About the “overshares”: You linked to a previous column that mentioned this point, “Sometimes the over-sharing of plans can even come across as suspect — similar to how when someone’s calling in sick with genuine illness, they usually just say, ‘I’m going to be out sick,’ but fakers will generally give you a long list of overly specific symptoms, like they feel they have to convince you.”
Thank you for your message. I am currently out of the office, with no email access. I will be returning on (Date of Return).
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My immediate team does this with calendar invites for our scheduled PTO (set to “Show As Free”), and I actually find it really helpful. I certainly wouldn’t want to get an email from dozens of people that I may or may not need to get in touch with, but if I am quickly looking at my calendar to set up time with my team, it’s helpful to have a reminder of who is out and who is not. I definitely wouldn’t remember if my teammates sent an email or a chat. I’ll invite relevant coworkers to an event called “Applesauced on PTO” that shows up as free on their calendar, and make a separate event for myself to be marked out of office in the system
Two to three sentences is usually enough to tell recipients everything they need to know.
07-01-19secrets of the most productive peopleThese OOO messages will encourage people to leave you alone on vacation
When people leave first name contact only as if we’re supposed to know who Susan or Frank are..
Your business is important to us and I will respond to you immediately when I return to work.
I am out of the office from [date range]. If you need immediate assistance, please contact [name, title and contact information].
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Seems like a big task, right? Well…wrong. You don’t need to stop by everyone in the office’s desks (if you’re even working in an office these days!) or send out an email to each and every client or lead. The easiest way to do this is by simply changing your voicemail greeting and adding an out-of-office email responder to your email client.
File –> Automatic Replies –> Type your message in both sections – Inside my organization and Outside your organization.
My snarky colleague sure did in his out-of-office message below. We send thank-you letters in response to holiday gifts, so it’s only natural to expect the same gesture in our work inboxes …
In my office, most of the phone lines just didn’t even have voicemail, because we already got enough abuse in regular phone calls (university parking office). When we switched to VOIP, that went away, but at least now they get *badly* transcribed into our email boxes…
Setting a proper out-of-office email also puts pressure off you when you have limited time to respond to emails outside the office. We will look at a few examples together here:
There’s a department at my workplace where this is common practice too. My old department worked with clients in similar ways, and I was half expecting we’d also be required to do it, but luckily that never happened. Further proof that, at this (generally progressive, flexible-working) company, your actual work-life balance heavily depends who manages you.