How Trusscore Builds Culture Brick by Brick

Trusscore makes wall and ceiling panels that do what drywall can’t. They’re moisture-resistant, easy to clean, and built-to-last. 

What started as a single production facility in Palmerston, Ontario, has grown into a multi-location manufacturer with facilities in Palmerston, Calgary, and an office presence at Communitech in Kitchener. The company now employs roughly 200 people across manufacturing and office-based roles.

You’ll find Trusscore panels in places you might not expect—gyms, butcher shops, agricultural buildings, and residential homes. 

For Sabrina Kraemer, Manager of People and Culture at Trusscore, spotting the product “out in the wild” never gets old.

“I started a new gym and I was just amazed when I saw they used our products,” she says with a laugh.

In her nearly seven years at Trusscore, Kraemer has watched the company grow through several transitions and has been part of building the people programs that have scaled alongside it.

A culture that spans two very different worlds

Trusscore’s team is genuinely hybrid, not just in the work-from-home sense, but in a deeper way. Production staff work shift schedules on the shop floor. Office employees work flexible hours in tech hubs. Their day-to-day experiences look completely different, yet they’re all working toward the same goal.

Finding ways to recognize that shared purpose—across locations and roles—has been one of Kraemer’s central challenges, and one she takes seriously.

“They have different priorities, they have different motivations,” she says. “So it’s nice to have this recognition program that unifies us. Even though we’re working towards the same goal in very different ways, we have the same recognition, the same way to show appreciation.”

Kraemer also speaks to a broader shift she’s observed in the workforce over her career. 

Employees today aren’t just looking for a paycheque. They’re looking for alignment with a company’s values, something fun and meaningful to be part of.

“Having something fun, something unique, it matters when you’re attracting talent, when you’re trying to keep that talent. It’s all part of the employment package,” she says.

Moving beyond the gold watch

When Trusscore began exploring recognition programs in 2022, the goal was clear: do something different. Something that didn’t feel like a holdover from a previous era of work.

“We wanted to get away from recognizing anniversaries the old school way—the gold watches, the things that were very, very traditional,” Kraemer says. “We wanted something different, something new, and something fun.”

Chocolate Soup stood out. The custom LEGO™ minifigure kits checked every box: they were tangible, personal, scalable, and genuinely enjoyable. Trusscore launched their program with personalized minifig kits, and added birthday gifts and work anniversary gifts to round out the offering.

Recognition that builds—literally

What started as a recognition program has grown into a cultural thread woven through almost everything Trusscore does.

At the annual sales kickoff, team members are recognized for embodying specific company attributes—and each honouree walks away with a custom brick that marks the moment. The “Trusscore Hero” award, given monthly to someone who went above and beyond their regular duties, comes with a brick and a tiny LEGO cape so recipients can officially hero out their minifigure.

There’s even a Safety Squad brick for members of the health and safety committee, a meaningful nod to a group that often does important work behind the scenes.

Because Trusscore ships to its production facilities directly, the kits can be handed out in person on the shop floor. Kraemer notes this creates a different kind of moment, one with a personal touch that travels.

“When you see that someone’s got a new one, you want to show it off or compare,” she says. “With our administrative team, you’ll see them on desks. On LinkedIn, people will get their new anniversary brick and want to show it off. That’s how they communicate it.”

Welcoming co-ops into the culture from day one

Trusscore hires co-op students, with many going on to become full-time team members. Chocolate Soup helped Trusscore build recognition for this journey, too.

Co-ops receive their own customized minifigure kit and earn bricks for each term they return—meaning students can build up their LEGO collection before they’ve even graduated. When a co-op makes the jump to full-time, a special transition brick marks that milestone.

“It’s a really simple way to make someone feel like they’re part of the team,” Kraemer says. “It introduces the culture early on, before you’re even a permanent team member.”

The program even made its way into onboarding. Trusscore built a LEGO-inspired graphic for their new hire email series: each onboarding email corresponds to a brick stacking up to a complete minifigure. It’s a small detail that signals something bigger—that the culture here is something you start building from the moment you accept an offer.

A program built to grow

Trusscore isn’t standing still. With organic growth planned and a company mindset that, as Kraemer puts it, is “very good at seeing an opportunity and pouncing on it,” the people team is always thinking about scalability.

“When we’re designing or utilizing programs, we look at scalability. We want to make sure that as we grow, it’s something we can keep going. That it’s manageable from an administrative standpoint,” she says.

The Chocolate Soup program has held up on that front. Kraemer points to fast turnaround times on LEGO kits and proactive client support as two of the things that make it easy to run without heavy administrative overhead.

For a team that spans two provinces, two kinds of work environments, and a range of roles from production to marketing to people and culture, that consistency matters.

The bricks keep stacking. And so does Trusscore.