It’s time once again for us to take a look at another key point made by Roger Herman in his book Impending Crisis.

When people are on the job hunt, one of the biggest factors they consider when filling out an application is the quality of care that the business provides to its employees. In today’s business world, quality of life issues are more important to employees than ever before, according to Herman. Employees want a safe and healthy environment that makes them feel comfortable, almost like being at home.

This goes beyond the type of salary or benefits that a company provides. People are concerned with the types of working conditions they’ll have around them, the amount of flexibility they have within their position and the kind of recognition they get for a job well done. They want their free time and their families to be valued as well as their work. They want to be able to have open lines of communication with people high up the food chain within the organization.

Simply put, people value a more relaxed and gracious approach to business management. If you can set up your business in a way that provides this level of care, you will find that the quality of your applicants will steadily rise.

According to a new national study performed at Rutgers University, Americans continue to be pessimistic about the state of the economy and its future after the recession.

In fact, that pessimism seems to have increased over the past five years. In 2009, approximately 50 percent of Americans believed that the impact of the recession would be permanent. In this most recent study, that number rose to around 70 percent. Additionally, just one in six Americans believe that the next generation will have more job opportunities than they did, whereas four in 10 held that view just five years ago. Only one in three people believe the economy has improved within the last year.

Finally, there also appears to be pessimism surrounding the state of the federal government. Four in five Americans have either little or no confidence that the federal government will make any sort of progress on the most important problems facing the nation within the next year.

Clearly, the nation appears to be more cynical than it has been in decades in regard to the state of the economy and the federal government. However, there is some reason for positivity, despite these numbers. Within the last few years, there have been sustained levels of job growth, and unemployment rates have shrank significantly since the end of the recession. The most recently published national unemployment numbers at 5.8% seem to indicate that the economy is improving, despite the opinions of the people surveyed in this study.

As the numbers continue to improve, it stands to reason that public opinion will eventually follow.