My European colleagues get an extended summer holiday all at the same time, which means we get OOO notes like this:
Yup. That’s almost verbatim what I do. It’s the standard around here and now I’m grateful for that!
.
InHerSight is the career navigator for working women. Founded on the belief that data measurement leads to advancement, we manage the largest database of women-rated companies, and we use those insights to match our users to jobs and companies where they can achieve their goals. Anonymously rate your current or former employer now to unlock our one-of-a-kind resources. Paid Time Off Work-Life Balance
If you want to send multiple messages over different days, make sure each one includes all the information above so there aren’t any questions left unanswered. And remember — no matter how much space you give these notes, you still need to leave enough room for actual emails!
Here is a good example of setting a queue message when all your support agents are busy.
THANK YOU!!!!!! As a small business owner, I have struggled with any out of office time, weekends, and after hours. Clients seem to text more often than email these days, and there hasn’t been a way to inform them with “out of office reply”. This article helps me tremendously! Also, there should be more built into our phones for texting like email: read, mark as unread, and prioritize contacts of different rows or colors indicating favorites, contacts, and non-contacts (pesky customers who bombard you afterhours).
Don’t you wish you were here? I’m snorkeling, deep sea fishing, and doing all the touristy stuff for the entire week starting Monday, November 12th. I won’t be responding to calls or emails until I return on Monday, November 19th.
The holidays are a time for warm wishes and for expressing gratitude for a great year gone by. While holiday messages may not take a lot of time to write, they are a great way to show you care and bring people closer, whether the recipient is your employee, colleague, or boss.
I might be your coworker. I don’t get a lot of calls so it slips my mind constantly. Email I just set up a timer and it’s so much easier that way.
Twice a month, we handpick the hottest sales and marketing tips and deliver them to your inbox. Share your email now! Email * Subscribe COMPANY PRICING CAREERS CONTACT By using this site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Learn more in our Privacy Policy. OK
I’ve seen similar things with OOO messages where people would update them practically daily. “I’ll be away from my desk from 9-2 with intermittent emails and then on a call from 3:-3:45” and ….dude. We don’t need that much detail every day.
Co-sign. HATE THAT. We use Outlook and there’s a banner across the top that says AUTOMATIC REPLIES ARE BEING SENT. Just click the button to stop them!
Let’s say you’re a CFO headed to Cancun for your annual vacation. You write an OOO message that contains: The dates of your departure and return Contact information for a colleague that will be available in your absence Some details about your destination
I just say out of the office. It helps that I have a room that, among other things, functions as an office, but I don’t think that would change my reply. Whether its a real or metaphorical office, you’re still not at work, so it counts.
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.
Given free rein, I’d absolutely love to tell people that needing me to show them how to do X in Excel is actually not a vacation-interrupting emergency and there are tons of free videos that would explain that, if they did not want to contact the actual departments who handle tech support and training. Or that this project they’ve known about for a month but decided to keep under their hat until it became an emergency is something they’ll need to resolve themselves. But that would not fly at all.
Running away from your inbox or your work responsibilities doesn’t solve problems, it merely delays them. What boyd suggests, though, is something different. Her strategy asks us plan ahead of time: to construct an off ramp from our jobs as well as an on-ramp for the eventual re-entry. Her asks aren’t Herculean but they require some foresight — and they demand that a person be very upfront about what they want from their time off, and that they commit to protecting their time.