First up, all you wise guys and gals, don't ask me to define engagement in the comments.  I'm pleading the fifth, then citing the G12 and Zinger and Wright to get you off my freaking back...  It's like art, OK?  I know it when I see it...

Here's something I can talk about - employee turnover.  I've had my share, as has anyone who has lived in the mosh pit called HR.  In a rare upside in a slowing economy, employee turnover usually goes down, which makes sense.  Fewer jobs equals less total opportunity to change gigs, which equates to many of your employees hunkering down and trying to get through the slowdown.

Of course, just because your peeps aren't leaving you doesn't mean they are engaged.  To the contrary, they may be chronically tuned out to what's going on around them, feeling no link to theompany mission, their supervisor, etc.   In short, they aren't that into you, but they're not going to leave.  Add weak performance management to the mix, and you've got a recipe for a stale workplace, stale energy, and most importantly, stale performance.  Blah...

So don't think because people aren't leaving you in droves that they are engaged.  Like Peter Gibbons once said, "it's not that I'm lazy Bob, it's that I just don't care"...