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Non Desk Jobs (NOW HIRING)

Communications Manager

Mokena, IL · On-site

$92K - $115K/yr

... non-desk coworkers • Experiment with new communication formats and approaches • Plan, coordinate, and support coworker engagement initiatives, including Town Halls and appreciation events • ...

This highly hands-on, non-desk-based role involves providing direct, in-person technical support to end users across a large campus, including multiple buildings and offsite locations. You will be ...

Forklift Operator

Jacksonville, FL

$15.75 - $18.50/hr

... non-desk job and is always on the lookout for ways to get the job done better, faster. What You'll Do: * Create exceptional customer experiences * Own our forklift operation, running the show ...

We specialize in serving industries with the frontline, non-desk employees that make up 80% of the global workforce - manufacturing, construction, transportation, oil & gas, warehousing, agriculture ...

Product Marketing Manager

Chicago, IL · On-site

$158K/yr

We specialize in serving industries with frontline, non-desk employees which make up 80% of the global workforce - manufacturing, construction, transportation, oil & gas, warehousing, agriculture ...

Forklift Operator

Cornelius, NC

$15.75 - $18.50/hr

... non-desk job and is always on the lookout for ways to get the job done better, faster. What You'll Do: * Create exceptional customer experiences * Own our forklift operation, running the show ...

Forklift Operator

Southport, NC

$14.75 - $17.25/hr

... non-desk job and is always on the lookout for ways to get the job done better, faster. What You'll Do: * Create exceptional customer experiences * Own our forklift operation, running the show ...

Maintenance Associate

Houston, TX

$15.25 - $21/hr

We're looking for an energetic, handy "keeper of the castle" who thrives in a non-desk job and whose motto is "it's handled." What You'll Do: * Create an exceptional environment for our customers.

We specialize in serving industries with frontline, non-desk employees which make up 80% of the global workforce - manufacturing, construction, transportation, oil & gas, warehousing, agriculture ...

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Non Desk information

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How much do non desk jobs pay per hour?

As of Jul 14, 2026, the average hourly pay for non desk in the United States is $23.15, according to ZipRecruiter salary data. Most workers in this role earn between $19.23 and $25.96 per hour, depending on experience, location, and employer.

What are some common challenges faced by non-desk employees, and how can applicants prepare to overcome them?

Non-desk roles often involve working on the move, interacting directly with customers or equipment, and adapting to varying work environments. Common challenges include managing physical demands, maintaining effective communication with team members who may be dispersed, and staying updated with company information without regular computer access. Applicants can prepare by developing strong time management skills, becoming comfortable with mobile technology or apps used for workplace communication, and prioritizing self-care to handle the physical aspects of the job.

What are non desk jobs?

Non desk jobs are positions that do not require employees to work at a traditional office desk or computer workstation. Instead, these jobs typically involve hands-on activities, fieldwork, or movement throughout a workplace. Examples include roles in healthcare (like nurses), construction, retail, manufacturing, and hospitality. People in non desk jobs often perform physical tasks, interact directly with customers or clients, and may have flexible or variable work locations. These roles can offer variety and opportunities for those who prefer active or non-traditional work environments.

What are the key skills and qualifications needed to thrive as a Non-Desk Worker, and why are they important?

To thrive as a Non-Desk Worker, you typically need physical stamina, attention to detail, and a high school diploma or relevant vocational training. Familiarity with industry-specific equipment, safety protocols, and sometimes certifications like OSHA are important. Reliability, communication, and teamwork are crucial soft skills for excelling in this hands-on environment. These skills ensure safety, efficiency, and effective collaboration in roles that support essential operations outside traditional office settings.

What is the difference between Non Desk vs Customer Service Representative?

