I try to substitute “parental leave” for “maternity leave” whenever possible. Trying to normalize it as a benefit to all employees (at my company) rather than a special lady-vacation.
It all boils down to honestly assessing your situation, deciding what degree of contact is appropriate, and then stating your intention clearly and succinctly.
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If you think someone else at First Round Capital might be able to help you, feel free to email my assistant, Fiona ([email protected]) and she’ll try to point you in the right direction.
One day, the boss said I needed to start answering phones, and did not accept my pushback.
I worked in a call center for Big-Evil-Bank for five years, and every new manager would have a different OOO policy/pet peeve that they would require phone-miners to follow. In particular, the memory of the six month period where we were forced to put an OOO up if we left our desk for so much as ONE HOUR smacked me in the face when I saw question. That was by far the worst/strangest/most tedious OOO policy I have ever been forced to follow.
24. "Thank you for calling [company]. We're closed for [holiday] from [date] until [date]. Please leave your message and we'll get back to you as soon as possible. Have a happy holiday season!"
Obviously, I need to update it. And if you haven't changed your voicemail greeting in over a year, you're likely in the same boat.
But traveling for work, then I say “intermittent access” so that I only need to respond to the urgent emails and can ignore everything else for a few days.
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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.
Hi there. I’m out of the office until Monday, 14 August, with limited access to email.
I’ll be enjoying this year’s holiday season from [DATE] until [DATE]. For general inquiries about [DEPARTMENT/ROLE], please email [CONTACT NAME]. If this isn’t time sensitive, feel free to resend this email in [MONTH] once I’m regularly checking emails again. All the best.
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I, in turn, will cheer you up with some sunny photos of this great place where I’m staying.
Set your automatic out of office reply under the Outside My Organization tab. This is for people outside your company such as clients and suppliers. You can copy what you typed in for Inside My Organization or you can put something else for people outside your organization. You can even untick the “Auto-reply…” box if you don’t want to send them an automatic reply while you’re away.
A separate after-hours attendant menu can inform callers that your office is closed, state your business’ operating hours, and provide options that callers can immediately act upon. For example, you can direct them to your website for FAQs. If your business provides an account login page, remind your customers that they can login at any time to get general account information. In this situation, be proactive.
I am currently on annual leave and I return to the office on Monday 21st September. I will reply to your email as soon as possible.