Quality of life is something we all hold to be important, personally, but which we usually do not assign much value to in a business sense.

After all, most people like where they currently live and, for companies in the process of comparing several different locations in order to find the best site for their new manufacturing facility or distribution center, QOL is a just a “touchie-feelie” concept that really only takes on importance if we are considering relocating senior management to the new location. That’s why most companies place little or no value on QOL during the site selection process.

Perhaps it’s time we looked at quality of life from an entirely different angle.

What is quality of life? Does it mean access to cultural amenities usually reserved for our largest cities? Does it mean proximity to a major university? Access to major league professional sports teams? Easy access to major recreational offerings such as skiing, sailing or golf?

Or is it something more, something larger?

To us, quality of life means being able to afford to take part in the “American Dream,” to be able to afford to buy the average-priced home in your community and not feel “house poor,” to be able to afford to rent a decent-sized apartment, to feel safe and relatively free from crime, to be able to send your children to good schools that will enable them to better climb the ladder of success, to be able to spend the lion’s sh are of your hard-earned income as you see fit, and to not have to spend a major part of your day stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

That’s what quality of life really is all about. The cultural amenities are important, but not nearly as important as being able to live the American Dream – to raise your family in a middle class lifestyle full of hope and promise.

I know what you’re thinking – “That was beautiful, man, but what does it have to do with my company?”

Two things: turnover and personnel costs.

First, let’s talk about turnover. People who are happy in their lives are generally happy in their jobs, and that leads to lower turnover, as well as to higher productivity. Lower turnover also means lower training costs, lower recruitment costs, etc. Fairly simple and straightforward, I think you’ll agree.

The second point is personnel costs. In addition to the recruitment and training costs mentioned above, it’s also pretty much of a no-brainer that living costs, home values, crime rates, etc. vary widely from community to community and from state to state. If a salary of $35,000 will buy entry into the “American Dream” in one community, while in another it would take $45,000 to afford the same lifestyle, why on earth would you, as a business owner, pick the more expensive location?

Yeah, I know, the less expensive location may not have the work force quality or quantity your company needs.

That’s why our Quality of Life QuotientTM doesn’t stop with just housing affordability, peace of mind and cost of living. We also include characteristics that you, as an employer, find compelling as well.

We consider the education level of the adult population, as well as the unemployment rate and the percentage of the work force in the 18 to 35 age group. We also look at adult education facilities — colleges and universities, as well as community colleges — that will be able to provide your company with the training facilities you’ll need to train your new work force on the equipment and procedures you will use at its new facility.

In the end, what we have come up with nine general categories which, taken together, make up our annual Quality of Life QuotientTM.

How We Organized the Categories

The first category we looked at is what we call “Peace of Mind,” in which we attempt to measure the relative tranquility of a particular metropolitan area.

This category consists of three basic elements: FBI violent crime statistics, FBI property crime statistics and population density. For those of you who might be in doubt, low crime rates and low population density are good, high rates are bad, at least in our opinion.

The second category we looked at is what we call “Affordable Decent Housing.” In this category, we attempt to measure the relative affordability of housing — both through home ownership as well as renting — to the majority of the population living in that metro.

We include the National Association of Home Builders’ “Housing Affordability Index,” which calculates the percentage of the population that is able to afford to buy the average-priced home in that particular metro.

We also include the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s “Fair Market Rentals” list, which calculates the average cost of a three- and four-bedroom apartment in various communities throughout the United States.

The next area we looked at is the “Standard of Living,” which attempts to measure financially how well the average person lives in the various metros around the country.

Included in this category are comparisons in the median family income, per capita income, cost of living indices, unemployment rates, poverty rates, state and local tax rates and per capita disposable income.

Other categories include “traffic congestion and safety,” with data taken from the Federal Highway Administration, and “air accessibility,” with data taken from the Federal Aviation Administration.

From the employer’s standpoint, we looked at three additional categories: adult education levels, adult employability and continuing education.

“Adult Education” data, taken from the U.S. Census Bureau, tries to get a general feel for the level of formal education for the adult community. It includes the percentage of the adult population over the age of 25 with at least a high school diploma, as well as those over 25 with at least a college degree.

Remember, what we’re looking for here is not a high concentration of potential rocket scientists, but rather a deep pool of potential manufacturing and logistics workers.

“Adult Employability” attempts to get a feel for the cost and availability of workers in various metro areas. This category includes such things as average annual pay, average wage per job and unemployment, as well as workers in the 18 to 35 age group.

Data for the final category, “Continuing Education,” is taken from “Places Rated Almanac” and attempts to measure the depth and variety of continuing education opportunities in various communities throughout the country.

It includes the number of community colleges, as well as colleges and universities offering degrees — B.A./B.S. through Ph.D. Not only are these educational institutions important for the opportunities they offer to the adult community at large, but they are also important partners and service deliverers for work force training incentives offered by each of the 50 states.

What It All Means

Clearly, quality of life is much more than access to opera or poetry readings. It’s more than gorgeous mountain vistas or white sandy beaches. In truth, quality of life goes well beyond nature’s blessings and the cultural amenities usually reserved for our largest cities.

Quality of life is, like beauty, in the eyes of the beholder. Being able to live and comfortably raise a family in “middle class opulence” is really what the American Dream is all about. When all is said and done, that’s the true meaning of quality of life.