, and the U.S. Government. Carlann has been a featured guest on ABC News Radio, Wharton Business Radio and has been cited in CBS MoneyWatch, International Business Times, Newsday and Workday.
DR CHUCH MELTZER / Master Coach
Dr. Chuck Meltzer is a Master Coach and President of the SynTECGroup, an organizational development consulting firm. As an executive coach, he draws on his training at a doctoral level in psychology, direct senior management experience and management consulting with a wide cross section of industries. He has developed an extensive series of strategies to assist leaders in creating organizational wide and personal change. Dr. Meltzer has a decade of direct senior management experience and 20 years’ experience functioning within his consulting and coaching practice. His coaching approach is solution focused and time framed. Based on determined goals, a personally customized approach to the process has enabled his clients to realize sustainable change in a manner that allows them to enhance their effectiveness and success as leaders within their organization.
Dr. Meltzer is certified and a master trainer in several coaching assessment tools that he employs within his practice.
ERIN HIRSCHLAND / Master Coach
Erin is an organization development expert with nearly two decades experience serving organizations of all sizes across industries on a broad range of issues. Working with leadership teams, she helps articulate an actionable vision and corresponding values, connecting these to organizational strategy, execution and results. Her tools of choice include senior team retreats, one-on-one executive coaching and proven survey and related instruments.
Erin’s additional expertise includes designing employee selection systems, developing performance management tools that increase performance across the organization over time and employee and customer experience metrics. An effective facilitator and coach, Erin works with leaders and their teams to build trust, commitment and results.
She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from the University of California, Santa Barbara and a Master of Arts degree in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from the University of Colorado.
SONYA D HAMILTON / Senior Assessment Consultant
Sonya is a Senior Assessment Consultant at TruScore with over 24 years of experience designing and delivering 360 feedback solutions and providing 360-based coaching, training and interpretation.
Sonya has extensive experience working with Managers and Leaders, guiding them through the feedback and development journey and providing insights and direction to help maximize their impact within the organization. Sonya’s areas of expertise include 360-based coaching, 360 data analysis and interpretation, Train-the-Trainer certifications, facilitation, survey & questionnaire design, and the design and delivery of assessment programs.
Sonya has a Bachelor’s degree in psychology and a Master’s of Science degree in Industrial & Organization Psychology from Springfield College with a specialty in Counseling and Psychological Services. She is a Master Trainer for TruScore and the Clark Wilson Task Cycle surveys receiving a Certificate of Achievement in “How to Train a Trainer”. In addition, Sonya is certified to administer a variety of other psychometric instruments including employee engagement and organizational instruments as well as the line of Hogan Personality Assessments.
KAYLEY MOTZ / Assessment Advisor
Kayley draws on her extensive customer service background to provide clients with prompt, quality support. In her role as Assessment Advisor, Kayley works to ensure clients’ needs are being met. She assists in project set up and management, as well as processing and quality checking feedback reports. Kayley also aids in the execution of the day-to-day responsibilities of the production team, such as coaching session scheduling and tech support.
CRYSTAL HUGHES / Assessment Advisor
Crystal leverages her extensive background in Industrial-Organizational (I-O) psychology as she manages the day-to-day operational and tactical aspects of multiple and large scale projects for TruScore.
Crystal assists clients with setting up and managing feedback projects, and serves as the point of contact throughout the entire process. She quality checks feedback reports, and provides tech support when needed.
ELLIE SOLOMON / Assessment Advisor
Ellie manages project implementation for the entire 360 assessment feedback process and ensures that each client’s unique needs are met on time and in an efficient manner. Ellie consults with clients who use TruScore’s off-the-shelf Task Cycle® instruments as well as providing hosting solutions for clients using their own survey content, including custom processes and reports. She helps clients navigate through the TruScore® survey hosting software, having literally written the handbook that several clients are using.
She coordinates and implements all translation efforts, including soliciting bids, managing timelines, providing files to the translation companies, implementing translations for the web pages, and testing.
