With summer vacation season looming, here’s how AI can help ease your post-PTO anxiety
In today’s always-on work culture, the post-vacation transition has become increasingly stressful. With many of us dreading the return to work after time off, we spend a good chunk of our day on non-value-added tasks as we attempt to catch up. But emerging AI solutions are transforming how employees readjust after time away.
For HR leaders concerned with employee well-being and productivity, the “post-PTO scaries” represent a significant challenge. The overwhelming backlog of emails, missed meetings and chat notifications not only creates anxiety but also substantially impacts organizational efficiency.
Tiffany McGowen, senior executive vp of HR and talent acquisition at HCM software company Paycom, emphasizes that managers must communicate the value of time off while empowering employees to plan vacations strategically. “It’s important that managers communicate the value of time off and empower their employees to plan vacations far enough in advance to complete deadlines and delegate responsibilities as needed,” she said. “The best leaders communicate critical dates early and often so employees can plan their vacations accordingly.”
This proactive approach is particularly crucial during busy summer months when vacation requests spike. By establishing clear expectations around planning, companies can encourage much-needed breaks while maintaining operational continuity.
The workforce and HR leadership are finding that AI tools can dramatically compress catch-up time and reduce stress when employees return from extended absences.
McGowen highlights how technology has transformed time-off management: “The right HCM technology creates a more accessible, efficient and consistent time-off management process.”
Erin DeCesare, CTO of ezCater, an office catering business, recently tested this approach during her four-week sabbatical. “Using AI tools to streamline my catch-up time was a game-changer,” she said. “In a previous one-month sabbatical at another company, it took me close to a whole month to feel fully back up to speed. This time, with the help of AI, I was fully updated and performing within two days.”
Several AI capabilities are particularly valuable for post-PTO transitions, among them:
Meeting intelligence. AI can provide comprehensive summaries of missed meetings, eliminating the need to watch recordings or schedule additional update meetings.
“The difference was night and day,” DeCesare said. “In previous returns from time off, catching up on meetings meant painstakingly going through recordings or relying on my direct reports to manually bring me up to speed, which was a drain on their time, too.”
Communication digests. AI can summarize key developments from communication platforms, helping returning employees quickly understand what transpired during their absence.
As DeCesare explains: “Instead of digging through endless messages, I simply asked Glean AI for the highlights from our main projects and team channels. This gave me a quick snapshot of the big decisions, any bumps in the road, and the progress everyone made while I was out.”
Action item extraction: Modern AI solutions can identify and prioritize action items from various sources.
According to Smita Hashim, chief product officer at Zoom, the company’s AI Companion can take the actions from the meeting and automatically have them flow into Zoom Tasks, so, she explained, “the user can manage their tasks effectively across the platform, quickly re-engage with their workflows and focus on tasks that truly matter.”
McGowen recommends that companies regularly review their approach to vacation management. “It’s essential to audit preexisting time-off policies and build a long-term solution that meets business and employee needs across all waves of seasonal time-off requests,” she said. “The ideal PTO policy is scalable and accounts for your organization’s long-term cultural, financial, compliance and operational needs.”
She specifically notes that deploying effective time-off management software is a company’s best investment in their policy’s longevity, as automated decisioning tools streamline the time-off request process and deliver quick decisions about employees’ vacation requests without compromising staffing requirements.
While AI tools offer significant benefits, HR leaders should take note of the limitations as well. “While AI-generated summaries were incredibly helpful, I learned they can’t fully replace human context and nuance,” DeCesare said. “Relying on AI alone could mean missing crucial context.”
At the end of the day, for organizations looking to implement AI catch-up tools, DeCesare recommends a gradual approach. “At ezCater, we implemented Glean AI not just as a tool for finding internal content but also as a safe and governed gateway to tools like ChatGPT,” she said. “Right now, most of our team (65%) are using it monthly.”
The ROI potential for AI-assisted returns is compelling. According to Zoom research, by the fifth year of leveraging their workplace platform, companies could see AI Companion contribute $3.8 million to their overall financial impact.
For HR executives focused on both employee well-being and organizational productivity, AI-powered back-from-a-break strategies represent a significant opportunity to transform what was once a dreaded experience into a seamless transition. As DeCesare put it: “Ultimately, we want these tools to become part of how we work, freeing people up for bigger, more creative tasks.”