Category: Wellness and Population Health Management

Published by WorldatWork on February 15, 2024.

Written by Tom Starner with input from BAN’s Bobbi Kloss

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With demanding roles tied to a higher degree of stress, frontline workers are less aware of employer mental well-being benefits, more likely to say they do not have a problem and — even when acknowledging a problem — are less likely to reach out for help than their non-frontline colleagues, according to a new study. 

meQuilibrium’s (meQ) study of 1,183 U.S.-based workers found that when compared to their non-frontline counterparts, rates of anxiety and depression among the latter are 33% and 61% higher, respectively, and when facing high stress, frontline workers also are 30% less likely to seek out professional assistance. 

“Frontline workers regularly interact with frustrated customers, work irregular shifts, lack paid time off and have minimal autonomy over duties assigned by managers,” said Brad Smith, Ph.D., chief science officer at meQ. In turn, that can contribute to higher rates of burnout, anxiety, depression and secondary traumatic stress, compared to their corporate colleagues. 

“Unfortunately, frontline workers are often unaware of their well-being options and their irregular hours can impede appointment scheduling, resulting in a gap between their needs and use of relevant benefits,” Smith said.  

Reasons for Not Seeking Help

Bobbi Kloss, vice president, human capital management services at Benefit Advisors Network, said there are historical reasons for frontline workers’ reluctance to seek help. 

“Consistently throughout generations, frontline workers bear the burdens and the weight of not only their own personal struggles, but those of the company itself,” she said.  

For example, when sales slump and revenue drops, cost containment becomes a priority. As management looks at previously set goals and metrics, frontline employees often are the first to be affected by these negative business results, Kloss said. 

Absenteeism may be frowned upon, Kloss said, and employees may fear reprisal for taking paid-time off when times are tough and companies’ margins are tight.   

“Workers can’t afford to rock the boat and risk losing their job, which is a main reason why they are less likely to reach out for professional assistance,” she said. 

meQ’s study also found frontline workers avoid missing work to care for themselves or family members.  

“Paid time off (PTO) is a scarce resource,” Smith said, “and some frontline employees are reluctant to use it for anything other than vacation.” This reluctance to use PTO to seek help, he said, can be exacerbated by adversarial labor/management relations and a distrust of management-provided benefits.  

On top of those reasons, Smith said, this employee population is hard to reach due to their “frontline-ness.  

“Most are not at a desk all day and may not be included in the normal corporate messaging loop,” he said. 

Create Better Communication Channels

Smith offered a few ways employers can better communicate mental well-being benefits for frontline workers:

• Choose the right channels for communication at work, such as home mailers, table tents and breakroom posters. To be more effective, couple these messages with testimonials or word-of-mouth endorsements from frontline wellness champions.
• Tailor messaging appropriately to the frontline population, focusing on common triggers like sleep, financial stress and safety.
• Use relatable imagery of other frontline workers in creative materials.

Managers should also recognize that while employee assistance programs (EAPs) are designed to address individual, team and organizational problems, they are largely unknown to frontline workers.  

“By providing and educating employees about holistic benefits, including mental health, employers can help reduce employee stress while demonstrating that they value their skills and care about them as people,” Kloss said. “In addition, it creates a culture of caring that can attract and retain talent.” 

The rewards for bridging the gap are rich, meQ’s Smith added. 

“Employers who rely on these essential employees have a vested interest in closing this gap through proactive outreach and education to improve benefit awareness and utilization around mental well-being,” he said. “Closing this knowledge gap can lead to a healthier, more productive workforce.” 

Editor’s Note: Additional Content
For more information and resources related to this article see the pages below, which offer quick access to all WorldatWork content on these topics:

•    Employee Benefits
•    Well-Being

An integral component of company culture is understanding the compensation strategy that your organization is paying employees. Many employees are asking for transparency. A company can no longer make wage pay decisions based on their geographic location, what competitors are paying, and what an employee was previously making. While this may have been a simplified approach to competitive pay, it is no longer a viable method.

