There is any number of valid reasons why you might skip on your email inbox for a while. You can be on vacation, feel sick or take a few days off to recharge.
I also do not have an OOO for external people – only internal. I always monitor my email enough to be able to forward important external emails to the right person to handle. IDK why, I just don’t like them having the burden of emailing someone else if I’m out. I’d rather my employee contact them and say “Hey, DataQueen let me know you were having an issue and asked me to connect with you.” My last CEO was out for a full year and almost none of our clients knew (we weren’t trying to hide it, it was just not pertinent to them).
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Hi, I’m out of the office. Thank you for getting in touch. We’ll get back to you within 8 business hours.
Since holidays occur throughout the year, there is no one ideal time to send a message. For the winter holidays, we recommending sending your well wishes early in December. In general, if you can send your message before people get busy with the holiday, then it will have a larger impact.
You’ll have options to set a “first day” and “last day,” or just “first day.” If you want things truly automated, picking a “last day” will trigger the autoresponder to automatically turn itself off the day after the selected date. Of course, in those instances when you’re unsure of your exact return date, it’s best to leave this open-ended. The “out of office” subject line is much less creative and scientific than say, a cold email subject line or a marketing email subject line. More often than not, they’re very plain and simple, like the following:
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We used to do this at my old job in addition to OOO messages. I found it useful to know in advance how long people were going to be gone. There’s nothing more annoying than needing something urgently from the one person who can help and then getting an auto-response saying they’re out for the next 2 weeks.
If you’re looking for a classic OOO message, this one is for you. Perhaps you work an industry that values directness and getting straight to the point, and playfulness may be off-brand. This response covers all of the most important bits of information every OOO needs: the date you will return to the office, when they can expect a response back, and who to contact in the meantime. That’s it!
At my current workplace, I got an OOO about someone being on sabbatical and off driving a vintage VW bus. Loved that one. But also got one about someone bringing a tiny human into the world – that was a weird overshare.
The ThreeMail Workflow Flowchart: A flowchart that illustrates the steps behind building your own ThreeMail setup modelling it after my TimeCrafting methodology.5 Time-Saving Email Templates: These canned responses will help you respond to senders faster.
A client rings to tell you your out-of-office message has a typo in it, or, worse, is mind-numbingly boring. Suddenly you’re wrenched out of holiday mode and back into the throes of work, weeping as you log back into your email server to change your response as your shandy grows warm and flat.
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
If your message is unclear or incomplete, it can create a negative impression on your customers when you are away. For example, if your message does not clearly state what dates you will be unavailable, your clients and co-workers are likely to fill up your inbox with messages, making it difficult for you to catch up when you are back. Failure to include the contact information of the person they can contact in your absence can affect your ongoing projects.
I do enjoy the transcribing of voicemails, so a lot of times I read that (and try to translate the weird interpretation from Siri). I rarely need to actually listen to the voicemail.
'I’m away from my desk at the moment but will respond the moment they give me a desk' (Credit: Getty Images)
It’s wise to check they aren’t though. A colleague once had an out of office from an academic that simply said ‘on fieldwork’. Just those two words.
Need inspiration? Here are five out-of-office message examples from the career development site guaranteed to spread holiday cheer professionally: