It usually isn’t enough to just say you’re out and won’t be responding to messages. You’ve got to give people options for how they can get their issue or request resolved. One of the easiest wins here is to provide alternative contact information. That could mean providing your mobile number while you’re out, or, more commonly, providing the phone number and email of the colleague (or department) that will be covering while you’re away.
Some of the people I know that have a lot on their plate are able to deal with a large volume of email with intent and integrity. It’s worth taking a look at how they deal with email so you can model some of their habits. I’ve listed three people below who I know handle their email really well.
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Hoo boy, have I got some PTSD from Old Job about out of office autoreplies. Exboss was such a stickler for them and actually enforced her expectations as official policy. Meaning if you didn’t do it to her exact specs, she’d call you back to the office to do it (which no one did) and read you the riot act afterwards while threatening to write you up for insubordination. She demanded them any time that we were away from our desk for longer than 30 minutes and for anything other than a meeting. So training in the conference room down the hall, a work lunch with teammates, leaving an hour early for an appointment, arriving late for an appointment, even working from home, all required OOO alerts.
But this is where it becomes a power thing. The OOO person says that everyone else wants stuff from them that the sender can’t get elsewhere and you need to grovel to get it from them.
It’s time for yet another everyone’s favorite period of the year! For me, it means eating as many cookies as possible while gulping down as much mulled wine as possible. Yes, this also means trying to remember every line of dialogue from [your favorite holiday movie] as my favorite holiday flick
Not an OOO issue but the comment about PTSD from OldJob reminded me of this. I am a recreational sailor who often made longer offshore trips as my vacation. OldBoss INSISTED that we provide contact instructions. Mine was some variant of “Dial O and ask for the Marine Operator. Give them [name of boat], [call sign] and [approximate location by date] along with your name and credit card number. We will be monitoring Channel 16 at these times…..” Never got a call. Word spread and there was a sudden epidemic of sailing vacations in my office!
LOL if I got the math/physics one I’d do the small amount of work to just to call them.
It was just this colleague – it (thankfully) wasn’t the culture of the office, and I never saw anyone else abuse the OOO like this.
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3. Out of Office Template #3 For the Person Who Keeps Things Festive. Season’s greetings! It’s my favorite time of year, which means I’m currently away from my inbox chugging mugs of cocoa, stuffing my face with cookies, and attempting to fulfill my life-long goal of memorizing every single line of [your favorite holiday movie].
I’d then check off all that applied—people would laugh each time they saw it bc I’m such a predictable nerd, one or both of the first two lines was almost always checked off…and usually both!
Keeping It Real. I am currently out of the office on vacation. I know I’m supposed to say that I’ll have limited access to email and won’t be able to respond until I return, but that’s not true.
That’s why I instituted group email addresses/boxes for this use (I had to fight with IT to have one created in the early days). Yes, everyone has their individual email in addition to the group mailbox.