To be competitive in the marketplace, a company’s culture should include having a strategic compensation plan, e.g., one which defines the corporate culture as the philosophy behind the organization’s pay strategy.

With a goal that will meet the organization’s ability to attract and retain quality employees, and one that establishes a culture aligning the mission of the organization to its employees, the following suggestions are best practices to follow to audit the current pay practices and determine if:

1. Employees are being paid and incentivized fairly based on the requirements of their position, and the skills and experience they bring to the position.
2. The pay is competitive with the labor market and competition for employees is being generated.
3. The pay practices follow federal/state/local non-discrimination, pay equity, and wage laws.

Understanding the Wage Requirements

A developed compensation plan should address both Pay Equity and Pay Equality. They are different in the following ways:

Pay Equity – Determines if and why employees are being paid differently.

Pay Equality – Determines if equal work is receiving equal pay.

While this article does not fully address compensation plans in total but ensures that employers are considering basic compliance requirements.

Employers need to be paying at least federal minimum wage (each state’s wage increase laws may be different) – $7.25 per hour for non-exempt employees and $684.00 per week for most exempt employees. Exceptions do occur and your trusted advisor’s HCM resources can provide federal and geographical salary guidance.

Federal wage requirements are slowly increasing. However, to meet the demands of inflation, many states have set their own minimum pay requirements and where state law is higher, employers are responsible for the higher wages. Employers need to also review applicable local/city wage rates to ensure compliance with minimum wage requirements. Minimum wage Laws in certain states such as California are even more confusing:

• Size of the employer may dictate your minimum wage

• Certain cities have minimum wage rates that are higher than the state’s

In consideration of where an organization would establish its market position, Human Resource professionals rely on the following definitions for market placement, according to SHRM:

a. Matching the Market. Targeting the 50th percentile means that an organization wants to pay in the middle of all organizations that have a similar position. In other words, 50 percent of the organizations should be paying less than that market rate, and 50 percent should be paying more than the market rate. “Matching the market” is the formal name for this approach.

b. Market Leader. If an organization chooses to focus on the 75th percentile and take a “market leader” position, it will pay higher than 75 percent of other organizations with similar positions. Organizations competing for employees with specialized skill sets in a tight labor market or organizations that want to be a high payer in the market typically select a marker-leader position. Organizations with less robust variable compensation or benefits programs may also select a market leader base pay position to end up with an overall 50th percentile total compensation program.

c. Market Lag. If an organization chooses to focus on the 25th percentile and take a “market lag” position, it will pay higher than only 25 percent of other organizations with similar positions. Organizations with strong variable compensation or benefits programs, or those encountering financial difficulties, may opt for a market lag position.

d. Lead-Lag. As an additional variation, some organizations may choose to lead the base pay market for the beginning of the fiscal year and then lag at the end of that year. “Lead-lag” is the formal name for this approach to base pay management.

Salary Ranges and Caps

The next determination is where to set the ranges for the positions. Considerations for making effective annual adjustments are an important strategic step for an effective compensation plan in establishing the ranges, bonuses, raises, and COLA. Employers may set salary caps (not including those set by government or labor contracts) which establish the highest salary that an employer will pay for specific positions. Salary caps have pros and cons including:

PRO–Determining and maintaining organizational budgets and establishing equality.

CONS–“Red-circle” jobs reach the top limits in pay for their position, causing retention challenges.

As employers move to remote or hybrid workforces, salary ranges and caps are integral to the geographic landscape of your organization. Employers need to not only consider where the applicants are being sourced out originally but if a replacement position, relocation, or new geographic position is necessary and how do the ranges and caps work within the recruiting strategy.

Organizations are taking time now in the highly competitive job market to review their compensation strategies by at minimum benchmarking their current pay structure. For those who have not established a developed plan, now is the time to do so to ensure competitiveness and to maintain compliance requirements with wage and hours laws and your organization’s internal wage equity.