By 2020, millennials will make up 50% of the workforce, and 88% of them currently say that they prefer an environment that is collaborative over one that's competitive.

According to Business Insider, nearly 20% of millennials say Google is their ideal employer, while 13% said Apple and 9% listed Facebook as their ideal place to work.

The modern office of today is designed to encourage collaboration. In the past, companies would throw a bunch of people into a room and hope for the best – believing that a group outcome was better than any single idea, but they were often disappointed. Collaboration as I’ve mentioned in a number of past blogs, requires an evolving culture and a focus.

The reward in building this culture creates a more engaged workforce, increasing morale and helping attract and retain top talent, especially amongst millennials.

Studies are showing that collaboration is among the top characteristics that attract millennials to the workplace. Millennials want technology that allows them to connect to a global network as well as their peers. Many organisations are implementing internal social collaborative platforms, but it’s critical to remember that these tools will only be as good as the embedded culture.

But don’t just think of millennials as the ‘worker bees’. Remembering that millennials were those born from around 1983, some of these millennials are taking over leadership roles and with them will come a new paradigm in leadership – that of the collaborative leader.

Janice Scheckter is co-founder of Indigo New Media and a collaboration activist.