In my much, MUCH younger days, I printed out a photo of a cruise ship with an arrow and “I am here” pasted on it and taped it to my monitor…
› Url: https://www.roberthalf.com/blog/salaries-and-skills/vacation-time-how-to-craft-an-effective-out-of-office-message Go Now
.
A relatively unprofessional one — like mine, for instance — does the opposite: It encourages prospects, recruiters, and potential connections to run in the other direction.
More From The Muse: Standard Out Of Office Messages Are Boring, Try This Instead 6 Out-Of-Office Templates For The Holidays That You Can Copy And Paste Now The Email You Need To Send Your Boss If She Doesn’t Respect Your Time Off
I’ll add my shout out to MS and Outlook for not only being able to schedule OoO auto replies, but for having internal and external facing options.
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You probably received a number of these emails, and thus you should be familiar with the information out-of-office emails provide.
Going on a vacation, feeling under the weather, celebrating the holidays, or just playing hooky from work? If so, you need to let your colleagues, clients, and leads know that you’re not available. There’s nothing worse than waiting for an urgent request, or even a quick and simple response, only to find out the person you’re trying to reach is out of work and completely unable to respond to you.
I ran a nonprofit organization staffed entirely be volunteers (I was one). After one too many people incensed that we did not follow up to their emails within two hours, we had to include an OOO message that said we were a volunteer organization, and any request may take up to two weeks to process. Please email again if you have not heard from us by then.
I apologise for this blunt email, yet feel I must warn customers and shareholders to divest yourself of any interests you hold in this company as the **** is about to hit the fan.
As a “don’t try this at home” anecdote, last week we had an all staff retreat, and we were asked to put up away messages. I put a perfectly professional one up for outside email, but in a fit of whimsy, the internal mail triggered an away message that said “Why are you emailing? We are supposed to be paying attention to the retreat!” I figured, we were all at the retreat, so nobody would ever know. Of course, someone did email me 30 minutes before everything started, and triggered the message. Fortunately, he figured out it was an away message and thought it was funny.
The dialogue “You may remember me from..” by Troy McClure is uncannily iconic for all Simpsons fans. It has also evolved into an autoresponder saga. By the time the reader realizes that they are going to wait a while, they would have already had the fun of reading this hilarious convo. Have a look at this funny out of office reply and see if your associates would love to hear it:
The one that gave a personal cellphone number (they didn’t have a company phone or were required to use it for work) while out on vacation, with a comment like “I’m out on vacation from date x to date y and in my absence please contact Jane Smith but if you don’t get any joy please call my personal number if it’s urgent”.
This is also good. I have two group emails for standard tasks. The SOP is that if someone uses those, one of the people on that list will indicate they have it and reply all when the task is complete. That way we all have status without anyone having to remember who is OOO that day/week.
Website: https://www.bestvirtualparalegal.com/blog/client-relation-case-management/10-best-office-closed-for-holiday-messages
Out of office messages can be as concise or detailed as you need but should follow a standard structure. Here are two templates you can use to create your own message.
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