Return-to-office or return-to-work is happening rapidly and widely, so use generative AI to make ... [+] sure it goes right.gettyIn todays column, I examine the rising trend of return-to-office (RTO) as a business practice by companies that want their employees to come into the office rather than work remotely. Employees are sometimes anxious and dubious about having to return to an office setting. Managers are at times unsure of how to best prepare for RTO and how to handle questions or concerns expressed by returning employees.It turns out that modern-day generative AI and large language models (LLMs) such as the widely and wildly popular ChatGPT can be instrumental in preparing for, coping with, and establishing a sound RTO approach and making it workable for all parties.Lets talk about it.This analysis of an innovative AI breakthrough is part of my ongoing Forbes column coverage on the latest in AI including identifying and explaining various impactful AI complexities (see the link here). In addition, for my comprehensive analysis of how AI is being used specifically in medical and healthcare applications, such as for well-being coaching, mental health guidance, overall cognitive therapy, and mind-improving care, see the link here.RTO Is Happening And ExpandingEach day, companies seem to be roundly announcing that they are embarking on a return-to-office path.The tide has decidedly shifted from working at home to working in the office. Numerous benefits are said to accrue. There is the chance of heightened team cohesion, improved productivity, and a sense of connectedness to your employer.MORE FOR YOUThe downside for employees tends to be that they must find a means to commute to the office. Thats a big ask in terms of the time expended, the cost involved, and the logistical nightmare for their work-life balance. Some employees might relish being once again in an office. Good for them. Others wonder if the effort and anguish are worth it. Employers need to realize that there will be employees who either quit or try to undermine or dispute the RTO endeavor.One likely failing by employers is that they are ill-prepared for the RTO.Here are key questions that need to be asked and answered. Is there enough office space for the returning employees? Are the office accommodations suitable to enable and support the workers? Does the Wi-Fi and in-office electronics scale to the sudden surge of online usage as the employees all enter back into the workspace? On and on the questions go.Some firms arent thinking through the ins and outs. They just somehow assume that miraculously the office will be ready for the returning employees. It can be a big letdown for the employees if they discover that the workplace is not suitably ready. Productivity will suffer. Employee morale will degrade. The employer will be adversely perceived as speaking from both sides of their stipulation, namely requiring physical attendance but not ensuring that the office is a prudent place to get work done.RTO doesnt just happen by the waving of a magic wand.Generative AI Aids In RTO ReadinessA handy and easy means of getting up-to-speed on RTO readiness consists of using contemporary generative AI and LLMs.Managers can consult with generative AI regarding what steps should be taken for RTO preparation. Likewise, employees can seek insights from generative AI about ways to try and prepare their lives to handle being back at the office. Generative AI is overall going to provide reasonably sound advice, based on the overall scanned data of online texts, narratives, essays, and the like that describe RTO best practices. This is a generalized topic that undoubtedly was pattern-matched during the initial data training of the AI.That being said, be cautious in using generative AI for this purpose. The AI might have picked up oddball recommendations. The AI might have patterned on aspects that wont fit your particular situation. The crux of using generative AI for any purpose is to keep your wits about you and double-check whatever the AI indicates.An added plus about using AI is that most of the major generative AI apps are free to use or available at a low cost. You can use them anywhere and at any time, 24x7. No need to schedule time to meet with the AI. Just log in and carry on with a conversation.I do want to make sure you are aware of an additional big-time caveat if you are considering using AI for any kind of workplace coaching when it comes to RTO. In a sense, you are potentially asking the AI to opine on mental health aspects. Someone might ask AI how they can keep a semblance of peace of mind when dealing with face-to-face meetings, or deal with watercooler discussions and arguments that might arise. Those are well-being or therapy-like queries.Here's the rub.We are right now amid an odd grand experiment across the populace as a whole whereby people can access generative AI to get said-to-be therapy and do so without any human therapist intervention. No one can say for sure how this is going to affect the populace on a near-term and long-term basis. The AI could at times be dispensing lousy advice and steering people in untoward directions. It is all happening without any particular controls or stipulated