How employers can break down barriers to mental health care for employees without regular desk access—boosting retention, safety, and ROI in the process.
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Key Takeaways:
Employees in non-desk-based roles (sometimes referred to as “deskless” employees) make up an estimated 70–80% of the global workforce, powering essential industries like manufacturing, health care, logistics, and construction. Yet despite their scale and importance, this majority remains largely underserved when it comes to mental health care.
A top reason is engagement. Frontline employees are less likely to use traditional mental health benefits when those benefits are designed around desk-based work—requiring access to corporate email, computers, or fixed schedules. At the same time, stigma—particularly in physically demanding or traditionally male-dominated environments—can further discourage workers from seeking mental health support, even when services are available.
As a result, frontline populations are frequently labeled “hard to reach,” leading some employers to hesitate on investing in mental health support out of concern that services will go unused.
But inaction carries greater risk. Unmet mental health needs contribute to higher health care costs, safety incidents, absenteeism, and turnover.
With the right approach, employers can overcome engagement barriers and support frontline employees in ways that strengthen both well-being and business outcomes.
In this article, we explore how employers can better support frontline workforces and why investing in frontline mental health is a strategic imperative—not a sunk cost.
In this context, frontline employees refers broadly to workers in operational, field-based, and on-site roles—many of whom do not have regular access to desks, corporate email, or computers during the workday.
These roles span industries such as construction, manufacturing, retail, health care, hospitality, field services, and gaming, and often involve shift work, physical demands, or time spent away from traditional office environments.
While the term “frontline” is sometimes used interchangeably with “deskless,” the two are not perfectly synonymous. Some customer-facing roles may still be desk-based, while many frontline roles involve limited digital access. Understanding these nuances is critical when designing mental health benefits that actually fit how people work.
More than half of non-desk-based workers report feeling burned out—a statistic representative of a broader, deeply concerning trend.
Long hours, night shifts, unpredictable schedules, physically demanding conditions, and exposure to high-stress environments all place frontline workers at elevated risk for burnout, anxiety, depression, and other mental health concerns.
The impact is visible across frontline-heavy industries:
When these needs go unaddressed, employers face cascading costs.
Absenteeism & Presenteeism
Employees experiencing mental distress are significantly more likely to miss work or disengage while on the job. Reduced focus and energy place ongoing strain on productivity and team performance.
Safety Incidents
Many deskless-dominated industries also experience higher workplace injury rates. Mental health challenges such as depression and chronic stress can increase the likelihood of accidents, particularly in environments that require constant alertness.
Higher Health Care Costs
Unaddressed mental health concerns often escalate into crises, driving higher medical claims and emergency care utilization. These challenges can also exacerbate existing physical health risks common in certain frontline industries.
Turnover
Retention remains a persistent challenge. A substantial portion of deskless workers report considering leaving their roles, putting pressure on HR teams already struggling with hiring and training costs.
Taken together, overlooking frontline mental health is not a neutral decision. It introduces avoidable risk across safety, costs, and workforce stability.
Lower benefit utilization among frontline workers is often mistaken for disinterest. In reality, it’s likely an accessibility and design problem.
Most workers want mental health support, but many encounter barriers—practical, cultural, and systemic—that make benefits difficult to use in practice.
1. Limited Access to Work Email and Computers
Many mental health benefits, including EAPs, are optimized for desk-based employees. Frontline workers are far less likely to use computers during their shifts and often rely on personal mobile devices to access HR information. When benefit communications are sent primarily to corporate email, large portions of the workforce are unintentionally excluded.
2. Unpredictable Schedules
Even when employees want care, irregular or changing shifts make scheduling appointments challenging. This friction compounds existing access issues, particularly when providers have limited availability.
3. High Stigma
Stigma remains a significant barrier in several traditionally male-dominated industries. Concerns about appearing weak, being judged by peers, or facing professional consequences discourage many workers from seeking support.
For frontline workforces that include employees from diverse cultural backgrounds, cultural stigma can further shape beliefs about mental health, help-seeking, and trust in care systems, making culturally responsive engagement especially important.
4. Linguistic and Cultural Diversity
Frontline workforces are often highly multilingual. When benefit information and care options are not available in an employee’s primary language, engagement can drop sharply.
To engage frontline workers, employers must move away from outdated benefit models and start embracing adaptable, accessible platforms instead.
Mental health benefits designed for a single work style fail to scale across diverse workforces. Onsite and field-based employees have different needs, and effective support requires segmentation and right-sized care.
Frontline workers benefit most from mental health solutions that prioritize:
Modern Health’s adaptive care model reflects this approach, offering multiple pathways into care and supporting progression based on individual needs. For example, data shows that many members who begin with group-based support later choose one-on-one care or additional digital resources, reinforcing engagement over time.
When benefits are accessible, culturally responsive, and flexible, participation follows.
Technology alone isn’t enough to reach deskless workers. Engagement often requires physical visibility, manager involvement, and ongoing reinforcement—efforts that many HR teams lack the time or resources to execute alone.
That’s why employers need more than a platform; they need a partner in engagement.
Modern Health works alongside HR teams to support rollout and adoption through strategies such as:
This partnership approach reduces operational burden while increasing the likelihood that mental health investments translate into real workforce impact.
Frontline employees are not unreachable—they’ve been underserved. When employers design mental health benefits around how these employees actually work and live, engagement becomes possible and sustainable.
The payoff is measurable: improved retention, fewer safety incidents, lower downstream health care costs, and a more resilient workforce. For organizations that rely on deskless labor, investing in mental health is not just about care access—it’s about building a safer, stronger future.
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