AspectNon DeskCustomer Service Representative
Work EnvironmentPrimarily fieldwork, on-site visits, or outdoor settingsOffice-based, call centers, or retail locations
Required CredentialsVaries; often includes certifications related to the specific field (e.g., safety, technical skills)High school diploma; customer service or communication skills
Industry UsageConstruction, maintenance, field sales, or technical servicesRetail, telecom, banking, and other service industries

Non Desk roles typically involve outdoor or on-site work requiring specific technical skills, while Customer Service Representatives work mainly in office environments handling customer interactions. Both roles are essential in their industries but differ significantly in work setting and required credentials.

What Are the Qualifications to Get a Non-Desk Job?

The qualifications and skills necessary to get a non-desk job vary on the position, but a useful rule of thumb is that specialized labor requires some degree of education or experience and unskilled labor does not. In addition to formal university education, online training courses and certifications help fulfill educational requirements for jobs. For jobs like maintenance specialists, steelworkers, or industrial positions, seek apprenticeships through a union to gain the requisite experience and skills.

What cities are hiring for Non Desk jobs? Cities with the most Non Desk job openings:
What states have the most Non Desk jobs? States with the most job openings for Non Desk jobs include:
Infographic showing various Non Desk job openings in the United States as of July 2026, with employment types broken down into 81% Full Time, 17% Part Time, 1% Temporary, and 1% Contract. Highlights an 96% Physical, 1% Hybrid, and 3% Remote job distribution, with an average salary of $48,154 per year, or $23.2 per hour.
Associate Director, Frontline Workforce Communications - FDE

Associate Director, Frontline Workforce Communications - FDE

Eli Lilly and Company

Indianapolis, IN

Full-time

Medical, Dental, Vision, Life, Retirement, PTO

Posted 5 days ago


Eli Lilly and Company rating

8.8

Company rating: 8.8 out of 10

Based on 62 frontline employees who took The Breakroom Quiz

10th of 74 rated pharmaceutical


Job description

At Lilly, the work is demanding because patients are waiting. We unite caring with discovery to help make life better for people around the world, knowing that every decision, every detail, and every day matters. Headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, our over 50,000 employees around the globe take on complex challenges to discover and deliver life-changing medicines, strengthen how health is understood and managed, and support the communities we serve. This is hard, urgent, selfless work-but it's work worth doing. If you're driven by purpose and ready to bring your best to work that truly matters for patients, we invite you to join us.


The Associate Director, Frontline Workforce Communications leads communications strategy for Lilly's non-desk-based manufacturing workforce, the largest and most operationally critical employee population in M&Q.

This role owns the end-to-end communications approach for frontline employees, partnering with HR on storytelling and workforce engagement, driving the integration of new communications platforms built for non-desk audiences, including AI, and establishing the measurement infrastructure to track reach, resonance, and impact. The Associate Director works at the intersection of people strategy, technology adoption, and communications craft, ensuring Lilly's frontline workforce is informed, connected, and engaged regardless of where or how they work.

Key Objectives/Deliverables

HR Partnership: Storytelling & Workforce Engagement

Serve as the primary communications partner to M&Q HR on manufacturing associate workforce storytelling, developing content and campaigns that bring the manufacturing associate career journey to life for frontline employees and help individuals see their own growth potential within Lilly's manufacturing organization.

Collaborate with HR to design and implement workforce engagement communications strategies that reflect the realities of the frontline experience, including shift-based schedules, limited screen time, and the primacy of in-person connection.

Translate manufacturing associate priorities, programs, and initiatives into compelling, plain-language communications for frontline audiences, ensuring messaging is accessible, relevant, and motivating.

Develop communications for key HR-driven moments in the frontline employee lifecycle, including onboarding, recognition, benefits enrollment, workforce development, and culture programs.

Partner with M&Q HR business partners and site HR teams to ensure workforce engagement communications are coordinated across the US and OUS network and reflect both enterprise direction and local culture.

Frontline Communications Strategy

Own and advance the overall frontline communications strategy for non-desk-based employees across M&Q, developing a channel architecture, content approach, and editorial cadence designed for the operational realities of a manufacturing workforce.

