Financial education for employees is a great opportunity right now. Why? Our nation is not well educated in financial basics. Many baby boomers are facing up to the fact that they need to plan for retirement—or do what they can to make up for a lack of planning. Generation X is the classic sandwich generation, and these pressures certainly have a financial element, as well as a social one. Members of all generations have significant college loan debt. Credit card debt is another issue that saddles people in all generations. I usually try not to list too many statistics in these columns, but here are a couple:

• The average U.S. household with debt carries $15,355 in credit card debt, according to nerdwallet.com

• Nearly 40 million working-age households (45 percent) do not own any retirement account assets, whether in an employer-sponsored 401(k) type plan or an IRA, according to laborcenter.berkeley.edu.

Financial wellness is a valid workplace benefit for several reasons. Financial stress is a root cause of lost time at work. Employees who are worried about their finances are more likely to turn to alcohol or drugs. Workplace and family violence may also be driven by financial woes. Today's employers realize they need to support financial education and wellness just as much as they support physical wellness through benefit programs.

Solutions include employee financial education via multiple channels. Group classes and webinars can be offered to employees and their family members. These can be followed up by personal counseling sessions. There are also many good online education resources. Some employees may have already become so stressed that they need mental health counseling as well as financial solutions—that's where the services of an Employee Assistance Program can help.

Providing financial wellness programs to employees can also provide big pluses to benefit marketers. One value is engagement and contact with spouses and partners, which can increase interest in voluntary benefits programs, many of which have family member eligibility. Another benefit is engagement of millennial workers. Millennials are adopting traditional insured benefit products more slowly than previous generations, but they have a higher percentage of college loan debt than preceding generations, and the recession of 2008-2009 made them interested in financial security.