My personal voicemail says that I prefer emails or texts when possible, and please leave a voicemail only as a last resort but either of the other two options will have a much faster response rate. I think I’ve gotten two voicemails in the last year.
Former coworker: “I am out of the country from X until Y. Please do not email me during this time as last time I came back to about 250, and reading them all takes up a lot of the time I have left before I retire.” Some people thought that was funny. The director who received that in response to an all staff communication? Not so much. Coworker got a talking to by his manager when he got back to the UK.
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Get out of the office early.Make sure you inform your managers and co-workers that you will be leaving early. Do something fun since you are out early from work. Go for a movie or the happy hour at your favorite restaurant or bar with your co-workers.
To make sure your email doesn’t get lost in a sea of messages please resend it on September 20th. If your message is urgent you can contact [contact’s name] on [contact’s email].
A professional email signature with contact information should do the trick in any case. Will you be monitoring your mailbox? – sometimes, when you are out of office, you may be able to check your incoming emails from time to time. If you can and do – include this information in your out of office message.
To then turn it off after your break, you follow the same steps but this time you simply check Vacation Responder Off instead of Vacation Responder On.
If you need immediate assistance before then, you may reach me on my mobile – (Mobile Number).
In the top right corner of your Gmail window, click the cog icon. The quick setting panel will appear. From there, click “See all settings.”
I appreciate your message. I am out of the office currently with no office email access. However, return on the following [date-of-return].
I hate when senders ignore the instructions in my OOO message. Usually, my message is something simple like: “I am out [Dates], returning to the office [Date]. Please contact Jane (jane’s email address) in my absence. General [department] questions may be sent to [general dept email address].” To me that says if you are sending me anything then I won’t see it until I return. If you have something you need to be resolved right away, you can contact Jane or send it to our department inbox (where it should be going anyway).
This isn’t about an off-key OOO message, but one where a rogue OOO message drove our department insane for a day and a half.
I wouldn’t be offended or consider saying anything to anyone who included this in their out of office message, but even as someone who is in a religion that forbids use of electronics on most holidays, I still think this message is 1) TMI; 2) doesn’t convey what it needs to convey unless you are explaining that you don’t use electronics during holidays, in which case you can just include that you won’t be checking email without including the religious explanation; 3) would come across to me as inclusion of personal information I don’t need, which would therefore strike an unprofessional tone,and I wouldn’t understand why you felt the need to include that info. How about “I’m out of the office without access to internet or email until (date). If you need assistance before this date, please contact…” Like I said, I think your colleagues are overreacting, but in general I would advise to leave all personal information out of your auto-reply — vacation, medical leave, religious observance, etc. — people do not need to know why you are out.
Your clients should know when they can expect a response and when you might be unavailable due to unforeseen circumstances.
“I will be out of the office between date and date. If your email requires urgent attention please contact Insert Name Here.” Imo that’s enough
If you're anything like I am, you probably fall into team two. That doesn't leave a lot of time to get creative. But if you plan ahead, you might be able to craft some hilarity.
My favorite OOO to set is something like this: “I’m at sea from X to Y with very limited bandwidth. I’ll reply to urgent emails as soon as possible (but there may be a delay); if you don’t hear back from me by Z, please resend you message.”
Our auto-replies to outside people are two or three paragraphs long though, which feels ridiculous but is actually necessary.