I’ll be back on [DAY OF WEEK], [DATE]. No explanations, no apologies, no promises to respond, no redirects to other colleagues. It works.
When you left for the day?! I could maybe see that if you were dealing with different time zones (although I worked for a company with offices on both US coasts, in the UK, and in Asia and no one did this), but it still feels really excessive. I would guess the work/life balance situation would be bad at a place that required this.
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The hours in your signature is a great idea! I’m about to have a non-standard work schedule to accommodate medical appointments. Totally stealing this idea!
I will be checking email throughout the day and will try to respond to messages promptly (please flag urgent.
Website: https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/professional-voicemail-greeting
If the person keeps you on the message thread in which they then contact someone else (ideally, the person you stated in your out of office message as the one who’s handling urgent issues in your absence), you are literally kept in the loop and can see for yourself that all was handled when you get back. Of course, this works even better if you check the most recent items in your inbox first when you get back.
I work in a role where someone else has to cover when I’m out, so most things do get taken care of. I have never been in a position where I could delete all emails without ruffling some serious feathers, so while I appreciate the motivation, it’s a completely foreign option to me.
Our Public Service Announcement: Each year, Americans leave 700 million DAYS of paid time off on the table. Stop and think about how many great out of office reply opportunities are missed because of this!
When I worked in a federally-regulated industry that required drug testing, we always tended to say “our drug program” when we should have been saying, “drug abatement program.”
My biggest pet peeve is the opposite – people who NEVER turn on their OOO! I’m not saying for a day but when they’re out for an extended period of time and I’m reaching out to get a deliverable.
In this image, you're letting people know you're OOO with a "Missing" notice on a milk carton. Genius. Just be careful — this sort of autoresponder is best for internal emails, not for autoresponders that get sent to prospects and clients.
Proof that some people just Don’t Get It: in response to my out of office voicemail message directing callers to contact my co-worker for anything urgent, a woman left the following message on MY voicemail: “Co-worker, I am having this issue, blah, blah, blah. Please call me at X.” Yeah, I–not co-worker–got the message a week later when I returned.
I wrote the above comment off the top of my head. I wish I had time to rewrite and edit it. I would have changed “their goldfish” to “a spider they accidentally stepped on”, and would have added more detail to the story of the sister’s death (e.g. “her Pomeranian yapping” rather than the less descriptive “her dog barking”). Unfortunately, I could not do the thorough writing job required for that comment because someone close to me recently … – The person whose out of office advertised his gig on the weekend, for anyone in travelling to [city] – The people in a certain department who have taken to saying things like “if you really need to contact me, call 000-YYY-XXXX where Y is the square root of [insert numbers] and X is the year plutonium was discovered.” – The ones where people have an auto response saying they only check their emails once a day between 1-2pm – “I’m on research leave and I may be slow to reply.” (Whereby it is guaranteed they will reply immediately, because academics do not *really* take breaks).
Sorry, you missed me. I’ll be away from the office until [date]. As my inbox didn’t join me on this trip, I will only be responding to emails only when I return. That will be on [date].
I go with “offline” or “away” (away…to my couch). I like closing the door, though!
Write a short, direct subject line.State your purpose for writing.Include the dates you're requesting.Consider mentioning why you're taking time off.Discuss how you're preparing for time off.Remain available for questions.
First things first: let’s go over the basics of an OOO email. In your away message, you typically include the following: A quick “I’m out of the office” phrase. The date or time range you’ll be out. Who to reach out to in case the sender needs immediate attention. A sign-off.