Get out of the office early.Make sure you inform your managers and co-workers that you will be leaving early. Do something fun since you are out early from work. Go for a movie or the happy hour at your favorite restaurant or bar with your co-workers.
Braden also recommends using HubSpot's out-of-office email generator to create your OOO message.
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Save www.sysgen.com.ph http://www.sysgen.com.ph/articles/out-of-office-templates-for-the-holidays/2311 · Thank you for your email, I’m currently out of the office until [date]. I’ll reply to your message promptly when I return. Should you require immediate assistance, please send an email to [contact name] at [contact email] in my absence. Wishing you and yours a wonderful holiday season,
The one exception: When I was out for a week and a half on my wedding/honeymoon, I included something about “Additionally, I am out of office getting married, so shortly after my return my name will change from Red Bookworm to Red Reader.”
My absolute favorite was the one that literally said “hodilay”. Typo included, capitalization, or any other words, not.
Here's a million-dollar question: how do you get people to do what you want them to? That's where Calls-to-Action (CTAs) come in.
I’ll be at a work off-site and will have limited availability by phone and email until ___, please contact ___ for immediate needs about ____ otherwise I will respond as soon as possible”
I’ve run into the “no voicemail” thing at a few businesses where phone was the main mode of contact too, and it was hugely frustrating. You call your doctor to ask about, say, a billing issue, and it turns out they’re closed, but then it just says the office hours and “goodbye *click*”. Seriously? Sorry, /end rant.
This is the dream. If I could do this, I would! I hate voicemails (and the phone in general) so, so much!
Hi, Thanks for your email. I am out of the office right now and will not return until [MM/DD]. Fortunately for you, our resources never take time off and we’ve got this awesome [ebook/brochure/infographic/etc] that I think you would enjoy. I’ll reply to you as soon as I get back into the office.
Season’s Greetings! It’s my favorite time of year, which means I’m currently out of the office chugging mugs of cocoa, stuffing my face with cookies, and attempting to fulfill my life-long goal of memorizing every single line of [FAVORITE HOLIDAY MOVIE]. I’ll be back in front of my computer on [DATE] and will respond to your message at that time. If you need immediate assistance, please send an email to [NAME] at [EMAIL] so that the other elves in this workshop can help you out. Happy ho-ho-holidays!
You crossed everything off your to-do list and cleared out your inbox. There’s one last thing for you to do: Write and activate the out-of-office message on your email.
I saved this one for the last example. It’s exactly what anyone would like to say when an associate messages them regarding any work during the holiday season. It talks about the ‘me time’ and also shares empathy for the sender. Especially, asking the sender to order the Pepperoni Pizza after stating the date of return is a fab movie. One of the best ways to display empathy is being humorous as it doesn’t put the other person into pressure- it makes way for helping them take the situation lightly!
Because you can never predict when an emergency will come up, make sure you have someone who can resond to urgent requests. And that person would be your direct manager. But let them know ahead of time so they're not blindsided when they need to respond to something.
What we need in our work communication is not more professional politeness or less formal, chat-based messaging applications like Slack. We need honesty. The problem is that we’ve conditioned ourselves to see honesty as self-indulgent or disrespectful. I’d argue the opposite is true. Honesty, even if it’s a bit more inconvenient for all parties in the moment, pays dividends later. It builds trust. When my partner Anne Helen Petersen and I were interviewing people for our forthcoming book on remote work, a frequent lament from both middle managers and workers was that they didn’t feel like they knew how to succeed in their jobs; that they were guessing what their superiors and coworkers wanted and, even when they asked, they didn’t quite trust the responses they got back.
Skip the "Greetings," "Salutations," "Dear sir/madam." These are far too stuffy and robotic. Instead, start off your response with a simple "Hi" or Hello."
When people leave first name contact only as if we’re supposed to know who Susan or Frank are..