HR Insights

June 2026

Our goal is to keep you informed, supported, and empowered in your roles across the university. In this edition, you’ll find important updates on benefits & wellbeing, professional development, recruitment, compensation, and payroll.

We remain committed to fostering a workplace culture grounded in transparency, collaboration, and growth. Your feedback is always welcome as we continue working to enhance HR services for our staff and faculty.

The summer Enrollment period is a time for reviewing and updating your state insurance benefits and TWU Pioneer Extra benefits. This is your opportunity to enroll in new benefits programs or change your existing coverage. You don't need to do anything if you do not need to change your coverage. ERS (Employees Retirement System) has designated the Summer Enrollment 

period for Texas Woman’s University from June 22 to July 24, 2026. During this time, participants can call ERS with questions or access the ERS online system to make changes to their state benefits. ERS mailed a copy of the Plan Year 2027 summer enrollment guide along with a summary of your current state benefits to your home this past week. This guide summarizes all changes and provides more details regarding the information in this email. All changes will take effect on September 1, 2026. 

Per ERS, to maintain coverage levels and help ensure long-term sustainability of the plans, premiums are increasing for medical, dental, and vision.  There will be no change in premium costs for full-time employees with member-only medical coverage; they will continue to pay $0.00. All employees who work 30 hours or more per week are considered full-time for health insurance purposes. A summary of premiums changes posted by ERS is listed on the plan year 2027 rate sheet.

Looking to boost your skills at your own pace this summer? You can access our curated YouTube training playlist anytime. Check out these four powerful recorded sessions to keep growing your professional toolkit today!

Communication training is often viewed through the lens of the speaker: delivering messages clearly, influencing others effectively, and navigating challenging conversations. However, some of the most impactful communicators are also exceptional listeners.

Listening is more than simply hearing what others have to say. When practiced intentionally, it can strengthen relationships, build trust, uncover valuable insights, and reduce misunderstandings. This is one reason why strong listening skills are consistently recognized as a hallmark of effective leadership.

Looking to sharpen this essential skill? Check out LinkedIn Learning's Improving Your Listening Skills by Dorie Clark (25 minutes). This brief course offers practical strategies that can help employees at all levels become more engaged and empathetic communicators.

In partnership with Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs, the Human Resources team and Finance Strategy & Operations team are excited to announce improvements to our requisition entry process for Faculty and Staff requisitions!

Since June 15th, department users have been entering faculty and staff requisitions directly into Oracle.

This transition was designed to give departments more control over their hiring requests, increase visibility into the recruitment pipeline, and streamline the overall process.

 Important Points:

To ensure a smooth transition, we have developed training that covers step-by-step instructions for direct entry and navigating the review process.  You can access the training on Bridge.  Links below:

Looking ahead, we are already working on expanding this functionality to include Adjunct, Graduate Worker, and Student Assistant hiring in phase II. While a similar self-service module for these roles is coming soon, please continue to use the existing process and templates for these specific hire types in the interim. We will share further updates and training timelines for those categories as we get closer to their launch.

The HR Recruitment team: 

Shantellee Brown - sbrown84@twu.edu

Nadine Clark - nclark10@twu.edu

Lisa Taylor -  ltaylor@twu.edu

We are pleased to share the 2026-2027 Holiday Schedule, which outlines the university's recognized holidays for the upcoming fiscal year. 

These schedules are applicable to all three TWU campuses: Denton, Dallas, and Houston.

Upcoming Pay Dates

Monthly Employees: July 1, 2026, August 3, 2026, September 1, 2026

Semi-Monthly Employees: July 1, 2026, July 16, 2026, August 3, 2026

Payroll Tip of the Month:

Vacation plans this summer? Before heading out of the office, take a few minutes to review your payroll responsibilities. Non-exempt and hourly employees should ensure all timecards have been submitted, and supervisors should verify all pending timecards have been approved. If you will be unavailable during an approval period, don’t forget to delegate your timecard approval responsibilities to a backup approver to help avoid delays in employee pay.

Need to Delegate Timecard Approvals? Step by step instructions are available in the knowledge base.

Check for Outstanding Timecards:

 Employees           Timecard Approvers

Thank you for partnering with Payroll to ensure employees are paid accurately and on time.

For inquiries, please email us at: payroll@twu.edu

Amanda Noday, Manager anoday@twu.edu (940) 898-3562

Emily Laughlin, Payroll Specialist elaughlin2@twu.edu (940) 898-3586

Grace Bouchard, Payroll Specialist gbouchard1@twu.edu (940) 898-3561

Questions or suggestions? Please contact HR at hrtraining@twu.edu

1201 Oakland St
Denton, TX 76204
940-898-2000