Inter-Office Odyssey

Welcome to the MHA family, Chris!

 

Chris Joiner has joined MHA Solutions as a workers comp claims assistant. Rather than a traditional interview, I decided to just snoop through his office and ask him about what I saw (as males generally have a low tolerance for "What is your favorite color?" questions).

 

In this first picture on the left, Chris's dog is on the left (his mom's is on the right). The second picture is of his son, Carson (who turned one about four months ago). The third pic is of the family and the fourth of friends.

 

Chris likes to fish (so I'm guessing he's daydreaming about that while gazing at this lovely calendar water view). He also likes golfing and hunting. He can't remember the last movie he saw and he doesn't watch much TV.

If fishing, hunting and golf didn't give you enough hints - he's a Mississippi State University graduate! (And if you just must know Chris's favorite color, call him at ext. 3365 and ask!)

Update on Calvin Wu

 

Calvin Wu dropped by MHA to update us on his new career in the U.S. Army. He has worked as a college intern in the Emergency Preparedness program since 2007 and will be sadly missed.

Calvin will begin Leaders Training Course (LTC) at Ft. Knox, Kentucky on June 24. He will hold the rank of MSIII in the University of Southern (USM) MS ROTC Battalion. Calvin is pursuing a commission in the U.S. Army as a 2nd Lt. branching in Signal Corp or Military Intelligence.

Calvin has earned many scholarships and community service accolades throughout high school and college and completed over 500 hours of continuing education in Emergency Preparedness while working part-time at MHA and completing a degree in IT at USM. We are very proud that he will be serving and protecting the USA and wish him the very brightest future!

Welcome to the MHA family, Caroline!

Bill and Julie McNeese are the proud first-time grandparents of Caroline Worthy Price. Caroline’s parents are Anna (Bill’s oldest daughter) and Jeff Price.

Visiting Grandma

 

Marcella had some special visitors at MHA recently. Cella, her granddaughter, and Kasey, her daughter-in-law, dropped in to see Grandma at work.

 

Belinda Boozer's husband named Citymaker

 

Lee Boozer, Belinda's husband, was recently named 2008 Citymaker at the City of Ridgeland Chamber of Commerce Annual Membership Meeting at the Hilton Hotel. This is the highest honor given by the Chamber of Commerce. Mayor McGee presented the award. The picture above is of Lee, Mayor McGee and the Boozer family.

Congratulations to the Boozer family!

Trace's Sunday Surprise

 

Dee Manning's son, Trace (age 9), killed this doe on Sunday after he and his dad, Seth, debated and decided it would be okay to skip church since it was the last weekend of hunting season! This is Trace's second deer. The four point he hit earlier this season got away (only to be found a couple of weeks later, poor guy). Seth said Trace's shot on this one was perfect.

Three ways to beat burnout

According to the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, 30% of workers say they are "always" or "often" under stress at work. Burnout is widespread today—especially among high achievers. One could say it's an epidemic in the modern workplace. How do we slay this burnout beast? There are three primary weapons at our disposal, but first we need to understand exactly what it is we're up against.

Read the full article from HarvardBusiness.org.

Holiday Office Schedule

Our office closings for the holiday season will be:

Thanksgiving: Thursday, 11-27-08; Friday, 11-28-08

Christmas: Thursday, 12-25-08; Friday, 12-26-08

New Year's: Thursday, 1-1-09

Making the Most of Customer Complaints

The Wall Street Journal had an interesting article recently on making the most of customer complaints. The point of the article is that how a company handles customer complaints is just as important (if not more so) than customer service in general. (There is the anomaly of the "recovery paradox," in which customers can be more delighted by a skillful service recovery than they are by service that was failure-free to start with.)

The article states:

Customers are constantly judging companies for service failures large and small, from a glitch-ridden business-software program to a hamburger served cold. They judge the company first on how it handles the problem, then on its willingness to make sure similar problems don't happen in the future. And they are far less forgiving when it comes to the latter. Fixing breakdowns in service - we call this service recovery - has enormous impact on customer satisfaction, repeat business, and, ultimately, profits and growth.

Service recovery should be a mission that involves three stakeholders: customers who want their complaints resolved; managers in charge of the process of addressing those concerns; and the frontline employees who deal with the customers. All three need to be integrated into addressing and fixing service problems, according to the article.

Paige Noble elected to Ole Miss Homecoming Court

Paige Noble, the 19-year-old daughter of HPIC/MHA Solutions employee Lisa Noble, was recently elected to the 2008 Ole Miss Homecoming Court as Sophomore Maid. Homecoming is scheduled for October 4 against South Carolina.

Paige is a member of Kappa Delta Sorority, served as Pledge Class President and elected Model Pledge. Paige is also an Ole Miss Baseball Diamond Girl, a member of the Junior Panhellenic Council, and serves as Sorority Co-Chair of Rebels for McCain. She is pursuing her Bachelor of Science degree in Nursing and currently has a 3.5 GPA.

Many of you may have met Paige when she worked at MHA as our part-time receptionist during the summer of 2007. Congratulations, Paige – we are proud of you!