“Many people reveal details about their personal lives in an OOO — like where and when they’re traveling,” Tim Sadler, CEO of Tessian, explains in an email interview. “Whether done on social media or in an auto-reply message on email, this arms hackers with the information they need to either craft a convincing email targeted at the OOO employee or impersonate the person who is on vacation and target one of their colleagues.”
With plenty of employees still working remotely months into the pandemic, “I actually think it’s more important now than it was before,” says Muse career coach Angela Smith. “From the perspective of how do we make remote work work,” she says, “overcommunication is one of the hallmarks.” In a world where you can’t see whether your colleagues are at their desks, being clear about when you’re working—and when you’re not—is crucial to keeping things running smoothly.
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I can’t agree that holding on to a request for a week or so is akin to groveling.
The head of llama engagement called my boss and reamed her out for my “poor behaviour” and then called me and reamed me out, too. She said it didn’t matter if project X was the biggest thing our company did all year – her requests took precedence.
For all pressing matters, please contact [Contact Name] at [contact email] for assistance.
Thanks for getting in touch. I am currently out of the office from [date] to [date] and will have limited access to my email during this time. You may be able to get ahold of me on my cell phone at [phone number]. If you can’t get through to me and have an urgent inquiry, you can contact a member of the team at [phone number], or my assistant [Name] at [email] or [phone number].
Depending on the type of holiday, you can create specific templates for various holidays such as Christmas Thanksgiving, New Year etc.:
So now this email is working overtime with the flood of enquiries, spam, well-wishes, and broken hearts.
There is any number of valid reasons why you might skip on your email inbox for a while. You can be on vacation, feel sick or take a few days off to recharge.
2.) Bienvenue chez John Doe. En raison de notre entreprise de vacances, notre personnel de service sera à nouveau disponible pour vous le lundi 4/07/2016. L’expédition des commandes démarrera de nouveau le 01/11/2016. En attendant vous êtes le bienvenu pour envoyer votre demande à notre email [email protected] ou avec notre formulaire de contact. Merci !
Okay. Before you go into fancyland or funnyland about how you're in the woods protecting yourself against bears, remember Rule 1! Make sure you have all the pertinent details in your out of office message.
But your out-of-office message is as much for you as it is for the people receiving it, especially during the pandemic. “Boundaries have taken a big hit right now,” Ritter says. There’s a lot of pressure associated with missing something at work, and that stress has been heightened without the typical separation between office and home and with the added fear caused by an uncertain economy. An OOO message is a chance to set expectations, “to give yourself some breathing room and to ensure other people aren’t thinking negatively about you,” Ritter says, and it’s crucial for your mental health.
Thanks for your email. Right now I am camping in the countryside with my family which means I will be completely switching off from all technology for a few days (gasp!).
Hey, why are you being so sneaky about where you've disappeared to? If you're not on vacation and your out of office is for a work trip, well darn it, work that! [Editor's note: Pun totally intended.]
Hi Thanks for your email. I’ll be away from the office until [MM/DD] and will respond as soon as I can. For all support requests/needs, please reach out to [email] and one of my colleagues will be happy to assist you.
While you’re writing and activating your out of office message, avoid including the following:
Note: While you could test your out-of-office message, you can also see it’s working because Gmail conveniently overlays a yellow bar at the top of your inbox reminding you that your autoresponder is on, along with options to “End now” or adjust your settings.