Every association and organization I work with these days, giving talks and consulting, is concerned about how to improve the productivity of their Millennials. Many executives I talk to are frustrated with their young employees and anxious to find better ways to recruit, develop and retain Gen-Y talent. Here are three engaging places to get answers.

“Millennials & Management: The Essential Guide to Making IT Work at Work” by Lee Caraher

This is the most practical and entertaining book I’ve found on developing and retaining young employees. The cool thing about Lee Caraher’s book is she is sharing lessons learned by managing her own Millennial employees in her Bay Area communications firm.

Millennials & Management (a goofy title!) is all the more appealing because it integrates the perspectives of extensive interviews with employees of all generations. You come away recognizing the danger of buying into common myths that have grown up around this new generation of workers. (E.g. “Millennials are entitled and don’t work hard.”) At the same time, Caraher doesn’t sugar coat the challenges of working with young employees who may have been conditioned since grade school that they deserve a trophy just for showing up.

The best thing about this book is the very specific tactics Caraher proposes for hiring, developing and retaining Millennials. Practical steps for clarifying the purpose and value added of an entry-level role and giving effective feedback can be useful for any manager in today’s workplace. If you’re looking for strategies to improve the performance of your young workers, this book is a great investment.

“Walden on Wheels: On the Open Road From Debt To Freedom” by Ken Ilgunas

Want to see what happens when Kerouac’s “On the Road” meets Thoreau’s “Walden” in the 21st Century? This book is for you, if you’re looking for great insights into the mind of a 22 year old and what it’s like to graduate today with a liberal arts degree, serious debt and no job prospects beyond Home Depot. Author Ken Ilgunus is incredibly articulate in sharing the emotional saga of those post college years, as he recounts the entertaining odyssey to pay off his college loans.

With a history degree from the University of Buffalo, Ilgunas ends up flipping burgers in a remote drug-infested Alaskan truck stop. Hard working and resourceful, he moves through a litany of low paying jobs, scrimping and saving to hilarious extremes that allow him to pay off his mountain of debt. Living an ascetic life that makes Henry David Thoreau look hedonistic, the author eventually ends up in a masters program at Duke University. For two years he lives in his Ford Econoline van, dodging campus police while reading 18th Century English literature, determined to graduate debt-free.

Walden on Wheels is a funny, gut-wrenching story that should be required reading for every higher ed leader and college professor, who needs to understand the tremendous financial – and psychological – costs of higher education today.

“Ten Thousand Working Days” by Robert Schrank

Robert Schrank grew up in the shadow of the Great Depression, with a long career that included jobs ranging from plumber, farmhand, auto mechanic, machinist, union organizer, chief plant engineer, city commissioner and sociologist. His incisive, entertaining observations about the characteristics of different work environments many provide useful lessons for motivating Millennials more effectively.

For example, drawing on his incredible range of work experiences, Schrank concluded, “It’s terribly important to feel part of a community in the workplace. This is something that the work itself can never provide.” What are you doing to make sure your young employees feel part of a “community”? If you don’t pay attention to this, you can expect unwanted turnover to be higher than necessary.

Ten Thousand Working Days is full of powerful insights for those interested in learning how employees think about the work they’re doing and how skills are actually acquired on the job. The book is out of print, but used copies are readily available online, or you may find it at your local library. It’s an entertaining memoir that captures many aspects of work life that haven’t changed as much as we think.