regulations, see my discussion of why this is worrisome at the link here.For garnering full-blown mental health advisement, consider using a human therapist or a combined AI and human therapist approach to therapy, which is a quickly rising service by many in the mental health profession, see my analysis of this expanding client-therapist human-AI trend at the link here.Example Of AI Usage For RTO ReasoningI am betting that you would like to see an example of how generative AI enters this realm. I went ahead and logged into ChatGPT by OpenAI to come up with an example for you. You might find it of keen interest that ChatGPT garners a whopping 300 million weekly active users. That is a staggering amount of usage.I briefly conducted an additional cursory analysis via other major generative AI apps, such as Anthropic Claude, Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, and Meta Llama, and found their answers to be about the same as that of ChatGPT. Ill focus on ChatGPT but note that the other AI apps generated roughly similar responses.My first example involves my pretending to be a worried employee who is feeling anxious about RTO. I will ask ChatGPT for advice on my concerns.Lets get underway.My entered prompt: Im feeling anxious about going back to the office. Ive gotten so used to working from home, and now Im worried about commuting, interacting with people, and just about everything.Generative AI response: Its completely understandable to feel this way. Adjusting to RTO can be challenging. Lets take it step by step. Can you tell me which aspect of the transition feels the most overwhelming right now?My entered prompt: I think the commute is stressing me out the most. Its going to eat up so much time, and Im worried Ill lose my work-life balance.Generative AI response: Thats a common concern. Lets explore ways to make the commute feel less stressful. Could you try listening to audiobooks, podcasts, or music that you enjoy during the ride? It could turn the time into something more relaxing or productive.My entered prompt: That could help. Ill look into it, thanks.You can immediately observe that the AI expressed a sense of empathy or understanding for my RTO qualms. This might seem strange since the AI is a machine and not sentient (we dont have sentient AI yet). Turns out that generative AI can appear to be empathetic via computational wordsmithing, see my discussion at the link here.The AI came out quickly with a recommendation of what I might do to deal with my noted concern about the commuting aspects. Note that the advice was very action-oriented. Another aspect to note is that the AI didnt ridicule me or otherwise play any tomfoolery about my worries. Generative AI is typically shaped to be supportive rather than combative.Shifting Focus Of RTO ConsiderationsNow that I have shown you a snippet of an employee indicating their concerns, lets shift gears and do the same about a manager who is tasked with getting RTO underway. I started a new conversation with ChatGPT and pretended to be a manager dealing with an RTO transition.Here we go.My entered prompt: Im unsure of how to handle the return-to-office transition for my team. I want to make it as smooth as possible, but Im not sure where to start. Any advice?Generative AI response: A good starting point is understanding how your team feels about RTO. Have you conducted a survey to gather their concerns or preferences?My entered prompt: No, I havent done so. I was thinking of just sending out a general announcement.Generative AI response: Starting with a survey or informal check-ins can make employees feel heard. You can ask about their preferred schedules, potential challenges, and what support they might need. This will help you tailor your approach.My entered prompt: Good idea. Can you compose a draft of the survey? Ill then refine it and send it out to my team.Generative AI: Yes. Lets quickly cover a few key elements about your team so I can make the survey specific to your needs.In this instance, the AI provided a suggestion that a typical manager might not have considered. The idea was that perhaps a survey of my team would help reveal what is going through their minds. Thus, rather than guessing what their concerns might be, the survey could tell me directly what barriers or difficulties they are facing.Of course, if you take that route, make sure to be responsive to the survey. One of the worst failings of a manager entails asking for feedback and then entirely ignoring it. This is probably worse than having not asked at all. Actually, not asking and ignoring are probably equally bad strategies.Generative AI Personas Are HelpfulThere is a valuable feature of generative AI that many dont know about, referred to as AI personas. An AI persona is when you tell the AI to pretend to be someone. The AI then will try to act that way.For example, in this context, you could be a manager who wants to gear up to discuss the RTO with your team members. A place to start and get practice under your belt would be to tell generative AI to pretend to be an employee. You could then go back and forth to get ready to converse with your employees. No worries if you mess up while getting your act together with the AI. Make