Don’t beat around the bush! This is an expression that means you should get to the point. That is, you should make your message direct and brief. This will let the recipient quickly know that you’re not available and who they can contact instead. You can start with a simple greeting and then proceed to the message like in the following examples:
In case of maternity leave, make sure that you set up a long-term out of office message.
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“Hi, Sorry I missed your call/text. I’m currently out of the office and will not be back until Feb 2. My colleague [name] has agreed to respond on my behalf, so feel free to forward the message to [phone] if it is urgent. You can otherwise expect a response from me once I return. Thanks for understanding.”
This information will help the person reaching out to you gauge whether their message can wait for your response or if they need to contact someone else instead.
Thankfully, with a simple out of office message taking a day off doesn’t mean that your communication with clients has to stop.
For urgent matters please reach out using my mobile number +111 1111. For technical related issues please contact [email protected]
Okay. So, it’s not to my exact personal tastes — to me, it’s overly wordy — but it’s probably fine for their culture and I’d be mildly amused if I got it. I see where you’re seeing condescension, but I think you can read it without that too.
I’ve seen similar things with OOO messages where people would update them practically daily. “I’ll be away from my desk from 9-2 with intermittent emails and then on a call from 3:-3:45” and ….dude. We don’t need that much detail every day.
'I’m away from my desk at the moment but will respond the moment they give me a desk' (Credit: Getty Images)
1. Simple Autoreply Message #1. If you’re looking for a simple autoreply message sample for your business, you can use this template. Keep in mind that you’ll have to change the field id and the date before you save it.
4. Respond to Urgent Emails Only. If you’re taking a few days off and want to respond only to urgent emails, this template would be a great fit. Hi (specify the Name field id),
I try to substitute “parental leave” for “maternity leave” whenever possible. Trying to normalize it as a benefit to all employees (at my company) rather than a special lady-vacation.
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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:
Setting up an out of office message in Gmail is simple. First, (1) put the message you wrote in the text box and format it properly. Then (2) choose a schedule for your auto-replies. If you know by which date you’re going to get back to the office, you can put that day in. Gmail will then automatically stop sending out auto-replies when the time comes. If you don’t know when you’re going to return you can leave it empty. Out of office replies can also be (3) manually toggled on or off at any time.
So, take a lesson from @courtwhip, editor at PEDESTRIAN.TV, who wrote the above hilarious out-of-office email, fully stocked with mentions of the best movies from the 1990s. (By the way, “Splinter” is from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and as we all know, he loves pizza.)
Whatever you decide before heading out for that much-needed time off, it’s imperative that you set up an out of office reply. Your customers and co-workers don’t get that same pause button as you do. That’s why you should inform everyone that needs to know about your time off.