An old boss had a pet peeve about this so I became very conscious of making sure that I listed out who to contact on what day… before the group email. So it looked something like this:
I’d probably say something like “I am unavailable until X date. Please contact [colleague] or [colleague] if you need assistance. Thanks!”
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I’ll be sure to reply to your message when I wade through my inbox upon my return. If your message is urgent and requires immediate attention, please send an email to [contact name] at [contact email].
My OOO is almost always “I’m out of the office and will be returning on x date.” My email sig has instructions along the lines of “for questions on x, email this list” for a couple of the more common areas people would contact me about that might need an urgent reply (as the lists go to more than just me, obviously), but most people have finally figured out to contact those lists to start with, anyway. If I were in the middle of a project or something that needed to be moved along in my absence, the project teams usually know when we’re out, but I’d put a back up in that case, if needed, but generally there’s not much to be gained by a longer OOO from me.
Agreed! A bit of warmth is fine, sure, but it’s not the place for chattiness — that’s for talking to an actual person. I want an OOO message to tell me that the person is out, when they’ll be back, and who I should contact in the meantime if need be. No objections to multiple options there, whether it’s “X for llama grooming issues and Y for llama tea parties” or “X for routine questions, Y if it’s urgent, Z if it’s an emergency,” but I want to be able to absorb the useful info quickly and move on.
I just say that I’m out of the office. Practically, it makes no difference where this office is located.
I have no idea! He was pretty quirky, but in a harmless way. Like, he didn’t expect other people to spend that kind of time on their VM greetings, and he took our good-natured ribbing about his unusual habits in stride.
OMG. When I was in college, my mom got me a summer job at her office. All I did was send faxes, get faxes back, and put dates in a spreadsheet.
If you don't see the Automatic Replies button, follow the steps to use rules to send an out of office message. Set up an automatic reply
So many people emailed Ryan that Aviation Gin's servers crashed. Here's his July 2018 out of office message:
Examples of a generic thank you message for a wide range of situations: Thank you so much for your thoughtful Christmas gift. I really appreciated it! Hope you have a great new year! Thank you for thinking of me. That was so kind of you. Thank you for the Christmas gift. You helped make my holidays special. Thank you so much for the Christmas gift.
I personally like it. Of course, the emails that I’ve seen still say what to do if the matter is urgent and needs to be handled now — but as a person who gets 100+ emails a day, whether I tell you I’m deleting all of them when I get back or not — if it is in the thousands of emails that might accumulate in the time I am off, I’m not going to see it or respond. Better that I tell you now that you are going to have to resend the email after I return (or get my backup to handle it now) than you sit around waiting for a response that is never going to come. It is actually pretty common in my industry for any absence two weeks or more.
Your email is important to me and I will respond when I return to my desk. If you require immediate assistance, please contact [Alternate Name] at [alternate email].
If you work in an industry (like PR, for example) where clients expect a response in a matter of moments or hours, you may need to set an out-of-office message if you’re absent for an afternoon. If you’re not sure whether you should set one, ask your boss or a coworker or consult your employee handbook.
While you’re writing and activating your out of office message, avoid including the following:
Hello! Our office will remain closed from [date] to [date] for [holiday]. We promise to answer all emails as soon as we return to the office. Thank you!