It's a tip that Kate Leaver, Australian author of the newly published book The Friendship Cure: A Manifesto for Reconnecting in the Modern World, has long championed. “I usually just describe the most delicious thing I'll be eating while I'm away. I've been told it makes people very jealous, in a happy-for-me sort of way,” she says. A typical auto-response from her reads: “OOO: Busy eating my body weight in gelato. Gleefully, wifi isn’t great on windswept Italian beaches so I will likely not see your email for days.”
Guiding them regarding who to talk to within your absence is surely a part of being responsible for your work, but it’s not necessary to make it boring. Auto replies are extremely common in today’s world with 306.4B daily emails, and taking your contacts by surprise will give them a reason to smile even if they don’t get your help personally. In this article, I have tried to include both out-of-the-box email copies and use of multimedia so that you can get inspired by what suits your workplace. I hope you find this post helpful for the upcoming holiday season.
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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 [contact name] at [contact email] so that the other elves in this workshop can help you out.
Protocol for when you should use an out-of-office message will vary by job and industry, but generally, you should set an OOO message when you’ll be out for two or more days.
Hi, I’m out of the office. Thank you for getting in touch. We’ll get back to you within 8 business hours.
Others like to take the opportunity to inject a little personality and make the reader smile, like our very own Rachael’s summertime out-of-office:
I am on annual leave until [DD/MM/YY]. I will allow each sender one email and if you send me multiple emails, I will randomly delete your emails until there is only one remaining. Choose wisely.
There’s just one problem with this approach: you’ve now obligated yourself to regularly check your email the whole time you’re out.
“This is MY NAME [from COMPANY] calling about REASON. Call me [by DAY/TIME] at (844) 387-6962 [pause, then repeat the number very slowly] that’s eight four four… three, eight, seven… six, nine, six, two.”
“I’ve been whisked away by angry looking men in suits and taken to a small room with one light, a little water and a laptop. I’ve been told to write. I think these men are from my publisher. I’m hoping to be released on Thursday so I can start to responding to emails again.”
Head over to your vacation message template, and Hit Control + C to paste your signature into your out of office notification. This way, when someone contacts you while you’re on vacay, they can still:
Before read your article i didn’t know about that but now after reading your article i will follow this definately. This article is very useful to us. Thanks and keep sharing.
Oh shoot. You need something and I’m unavailable today. Here’s the good news: you have options.
Hahahahaha, reminds me of the time the entire giant department (hundreds of people) had to sit through a SLIDE SHOW of a higher up’s trip to Europe, in person. They sent a survey afterwards–thankfully anonymous–and I said it was extremely inappropriate to make us sit through his holiday snaps when most of us can’t go on vacation at all and it was supposed to be a WORK meeting.
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I get why that would bug the hell out of you. But on the flip side, having worked with a lot of European colleagues who do this, it’s not that they’ll have to 8 hours of work on vacation, it’s that they won’t be working at all. So if your bit isn’t done by X date, then their bit won’t get done until they return. That’s just the culture there.