ULLA WESTERMANN / Software Engineer
Ulla uses her years of experience as a software engineer to maintain and add new features to TruScore's applications. She also helps with customizing feedback reports based on client needs.
HANK CURTIS / Business Development Manager
Hank manages and assists in the analyzing, planning, research, and development of TruScore’s objectives and strategic plans in order to achieve business opportunities, growth, and financial profitability.
Hank drives the expansion of TruScore’s direct sales, establishes relationships with TruScore’s clients, identifies clients, and keeps up-to-date on industry trends and client developments.
TAYLOR BRANTON / Bookkeeper
Taylor is responsible for managing payroll and employee fringe benefits programs, in addition to organizing company gatherings and outings. Taylor oversees day to day accounting needs as it relates to client invoicing, accounts payable, and general compliance requirements. She also has a hand in month, quarter, and year end reports and works closely with the CEO and CTO to furnish details necessary to make accurate business projections and decisions.
KURT BLAZEK / Design Director
Kurt uses a unique blend of strategic thinking with dynamic executions to create TruScore’s visual and interactive design. He is responsible for creating, evolving, and sustaining the company’s brand to internal and external stakeholders through multiple mediums. He oversees all of TruScore’s digital strategies, along with the implementation of social media tools and techniques.
Kurt leverages TruScore’s marketing and messaging information to identify, evaluate, and apply methods to maximize the effectiveness of the search campaigns across all of the major search engines. He tracks and measures the ROI of search engine rankings, direct print, and marketing websites.
JOSH SHEETS / Chief Operations Officer
Josh is responsible for all day-to-day aspects of managing the operations and various functional areas including business development, sales and marketing, client delivery, vendor relations, human resources, and IT.
Josh helps to ensure outstanding customer service, and the administration of long-term and day-to-day business processes that complement the delivery of high quality, innovative customer-focused survey tools, assessments and hosted survey offerings.
TOM KUHNE / Managing Partner and CTO
Tom joined TruScore in 1995 and has served in a number of roles, including Data Analyst, IS Manager, and VP & CIO. In his current role as Managing Partner and CTO, Tom is the driving force behind TruScore's technology vision for the present and the future. He manages all aspects of TruScore’s information systems, ensuring all systems meet the highest functionality and security standards.
Tom enjoys working hand in hand with clients and partners to make sure TruScore® delivers the technology and advancement that has become expected of it as a leader in the online assessment marketplace.
DEREK MURPHY / Chief Executive Officer
Derek joined TruScore in 1996 and has served in a number of roles, including Data Analyst, Operations Manager, and President & COO. In his current role as CEO, he is responsible for planning and implementing the strategic direction of the company. In addition, Derek is involved in product development and overseeing the day-to-day business operations for TruScore.
TruScore founder Dr. Daniel Booth, a pioneer in the field of assessment of leadership and management skills, served as a mentor to Derek for more than a decade. During this time, Derek became certified on TruScore’s full line of management and leadership assessments. He currently uses these skills to lead content debriefings with customers and partners on a regular basis.
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If your company asked you to work for free for an entire week would you agree to it? Most would be quick to respond with a definite no. However, according to an Oxford Economics survey published in 2014, many employees are essentially doing just that. The survey indicates that used vacation days are at the lowest rate in four decades.
The U.S. Travel Association also estimates close to $52.4 billion dollars in benefits are lost every year as employees forfeit paid vacation days. While the numbers alone should inspire a person to take a break, there are other reasons a vacation could be the best thing for an employee and the company. Here are the top four reasons you should use your vacation days.
Often, the first hour of the workday can set the tone for the rest of the day. Are you starting off discombobulated? Are you already late for a meeting? Did you forget what the deliverables are for your latest project? Are you behind even though you’re just out of the gate? Kicking off your day prepared and ready to go can be as simple as using the last hour of each workday to your advantage.
Try these five steps and see if you can smooth out tomorrow’s workday –Today:
Trust is about predictability. It is perhaps the most basic tenet of social behavior. The more predictable someone is, the more you know them. The more you know a person, the more you like them. This is true in both personal and business life.
