For someone who remembers the dawn of the millennium, it surprises me, and slightly scares me, when I take stock and realise people born on that day are now in the workplace. As someone from Generation X, I fondly remember false dawns such as the Millennium bug and spectacular events such as the Sydney Olympics. I then realise the people I work with have no recollection of those historic moments. Yes, I am getting older.

The millennium generation (Gen Z) are here, and they are also the future of work.

With this new era comes a new way of working. The old idea of working in silos and doing your task individually is a thing of the past. As we pass the mid-point of 2019, it is time to embrace these ways of working - teamwork, collaboration, experiences - and also ensure all employees have the tools to perform their best work and take the older generations with them.

But what are those tools? How do we foster greater collaboration and teamwork? The obvious place to start is with Microsoft. Microsoft is the leader in the workplace arena and has the software to enable workers to get the best out of themselves and their teammates. They also have a myriad of tools that allow for collaboration - technologies such as Yammer, Teams, Skype for Business and SharePoint (and more).

It's certainly not about how flashy your start menu looks or what font you use in Word, it's about tools that foster true teamwork, and the one with the most prominent name is the future - Microsoft Teams.

Teams enable groups of people, be it local or geographically dispersed members to work, talk, collaborate and video chat through one pane of glass. It empowers employees to work with colleagues and talk to them, get their feedback and collaborate together no matter where they are. All essential items for being in a team.

We all need to work on our own sometimes, but I'm sure most would agree, it's even better to work with people and collaborate. Having a tool such as Teams to enable this is essential in today's modern workplace. But MS Teams shouldn't just be seen as an application, it truly is a platform to go much further than just simple collaboration.

Ironically, the application that Teams competes with the most in the enterprise is Outlook. Even today, email is the most relied upon method of communicating. Employees are given a mountain of information through all the various HR, Finance and Productivity applications that it can be easier to just default to having email as the single source of truth and knowledge. But as many know, email isn’t the answer. It serves a purpose, but that purpose is for static one-way communication. It is undoubtedly not a proactive tool that empowers a user.

The beauty of Teams is that it can work with many different types of applications and even utilise the power of AI via chatbots. Appropriately implemented it can be the single source of truth and communication across the enterprise, dynamically.

Designed properly use cases in the enterprise are almost endless, and the human impact can be felt by many. Take this use case as an excellent example: Virtual Tumor Board.

A lot of employees, older and younger, may view an application such as Teams confronting at first, but with time and care and through an adoption program, it can really make a difference in an organisation. Microsoft Teams can be the definitive platform for fantastic employee experience. Just make sure when thinking about the deployment, it is done in collaboration with end users across the entire organisation and not forced upon them.

So whatever your role, however you plan to work, make sure Teams is a part of your toolkit to enable you to be the best employee you can be…and not be slack!