Abi Peppers

In my roles, I've grown into a wide range of responsibilities — building HR strategy, analyzing success metrics, developing policy, and more. That breadth is what drew me to specialize in benefits for a couple of years, and while I gained a lot from that focus, I've come to miss the variety a generalist role offers. I enjoy breaking down a large, ambiguous project and collaborating with teams across the organization to solve it.

Benefits Specialist at Des Moines University (2025-04 – Present)

• Manage over 375 employees benefits day to day
• Reconcile vendor bills to payroll deductions and update employee deductions per life events
• Facilitate annual employee open enrollment and preparations
• Build benefits strategy with leadership and brokerage

Human Resources Generalist at Source Allies (2019-04 – 2025-04)

• Manage benefits programs, including open enrollment, renewals with carriers, life events and new employee enrollments
• Audit invoices with enrollment records between payroll, carriers, and benefits platform and track progress of changes
• Facilitate employee onboarding, including first day orientation, benefits overview, enrollments, and account creations
• Oversee the reconciliation and management of PTO and leave policies including; PTO, UPTO, Parental Leave, FMLA, etc
• Gather retention metrics and create reports to build and support strategic decisions
• Collaborate with recruitment team to ensure consistent communication and expectations between the recruiting process, onboarding, and employment expectations
• Coordinate team building events across teams fostering a positive and collaborative work environment

Case Coordinator at Principal Financial Group (2017-08 – 2019-04)

• Build relationships with internal and external personnel
• Manage a daily caseload of 30 - 60 cases while actively managing 200 - 500 cases

Assistant Director at Wonder Years Academy (2013-09 – 2017-08)

• Manage and maintain policy including; preparing reports for Federal, State and Local Agencies
• Partner with Drake University Head Start and United Way
• Oversee the enrollment of new families and maintain up-to-date records on the current families
• Coach teachers to reiterate best practices

Elementary Education & Early Childhood Education – University of Northern Iowa