MTAS Mustard for week ended 6-21-19

 


Good Afternoon MTAS,

I am a little delayed in corresponding with you because I was in Memphis earlier this week at the TML annual conference. I enjoyed seeing so many of our customers together in one place. I will share a few highlights with you next week, but for now I want to tell you that MTAS offered a pre-conference Level II EOA. There were about thirty in attendance. Our staff did a tremendous job with preparations, delivery and wrap up.

Speaking of tremendous efforts, I have a kudos to share with you. This one is an internal compliment, from Dana about Joe Hollister’s work. Joe is helping us on the training team. When Kurt retired, Joe was available for a temporary assignment, and he has been working behind the scenes to ensure all goes well. Here is what Dana had to say:

A team from the Comptroller’s office was here in Jackson to present a class on the Tennessee Business License. The presenters mistakenly thought that everything they needed for their presentation would be available and ready to go. While I was setting up a computer for their use, Joe was able to find and download their Power point presentation. Everything went perfectly and I doubt any of the class attendees noticed there was a problem.

The bottom line, it was great to have Joe here to make sure that MTAS was able to serve our customers to the best of our ability!

Here is more on the training front – the search committee has been named for the training coordinator position. If you recall, this was Sarah’s job before she was hired as a training consultant. The committee is:

Abb Oglesby, chair
Doug Brown, MTAS
Sarah Curtis, MTAS
Casta Brice, City of Tullahoma

We have a few other vacancies that we’re filling too. Here is a status report on those:
Training Consultant (Memphis – new position) - Committee Approved Phase
Training Coordinator (Nashville – mentioned above) - Job Posting Phase
Finance & Accounting Consultant (Jackson – Emily’s former position) - Job Posting Phase
HR Consultant (Knoxville or Johnson City – John G.’s former position) - Job Posting Phase
HR Consultant (Jackson – new position) –Job Posting Phase
Municipal Court Specialist (Nashville – Paige’s former position) – Pre committee approval phase

If you have any questions on any of these positions, or want to know who the search committee members are, please let me know. Also, MTAS can use your help in getting a strong applicant pool for each of these recruitments; so please talk about these positions when you are speaking with someone who might make a great coworker and is qualified for the position. Word of mouth is a valuable recruitment tool that we can add to all the paid advertising we do.

We had a birthday last week to celebrate, and that is Gary on Friday, the 21^st. Happy birthday Gary!

I have great news to share: I am so pleased to report that we have 100% participation in the Title VI training before the deadline. THANK YOU to everyone that completed the training well before the June 30 deadline. Y’all rock!

The other deadline I’ve been reminding you all of is the sick leave bank enrollment deadline of June 30. I’m sure you’re tired of hearing me mention this, but it is such a huge benefit that everyone should take advantage of. The “cost” is a one-time, 24 hour donation and you have to have 48 hours accrued to be able to join. Here is the link to the application form:
https://hr.utk.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/56/2018/03/2018-Sick-Leave-Bank-Open-Enrollment-Application.pdf. I am a member, and I look at it this way: being enrolled is saving me money. How you ask? Well, optional short term disability insurance from the university would cost me money each month to participate. Because I’m in the bank, I feel safe enough that if I needed a couple of weeks or so to get me through until my long term disability kicks in at 120 days, then I don’t need to pay for the short term disability benefit. Ideally, I’d have 120 days of sick leave accrued already/anyway, but things happen, and this is why we have insurance. Please ask if you have questions.

I’d like to leave you with a quote from a book I just received today:
Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced. – James Baldwin, American author and playwright.

I hope you have a great remainder of the week, going out there and facing a few challenges and making the world a better place!
Margaret