When I watched quite a bit of baseball, I noticed that some players focused more on the game than others. For example, baserunning seems to be one of the easiest, most formulaic parts of the baseball game. Yet, if you're not paying attention, things can go... well, take a look:

I realize not all of us are professional baseball players but the lesson remains the same. When the country hits a recession, employees often become less satisfied with their work. When employees are less satisfied, they lose focus, productivity and they just clock in and clock out. When you take away the ability for lower engaged employees to move out of organizations that don't mesh with their skills and passions, you start to have a boat filled with boat anchors.

I guess that's the scariest part about this post on RecruitingBlogs.com this week. In it, the Ivey Business Journal reports (PDF) that a full 54% of employees have checked out of their jobs, They are sleepwalking through their positions, collecting checks and going home and telling their significant other how they wish they could find a different position.

Look around your office. Is every other person at your office disengaged? If you have 50 people in your office, on average, 27 of them are not engaged in their work. Do you think that is low? High?

It obviously depends on your company culture, how you've managed that it the past and how well your hiring practices work. That being said, Nicole points out some great ways to improve engagement including:

• Communicate company vision and goals.  
• Provide feedback & mentoring. 
• Reward & recognize employees in a ways that have meaning to them.

We still have a ways to go though. What are some ways we can improve it though? I may have some ideas but I'd love yours. We can't have errant baserunning by disengaged employees causing a mess in our organizations.