And while it may seem like a simple thing, if your out-of-office message is unclear or incomplete, it can cause problems while you’re out and when you return.
You are regarded as a responsible netizen when you imbibe the habit of leaving out-of-office messages. For employers and HR managers, it is worthwhile to teach this practice to your employees. Out-of-office emails show that you are polite and professional, lending credibility to your corporate culture.

What we need in our work communication is not more professional politeness or less formal, chat-based messaging applications like Slack. We need honesty. The problem is that we’ve conditioned ourselves to see honesty as self-indulgent or disrespectful. I’d argue the opposite is true. Honesty, even if it’s a bit more inconvenient for all parties in the moment, pays dividends later. It builds trust. When my partner Anne Helen Petersen and I were interviewing people for our forthcoming book on remote work, a frequent lament from both middle managers and workers was that they didn’t feel like they knew how to succeed in their jobs; that they were guessing what their superiors and coworkers wanted and, even when they asked, they didn’t quite trust the responses they got back.
Was required to do this at my last job and our script was to say “I’m working from home today. If you need to reach me urgently, call me at (personal/home/cell number).”