However, business life offers an element of formality missing from ordinary social life. There is also an element of high stakes and sometimes implicit fear that complicate the picture of trust and make trust in the workplace more difficult to develop. Years ago, business dealings were done over a handshake. Now any business relationship is developed over pages of signed legal documents.
If employees don't trust each other or their managers, collaboration and communication stagnates. Employee engagement drops. Productivity falls. The workplace becomes unpleasant, even toxic.
The Booth Company (TBC), a global assessment provider with over 4 decades of experience, specializing in 360s and survey customization has recently announced a deal to partner with Harrison Assessments. This new partnership rounds out TBC’s capabilities and positions them as a global leader in validated 360 content, survey customization, intelligent assessment hosting, and now – Talent Decision Analytics.
In the age of big data, talent analytics is quickly becoming one of the most sought after tools for companies looking to improve employee selection, retention, and succession planning. The Harrison Assessment has proven to be a highly-predictive tool that measures a candidates’ suitability for a given role, and it was recently awarded the highly coveted Best Advance in Candidate Selection Technology by the prestigious Brandon Hall Group.
Nobody wants to spend extra time at work, but getting everything done in a workday can seem monumental, if not impossible, especially in our digital age when it can feel like we’re on-call 24/7. The key to a happier and more efficient workday is to increase your level of productivity. This means taking a long hard look at how you actually spend your time at work, and then strategically eliminating all of those unnecessary time suckers that you get roped into day in and day out. In addition, planning ahead and setting limits for yourself can go a long way towards getting more done in a shorter amount of time. Here are 5 steps you can start incorporating today to get more done without logging in any extra hours:
Employees as excited about work as the Seven Dwarfs were, whistles and skips included, might be too high an expectation. It could happen, with a cup or two of coffee, but it’s not likely. Fortunately, what bosses want in an employee is simple: strong work ethics, desire to perform well, ability to work with others and alone, and the necessary skills to get the job done. When these people come along, you want to hold on to them. Part of that is, aside from a full coffee pot, understanding and respecting their need for a work-life balance. Not only will it help retain those valuable employees, it increases productivity.
Have you noticed increased absentee, tardy, and turnover rates in your office? When employees are bored and fatigued from the same daily repetition in the office, they become burned out and simply don’t want to go to work. This can make a person feel disconnected from their company, and lead to more absences and sometimes even push an employee to start looking for a more interesting and challenging job. How can you create a more stimulating work environment that will keep your employees happy and focused?
As the hit TV show Mad Men comes to an end, here is a look back at some of the more memorable and inspirational quotes that come from the show’s main character Don Draper. Sure, Don has issues with adultery, alcohol, and his own identity. So, yeah, on a personal level, he’s basically morally corrupt. But as a business leader, he’s actually quite successful. Just look at the team he has developed over the years—particularly up-and-coming star writer Peggy Olson. As displayed in her character’s growth throughout the show, one of Don’s skills is to see talent and help it develop to its potential. Plus he can also incite (in a good way) and inspire his team.
High-performing teams don’t just happen. They require cultivation. The right people with the right skills, the right habits, good communication. And trust. Trust is one of the most important components to a well-functioning team. One way to grow it is through team-building exercises.
For some, the mere mention of team-building exercises elicits groans, eye rolls, and pessimism. But team-building exercises don’t have to be the same tired old ice-breakers, trust falls, or role-playing games. There are many different avenues to build trust—often at off-site venues. Here are a few ideas.
Just a small amount of poison can make an entire lake toxic, and the same can be true when it comes to negativity in the workplace. You might have experienced this in your own office—one pessimist, one whiner, one complainer, or one troublemaker can infect the attitudes of an entire team or even department. And, because those behaviors are often perceived as inherent and unalterable personality traits, they go unchecked. But that’s an assumption that can have damaging results, including declining morale, decreased productivity, disengagement, and ultimately, turnover. It’s best to determine a solution to the behavior as soon as possible.