Hello, our office will remain closed for during the Christmas period. We assure you that all your emails will be responded to as soon as we return to the office. Merry Christmas! Regards, [Name/Company name]
This would go over like a lead balloon at my company, and, were that person on my team, I’d tell them to change it. It does have a connotation of “when I feel like it” about it, and most of my team is not high enough up the food chain to take that sort of stance (and the ones who are high enough up are client-facing and have the good sense not to do so).
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I actually think that’s a really helpful out of office message? I appreciate how clear it is about who to contact in which circumstance (so you’re not having to do the awkward dance of trying to track down the right people while not inconveniencing the wrong ones), while maintaining a friendly-but-firm boundary around the vacationing person’s time (since none of the options include things like “here’s my cell phone number!”).
It’s my favorite time of year, which means I’m currently out of the office lounging on a Carribean beach, sipping on mojitos, and attempting to achieve the tan I’ve been waiting all year long for.
Most of what I’m describing (as well as boyd) boils down to examples of clear, honest, communication. While it sounds simple, such openness is extremely rare in the workplace. It is rare because, especially with time off, this type of communication requires the sender to be vulnerable, to cede control, and/or to be assertive and frank about one’s needs.
On the other hand, there may be times where you’re so embedded in a project that you truly need to stay connected while you’re out. If that’s the case, say so clearly with a message like this: “I’m away but will be checking messages regularly, so don’t hesitate to contact me directly at any time.” Saying anything less than this may cause people to try to respect your time away and work around you, which in this case could create problems.
I have been out the office working from home for more than a year now. After a few weeks of remotely checking VM (and sometimes forgetting for days) I simply changed my phone setting so you cannot leave a message. I have not regretted since. On very few occasions people have clicked 0 and gone to reception. Reception can IM me and ill call or email the person back if I want or they can give them my email. Everyone else either emails me or if they already have it call my cell. Internal people never call my phone they use IM or video chat. No one internally has had an issue with this and this eliminates the whole hey call me back to spend 30 minutes talking about something that I could have answered in 2 minutes in an email.
13) I’m not in the office right now but if it’s important, tweet me using #YOUAREINTERRUPTINGMYVACATION.
I don’t usually read the messages anyway, I just take it as information that the recipient won’t see my message right away. If that will cause issues, I’ll contact someone else.
What a year...you deserve a break. Use this email generator to create your custom 2020 vacation responder.
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“Celebrating [childs name] birthday today with a dinosaur themed party and reminiscing on this sweet baby I brought home from the hospital 8 years ago #momtears”
I used to work with someone who had a message telling people she only checked her email twice a day. You pretty much needed to call her if you needed anything outside of those times. (She worked in a remote office.) I think she had read one of those books on efficiency that recommended scheduled email time. But there were problems with this: 4. My department often had to email attachments or text to illustrate our questions/concerns. And we were on deadlines. Reading a page of text over the phone was not an efficient use of anyone’s time 5. She did outreach & was often out of the office on site visits, trainings, or travel to these places, but never ever set her OOO for these, because she was “working.” However, she was effectively not available to read emails from other staff until after hours on those days.
Those of us who are back in the office haven’t bothered plugging most of the phones back in. We aren’t in roles where we get phone calls, those people are still mostly WFH. There is one persistant caller who does not seem to comprehend ‘X is working from home – please email them’, but that’s the only call we ever get.
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My European colleagues get an extended summer holiday all at the same time, which means we get OOO notes like this: