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Whether it’s a fully-blown holiday, or just a few days away that’s at the forefront of your mind – tying up loose ends at work should never be overlooked. Aside from delegating your workload while you’re away, this also means setting up an out of office email.
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Whether your schedule has changed because you’re temporarily down to part-time or because you’re trying to fit work in around taking care of your children, you can use your OOO message to communicate and set expectations. You might write:
Our office will be closed from [date] to [date] for the coming National Day holiday. We will resume our operations on [date]. Any inconvenience caused is much regretted.
I will be out of the office until *date*. My colleague *Name* will be happy to assist you.
Top of the iceberg though. Oh, and she also works with external contacts, including prospective clients.
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If you’re going to be on vacation for a week or two, then it’s essential you set up your vacation email. If you miss the odd day, the world won’t implode, but if people don’t know you’re away for a few weeks and they don’t know exactly when you’ll be back, or who they can contact in your place, you’re going to have some unhappy clients or customers.
I’ll add “with limited access to email and voicemail” if I’m out because of work-related stuff (back when we used to have offsite meetings!), and “with no access to email and voicemail” if I’m truly on PTO.
I do typically come back to hundreds of emails, and I prioritize what to read – things from my boss/leadership are first, followed by communication from my direct reports. I also sort them by conversation thread and read the end of them first, which reduces the burden.
First, here’s the out-of-message for people who don’t like watching video (although the person in the video is funny and really brings the message to life):
Note: Outlook does not attach your signature when it sends automatic replies. If you have a signature, you might want to paste it below your message. If you don’t have one, learn how to add an email signature in Outlook.
I also tend to check my email 2-3x per day while I’m out for my own sanity and will respond to important* ones if not doing so would hold something big* up. Not using OOO avoids some of the self-righteous nonsense from people with nothing better to do than try to micromanage my personal time.
Set your automatic out of office reply under the Outside My Organization tab. This is for people outside your company such as clients and suppliers. You can copy what you typed in for Inside My Organization or you can put something else for people outside your organization. You can even untick the “Auto-reply…” box if you don’t want to send them an automatic reply while you’re away.
How about warning people of what’s to come? Take a look at an example you can use below.
Merry Christmas and thanks for your email! I’m taking a few days off to spend time with my family and friends, so I won’t be answering emails as quickly as usual. You can expect to hear back from me by (insert date).
I’m out of the office from 01.02.2021 until 05.02.2021. During this period I will have no access to my email.