Build deep understanding of frontline employee needs, information habits, and engagement drivers by maintaining close partnership with site operations, HR, and employee resource groups across the network.

Develop audience-appropriate content that meets frontline employees where they are, with formats, language, and tone calibrated for shift workers, production environments, and employees with limited access to enterprise digital channels.

Establish editorial standards and messaging guides for frontline communications across M&Q, ensuring quality and consistency while allowing for local adaptation at the site level.

Partner with site leads and local HR teams to influence the frontline communications strategy at the site level, building capability and ensuring implementation fidelity across a distributed network.

New Platform Integration

Lead the manufacturing associate portion of the communications workstream for new platform rollouts targeting frontline and non-desk-based employees, including change management communications, adoption campaigns, and ongoing engagement content.

Partner with Workforce Engagement, IT, HR, and site operations to ensure frontline platform launches are accompanied by communications that drive awareness, understanding, and sustained adoption across a workforce that may have limited prior experience with enterprise digital tools.

Develop training and resource content that supports frontline employees in navigating new platforms, translating technical capability into plain-language guidance.

Act as the communications voice of the frontline workforce in platform design and deployment conversations, advocating for user experience considerations and surfacing adoption barriers before and after launch.

Build feedback loops between frontline employees, platform owners, and HR to collect real-time signals on platform performance and continuously improve communications and adoption support.

Pilot and scale AI-enabled communications tools and platforms that reach M&Q's frontline and deskless workforce, partnering across Global Communications and Digital to ensure manufacturing employees have timely, relevant, and accessible information regardless of shift, site, or role.

Measurement

Design and own the measurement framework for frontline workforce communications across M&Q, establishing baselines, KPIs, and reporting cadences that track reach, comprehension, engagement, and impact.

Partner with platform owners, IT, and HR analytics to identify and instrument the right data sources for frontline communications measurement, including digital platform metrics, survey data, and site-level feedback.

Produce regular communications effectiveness reports for the M&Q Communications leadership team, translating data into clear insights and actionable recommendations.

Use measurement findings to continuously refine the frontline communications strategy, channel mix, content approach, and platform integration priorities.

Contribute to broader M&Q and enterprise Workforce Engagement measurement infrastructure, sharing frontline-specific findings and helping build a more complete picture of employee communications effectiveness across the organization.

Serve as a flexible communications resource across the Workforce Engagement function - deploying against emerging priorities, filling critical capability gaps, and leading work where the business demands it.

Basic Qualifications
  • Bachelor's degree in Communications, Public Relations, Journalism, or a related field.
  • 7 years of experience in internal communications, employee communications, or workforce engagement
  • Qualified applicants must be authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis. Lilly will not provide support for or sponsor work authorization or visas for this role, including but not limited to F-1 CPT, F-1 OPT, F-1 STEM OPT, J-1, H-1B, TN, O-1, E-3, H-1B1, or L-1
Additional Skills/Preferences
  • Demonstrated experience developing communications for non-desk-based, hourly, or frontline employee populations.
  • Experience partnering with HR on workforce engagement programs or people-strategy communications, including familiarity with the employee lifecycle and how communications support culture and retention.
  • Experience leading or contributing to technology or platform adoption communications, including change management and employee-facing rollout programs.
  • Demonstrated ability to build and manage communications measurement frameworks, including familiarity with digital analytics platforms and employee listening tools.
  • Familiarity with manufacturing, operations, life sciences, or pharmaceutical environments strongly preferred.

Frontline Audience Expertise: Deep understanding of how non-desk-based and shift-based employees consume information, with the instinct to design communications that are accessible, relevant, and actionable for people who are not sitting at a computer.

HR Partnership: Proven track record collaborating with HR business partners and people-strategy teams to translate workforce priorities into compelling employee communications.

Manufacturing Associate & Career Storytelling: Ability to develop authentic, motivating narratives around manufacturing associate career journeys and workforce development that resonate with frontline employees and reinforce Lilly's investment in its manufacturing workforce.

Change & Platform Communications: Experience developing and implementing communications that drive technology adoption in operational environments, including the ability to simplify complex platform capabilities for non-technical audiences.

Measurement & Analytics: Comfortable building measurement frameworks from the ground up, working with multiple data sources, and translating metrics into clear stories for leadership.

Editorial Craft: Strong writer with the range to move between frontline-facing content, HR partnership deliverables, and leadership reporting without losing quality or clarity.

Cross-Functional Collaboration: Demonstrated ability to work across Communications, HR, IT, and site operations with the organizational agility to build alignment across functions that do not always share the same priorities or timelines.

Operational Agility: Comfortable managing a broad and varied portfolio across a geographically distributed manufacturing network, with the rigor to prioritize and implement in a fast-moving environment.

Platform Fluency: Proficiency with internal communications platforms including LillyNow, Viva Engage, and enterprise email tools; experience with frontline-specific platforms (digital signage, shift communication apps, or similar) a plus.

Additional Information

This position is not permanent. It is for a fixed term position up to a maximum of 4 years.

Lilly is dedicated to helping individuals with disabilities to actively engage in the workforce, ensuring equal opportunities when vying for positions. If you require accommodation to submit a resume for a position at Lilly, please complete the accommodation request form (https://careers.lilly.com/us/en/workplace-accommodation) for further assistance. Please note this is for individuals to request an accommodation as part of the application process and any other correspondence will not receive a response.


Lilly is proud to be an EEO Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of age, race, color, religion, gender identity, sex, gender expression, sexual orientation, genetic information, ancestry, national origin, protected veteran status, disability, or any other legally protected status.


Our employee resource groups (ERGs) offer strong support networks for their members and are open to all employees. Our current groups include: Africa, Middle East, Central Asia (AMECA), Black Employees at Lilly (BE@Lilly), Chinese Culture Network (CCN), EnAble, Evolve, Lilly Indian Network (LIN), Organization of Latinx at Lilly (OLA), Pride (LGBTQ+ Allies), Veterans Leadership Network (VLN) and Women's Initiative for Leading at Lilly (WILL).


Actual compensation will depend on a candidate's education, experience, skills, and geographic location. The anticipated wage for this position is

$127,500 - $187,000

Full-time equivalent employees also will be eligible for a company bonus (depending, in part, on company and individual performance). In addition, Lilly offers a comprehensive benefit program to eligible employees, including eligibility to participate in a company-sponsored 401(k); pension; vacation benefits; eligibility for medical, dental, vision and prescription drug benefits; flexible benefits (e.g., healthcare and/or dependent day care flexible spending accounts); life insurance and death benefits; certain time off and leave of absence benefits; and well-being benefits (e.g., employee assistance program, fitness benefits, and employee clubs and activities).Lilly reserves the right to amend, modify, or terminate its compensation and benefit programs in its sole discretion and Lilly's compensation practices and guidelines will apply regarding the details of any promotion or transfer of Lilly employees.

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About Eli Lilly

Sourced by ZipRecruiter

Eli Lilly, based in Indianapolis, IN, US, is one of the pioneers in the pharmaceutical industry with a rich history dating back to 1876. This global pharmaceutical company focuses on discovering, developing, manufacturing and selling pharmaceutical products in approximately 120 countries. The company's product categories include endocrinology, oncology, cardiovascular, neuroscience, and immunology. Having invested over $9 billion in research and development in the past decade, Eli Lilly is also committed to creating high-quality medicines that meet real needs. As a recipient of several awards and recognitions, Eli Lilly is known for its focus on life-saving research and drug development. Their mission is to make medicines that help people live longer, healthier, and more active lives.

Industry

Pharmaceutical product wholesalers

Company size

10,000+ Employees

Headquarters location

Indianapolis, IN, US

Year founded

1876