Sure, Kopelman is truthful about the fact that he’s on vacation, but he also lets the recipient know that he or she would be interrupting important family time if the first option is chosen. It states a point simply and uses humor to avoid making it sound like he wants the reader to feel guilty.
That really does feel excessive. I think most people are savvy enough to think, ‘Huh, it’s late in the day for pretzelgirl, I might not get a response until tomorrow. Business as usual.’ Being out of communication for a day – travel, meetings, days off – doesn’t require an out of the office alert, either, just a response as soon as possible.
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Then, all that’s left to do is turn it on before you abandon your desk, and get prepared for a relaxing holiday break—without feeling the need to be constantly tethered to your inbox.
Honest communication, even in the form of an email auto reply, is a roadmap. It helps people understand how best to help you and, in turn, allows them to better help themselves. Straightforward expectation setting is a way to be respectful of your coworkers’ time and pressures, but most importantly, it’s a way to be respectful of and guard your time. Even if you don’t feel an intense need to be more open in your workplace correspondence, consider modeling the behavior for others who work with you or, especially, those who work for you. It’s a small change in behavior but it’s a meaningful one. And this summer is the perfect time to start.
I’ll be back at my desk on [date] and will respond to your message immediately. In case you need urgent assistance, please forward an email to [contact name] at [contact email] so that Santa’s little helpers at our shop may look into it.
TEMPLATE #1. (Office closed for holiday notice: Memo to all employees) Dear All, Please note that our office will be closed on (day), (date) because of the (mention reason). The office will then open as usual on the next working day. This is for your kind information. Do spread this info among other colleagues.
Braden also recommends using HubSpot's out-of-office email generator to create your OOO message.
› Url: https://www.themuse.com/advice/the-outofoffice-template-you-need-when-youre-only-taking-one-day-off Go Now
Same. I also have a version that is customer facing/external and one that is internal. My coworkers get a little more info.
This used to drive my supervisor crazy, she’d email me “it looks like your OOO is still on.” I had to explain the rationale a few times before she understood.
Inform your correspondent about the date by which they can expect to receive a response to the email they send you during the holiday season. Indication that your will reply to the email when they return.
I appreciate your message. I am out of the office currently with no office email access. However, return on the following [date-of-return].
That said, I promised my wife that I am going to try to disconnect, get away and enjoy our vacation as much as possible. So, I’m going to experiment with something new. I’m going to leave the decision in your hands:
The big issue I have with the example in the post is that not only is it unnecessarily long-winded, but you have to listen through all the chattiness to get to the “here’s who to contact in a real emergency” part. The tone does rub me wrong, but I’m willing to roll with that as a personality/company culture thing.
Bon voyage! You’re going on your holidays and you’re completely leaving the office behind. This is the perfect auto-response if you won’t be checking your emails the entire trip.
We’re not saying you’re boring but you do work in a fairly serious corporate environment. As a result, your out of office needs to be quite to the point but you also like to throw in a little pitch too, you cheeky sod.