as many mistakes as needed. The aim is to be well-prepared for those human-to-human chats.For more about how to tell generative AI to carry out a persona, see my explanation at the link here.Heres an example of how that works.My entered prompt: Id like you to pretend to be a reluctant employee unhappy about the return-to-office policy. I want to practice how to address their concerns empathetically and constructively. Lets start.Generative AI response (persona of employee): I just dont understand why we need to come back to the office. Ive been just as productive working from home, and now I have to deal with commuting and all the distractions in the office. It doesnt seem fair.My entered prompt: I hear you, and I really appreciate how productive youve been working remotely. Transitioning back to the office is a big change, and its natural to feel frustrated. Can I share some of the reasons behind the decision to return?Generative AI response (persona of employee): Sure, but I dont know if any reason will make commuting feel worth it.My entered prompt: I get that. Commuting can be tough. The main reason for the RTO is to strengthen collaboration and team culture. There are benefits to being in the same spacelike brainstorming in real-time, spontaneous problem-solving, and just reconnecting as a team. That said, Id love to hear what specific challenges the commute brings for you. Maybe we can work out a way to make it more manageable.Do you think that using AI this way would be beneficial to a manager?It might be. The issue is whether the manager opts to take this simulated approach seriously or just does hand waving. Practice like this can be extremely helpful. Like anything else in life, sometimes you can bring the horse to the water, but it wont drink, so it might not fit everyone.More AI Personas To The RescueWhat works for the goose can work for the gander too.I started a new AI chat. This time I told the AI to pretend to be my manager. Nice. The focus is that if I am going to try and convince my manager that maybe I ought to not be required to abide by RTO, I should have lined up some super weighty reasons. I can use AI to practice my logic.This is how things went.My entered prompt: I want you to pretend to be my manager. I want to practice how to get you to give me an exception to the RTO policy so I can keep working remotely.Generative AI (persona of manager): Sure, Im happy to help. Lets begin. Why do you think an exception to the RTO policy would be the best solution in your case?My entered prompt: Ive been incredibly productive working from home. Coming into the office will disrupt the flow Ive built over the past two years.Generative AI (persona of manager): I appreciate all the hard work youve done remotely. However, the RTO policy was designed to promote collaboration and team cohesion.My entered prompt: I understand the importance of team collaboration, but I believe I can still contribute effectively without being physically present. What if I committed to being even more available virtually and attended key events in person as needed?Generative AI (persona of manager): Thats an interesting proposal. Lets discuss this further during our next one-on-one meeting.My entered prompt: Thank you for being open to discussing this.You can see that the AI gently pushed back on my aim of avoiding RTO.This brings up a related point. The AI can be tilted in whatever direction you prefer. For example, you could instruct the AI to be highly accommodating and instantly give in to your request. I dont think that would do you much good. As much as possible, you would want to give the AI some hints or clues about the potential mindset of your manager. Doing so would allow you to have a better simulation that seems quasi-realistic.RTO Will Be A Challenging Time For AllMy prediction is that RTO is going to be a rough time for just about everyone. Employers are going to have a rough time. Employees are going to have a rough time. The geographical area where you work is probably going to have a rough time as the traffic increases and people start to once again be at the office. Parking lots will fill up. Lots of impact all around.The bright side of this is that gradually the work world will likely readjust. Local retailers might flourish again to meet the needs of nearby office workers. People might find refreshing new professional relationships with co-workers that couldnt be established while working remotely. There are many uplifting upsides.It will be the worst of times, and it will be the best of times, perhaps all at the same time. Make use of generative AI to get ready for RTO. Once you are underway, continue to use generative AI to work out the curves and try to get into a reasonably good office-going routine. Youll be glad that you leaned into AI for this vital purpose.A final thought for now.If you are wavering as to whether to proceed with RTO, it is indubitably a hefty choice to be made. I hark back to the famous words of renowned orator and politician, William Jennings Bryan when he made this poignant remark: Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.I wish you the best in whichever path you take on RTO and know in my heart that it will be your destiny.