Employees are distracted by worries about mortgages, budgeting, and everyday expenses that cloud their minds in a stormy U.S. economy. To offset these productivity drains, new data suggest it may behoove employers to view financial education benefits more broadly than simply preaching the importance of saving for retirement.

Significantly, 35% of employers reported to a recent Society for Human Resource Management poll that they have witnessed a demand spike for financial education from employees in the past 12 months. Despite this, 36% of companies still do not provide financial education for their workers. Further, of those that do offer financial literacy programs, 65% of employers limited their education to the use of employer-provided benefits, such as retirement, medical insurance, and Flexible Spending Accounts, and 43% limited information to financial decisions related to retirement.

“Traditionally employers have been focused on their benefit packages and retirement, but increasingly the nation is looking at increasing financial literacy,” says Nancy B. Hammer, manager of regulatory and judicial affairs at SHRM. “ Given the results of this survey and others, employers should start looking at the basic financial education that they can provide through the workplace, whether it’s budgeting or resolving bad credit.”

One-third of employers expanded education beyond employer-provided benefits and retirement, focusing on, for example, paying for education, debt reduction, homeownership, or taxes.

This expansion stems from employees’ diverse financial concerns as 36% of workers cite an inability to save for retirement, and 33% an inability to make ends meet – living paycheck to paycheck  -- and 21% claim a lack of basic financial knowledge.

A majority of employers (73%) provide access to an Employee Assistance Program that includes financial counseling and resources, a step in the right direction, but one that may come too late, explains Hammer. For this reason, she recommends that employers conduct a needs assessment of their employees to provide relevant resources before trouble strikes. Unfortunately, 88% of employers who offer financial education don’t conduct needs assessments, such as surveys or focus groups, to determine what topics or delivery methods of financial education would be most beneficial to employees.

Perhaps this explains why, of the 33% of employers who experienced stumbling blocks to financial education initiatives, 37% claim lack of employee interest. Twenty-five percent cited the cost of providing the service as the main obstacle.

Overcoming those impasses, 57% of employers offer voluntary seminars during work hours with guest speakers as a means of providing financial counseling to workers, 47% provide information during new hire orientation, 42% through the company’s intranet. Other methods include voluntary seminars during work hours lead by trained, in-house staff (31%), in-house newsletters (30%), mandatory seminars/training (17%), and voluntary seminars outside of work (15%).

Examples of such programs are becoming more numerous. Last year, SHRM analysts observe, McDonald’s and Visa Inc. launched the country’s largest employer-based financial literacy program, the "McDonald's Practical Money Skills" program. It was made available to more than 500,000 restaurant-level employees throughout the majority of McDonald's 14,000 U.S. restaurants.

McDonald’s employees receive a printed WealthWatchers budgeting guide to track expenses and access to an instructional video and web resource center at www.practicalmoneyskills.com. The bilingual (English and Spanish) materials are based on Visa's "Practical Money Skills for Life" financial education program.

"The McDonald's Practical Money Skills program is part of our ongoing commitment to provide a wide-range of benefits to our employees," said Steve Russell, chief people officer of McDonald's USA. "Providing information and educating our employees about the importance of financial responsibility has become increasingly important—now more than ever."

Unfortunately, the future of programs like McDonald’s looks bleak during a time when employees need them most, with only 19% of HR professionals have requested or are requesting funds for financial education for 2010 and only 8% of those who do not offer such initiatives plan to do so in the next 12 months.

Those not offering financial literacy programs cite the cost of providing such programs (27%), lack of interest form employees (19%), lack of need in the workplace (17%), lack of support from organization’s leaders (14%), concern about perceived violation of fiduciary duty if outside presenters are not objective (14%), and uncertainty of how to find or create financial education resources (7%).

Though there is no go-to location to find resources for educating employees about their financial well-being, some Web sites do attempt to bridge that gap. The federal government’s Web site on the topic is www.mymoney.gov, which includes a link to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s Money Smart education program. Some organizations have offered this in-house for their employees and it includes a computer-based module.  In the future, the President’s Advisory Council on Financial Literacy is looking to create a section on this website specifically for employers.  The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants has a project called 360 Degrees of Financial Literacy.  Their website includes educational information with a focus on workplace education.  They also work with their state groups.  For example, the Virginia Society of Certified Public Accountants offers free employee education and training to Virginia companies.