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.
I have a deep paranoia about out of office messages ever since a previous (bad) job. Every year I worked on a huge project that took nine months, and three separate weeks (or more) of that involved correcting, editing, and reviewing a dense 300 page document.
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What Should Your Vacation Message Include?A subject, with the dates you leave and returnWho to contact in an emergency (name, email, and phone number)Point of contact for non-urgent inquiries (name, email, and phone number)Keep Your Message Professional
When Outlook is setup to send automatic replies, you'll see a message under the ribbon with this information. Select Turn off to disable automatic out-of-office replies. If you want to modify the dates for your automatic reply or the message sent, use the steps above to modify your settings. Note: For Outlook 2007, to turn off out-of-office replies, select Tools > Out of Office Assistant and uncheck the Send Out of Office auto-replies checkbox. Update your Automatic Replies on the Outlook mobile app
Much obliged to you for your email but our office will remain closed due to upcoming holidays. Unfortunately, due to this, we will not be able to send you an answer until 12-01-20XX. In case of emergency, you can send your queries to Ms. Medley at [website], she will answer all your queries. All delays are hereby regretted.
It’s possible I might quote from some responses to this in an upcoming column, so please note if you don’t want me to do that with yours!
I had a coworker for the first 6 months or so of the pandemic set an out of office status on Teams that he was working from home and could be contacted at x number. Dude. We’re all working from home, and those stupid status messages are distracting!
Oh you see, I do that on purpose. That way I can use the same OOO message internally and externally. Anyone within our company can find us in the global address book. Anyone outside our company who has done business with my department has my email address & my manager’s.
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.
Website: https://www.wisestamp.com/signature-banners/holiday-email-signature/christmas-signature/
No matter what you’re using your SMS autoresponder for, there are a few pieces of best practice you should keep in mind when crafting an automated text message.
In urgent issues, you can contact (YOUR COLLEAGUE’SNAME) by mail: [email protected].
Once you’ve finally crossed off those last-minute items on your to-do list and are ready to check out of work mode for while, there’s just one last thing you need to do – set your out-of-office message.
File –> Automatic Replies –> Type your message in both sections – Inside my organization and Outside your organization.
No one should be calling during the holidays, and yet some people do. When you’re out for the holidays, create a voicemail greeting that communicates the cheerfulness of the season while still staying professional.
My office has a shared vacation calendar, which I think is a more helpful way to handle this.
Hello! Thank you for your email. I am currently out of the office. We have closed for [holiday name]. I will be returning on [date]. If you require immediate assistance, you may reach me at – [mobile number]. Thanks!