A. Administrative offices will be closed; however, designated individuals will be on call to respond in the event that an urgent matter arises.
The holidays are a time for warm wishes and for expressing gratitude for a great year gone by. While holiday messages may not take a lot of time to write, they are a great way to show you care and bring people closer, whether the recipient is your employee, colleague, or boss.
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These work voicemail greetings are for the work phone that you and only you use. They’re highly effective because they help you establish a relationship straight from the voicemail. Or they help you share an important update in a simple, straightforward way.
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 used to work with someone who had a message telling people she only checked her email twice a day. You pretty much needed to call her if you needed anything outside of those times. (She worked in a remote office.) I think she had read one of those books on efficiency that recommended scheduled email time. But there were problems with this: 4. My department often had to email attachments or text to illustrate our questions/concerns. And we were on deadlines. Reading a page of text over the phone was not an efficient use of anyone’s time 5. She did outreach & was often out of the office on site visits, trainings, or travel to these places, but never ever set her OOO for these, because she was “working.” However, she was effectively not available to read emails from other staff until after hours on those days.
I had a boss who was mad if I put his full name on my OOO. I was his deputy. He said people should know how to contact him if I just use his first name. He thought the public would get his info (public-facing office but we didn’t correspond with the public at our level, of course). It made me feel very very silly to comply.
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.”
Many companies offer an escape option so that if a caller ends up in a staff member’s voice mailbox, he or she can “escape” out of the mailbox and go back to the attendant menu. Use a customized auto-attendant for this situation. If you would like to leave a voicemail, please press 1 and leave your name, number, and a brief message. If you would like to return to the main menu, please press the # key.
“Ideally, an OOO should include the basics,” says work and wellbeing psychologist Kate Sullivan. “The dates you'll be gone, an approximate timeline for when someone can expect to hear back from you upon your return, and how any urgent requests will be handled in your absence.”
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Think about your tone and mood - you don't know who'll be getting these out of office auto reply emails so be mindful of the impression you make. Think of the boss, the CEO, a colleague you like, family members, clients you like. That said, there are some bridge-burner examples below to tempt you!
However, I will be taking periodic breaks from binge-watching everything I’ve missed to check my email [once per day/every evening/occasionally] while I’m away.
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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.”
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You can’t do that when students are emailing (well, you can, but you shouldn’t). Our office requirement is “within 48 hours during regular business hours.”
Team building content expert. Jessica has a double major in English and Asian Studies, and experience working with teams across cultures; including 3+ years in Taiwan.