When executives at financial institutions talk about launching a worksite marketing program, their strategy seldom amounts to much more than selling products the way they have always sold them, except at work. Insurance companies want their agents to meet employees at lunch to sell them auto or life insurance. Banks want to put an ATM at an employer’s site.

To be sure, such efforts will generate some additional revenue and give PFS companies the chance to learn about the challenges of selling to employers and employees. One p&c insurance company found that its worksite sales are 50 percent more profitable than those generated by its traditional channels, and a regional bank discovered that its worksite branches were the most profitable in its network.

But this piecemeal approach misses a much bigger opportunity: to create a whole new channel delivering a broad range of financial products and services so that employees can meet most or all of their financial needs at work. This more comprehensive approach would allow innovative financial service companies to satisfy the desire of many employers to introduce new benefits for their employees at low cost, while providing those employees with convenient access to financial products through...