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 you’ve ever administered a 360 degree feedback program, or if you’ve been a 360 feedback participant yourself, then you’ve encountered the topic of rater selection, which inevitably leads to the question: Who and How Many. If you’ve been unsure about how to answer that question, don’t worry, you’re not alone.
In our 50 years of providing validated, customized 360 solutions, this remains one of the most common questions we receive, both from participants and administrators. And like with most topics related to 360s, there is a right way and a wrong way to do it.
In this blog post, we will provide our guidance on effective rater selection. But first, why does this matter?
The foundation of any successful 360 assessment lies in the careful selection of raters. Raters are key to the success of a 360-feedback project because they see the leaders in action day-to-day, which results in the most useful and reliable feedback. By choosing individuals who can provide accurate, honest, and insightful feedback, managers and leaders can gain valuable insights into which strengths they should leverage, and which skills they should further develop.
Inviting raters who aren’t able to give accurate, honest and insightful feedback not only wastes the raters’ time, it also can have consequential impacts on the feedback itself. The results can be diluted, misinterpreted, and in some cases, the feedback received can be flat-out wrong. And if this is happening across your 360 program, it could impact the overall success of your 360 program.
Here’s 4 tips to help ensure you’re following best practices:
Tip One: Invite feedback from various roles and multiple levels within the organization.
Raters should include the participant’s manager/supervisor, peers, direct reports, and even external stakeholders (e.g., customers, suppliers, and/or board members). To obtain a comprehensive understanding of an individual’s performance, it’s essential that feedback is gathered from people with different perspectives on their work.
Tip Two: Avoid selecting raters based on the type of feedback you expect to receive.
The objective of a 360 assessment is to acquire neutral and credible feedback that can be used to drive improvements. Avoid picking raters with personal connections to the employee or those involved in active conflicts as they may be reluctant to share honest opinions. Inviting only Raters who will give you positive feedback will not help you improve or grow.
Tip Three: Invite Raters who have consistent exposure to your work behaviors.
Select individuals who have consistent professional interactions with the participant for at least three months or more. This will ensure that they have enough background knowledge of the participant’s job and enough experience working with them to be familiar with how they work. If you invite a Peer you worked with on a one-off project 3 years ago, they aren’t going to be able to provide adequate feedback on your current work behaviors. You’ll be wasting their time and yours.
Tip Four: Communicate expectations clearly.
Once the raters have been selected, it’s crucial to communicate the organization’s expectations explicitly. This will empower raters with a clear understanding of their role in providing constructive criticism that focuses on improving performance rather than just identifying weaknesses. Encourage raters to offer specific examples related to their observed behaviors and emphasize the importance of confidentiality throughout the process. Make sure the raters know the importance of their feedback being accurate, why the organization is using the 360-feedback process, and how the results will be used.
Bonus Tip: How Many is Too Many? Consider a random sample!
We recently had a Participant who had nearly 100 Direct Reports (wow!). We suggested they use the tips above (select people with the most exposure to your behaviors who have worked with you on a consistent basis for the last 3 months). If the group was still too large, (e.g. over 25), then we suggested that they select a random sample of an acceptable number of raters, so long as all of them met the criteria mentioned above.
While rater selection may not be the most exciting topic to explore, it is important and doing it wrong can have real consequences, both in the accuracy and usability of 360 degree feedback. Fortunately, it’s relatively easy to get it right. By following the recommendations in this blog, you can help set your managers up for success in their 360 feedback journey.
