6. Out of Office Template #6 For the Person Who Likes to Live on the Edge (of HR Protocol) Hello, I’m currently offline for the holidays—which means I’m busy either
I still will get urgent messages from coworkers with multiple follow-ups during my OOO period. Then an angry call or email when I return that the response time was too long. When I check with Jane about the status she says she was never contacted about the issue. I always push back “Why didn’t you contact Jane?” but I think a lot of people in my organization like to shift blame when they are behind on their deadlines. If it was really so urgent, why did you wait a week just to get an answer from me?
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Admittedly the several people I know who do this are also very lazy so I may be reading into tone? Because it definitely was going to be whenever it was going to be convenient for them, not so much for the business.
If you know that you’re going to be out of office for a long time, it’s worth thinking about redirecting your clients to your colleague. Mention their name, explain what position they occupy and how they can help your client. Include a way to contact them in the form of an email address or a phone number. Just try to warn a colleague that you want to redirect your clients to them before going on a vacation.
As long as you’ve covered the basics—dates of your absence and who to contact in your absence—you should be good to go.
That’s the simple structure of a voicemail greeting. Overall, your greeting should be professional, but the wording can vary depending on the situation. Check out a sample below.
The auto-delete policy - which is optional - follows a piece of government-funded research on work-life balance, which Daimler carried out in 2010 and 2011 with psychologists from the University of Heidelberg. The company now trains managers to set a good work-life example, and encourages them to set aside time when no meetings can be scheduled. This is supposed to be a time when workers can concentrate on their job, or take time off for any extra hours they have spent in the office.
She continues: “However, there should be a way for whoever is emailing you to have an urgent request handled, and that should be included as part of your OOO as well as being known to your work team (supervisor and colleagues). That might look like including a coworker's email on your OOO or it might simply involve setting a forwarding rule for while you're away, so that your email goes to the colleague who's covering.”
I got the original voice mail on my landline when it became available for home use. It replaced the old voicemail recorder you could buy.
Mike Vardy is a writer, speaker, productivity strategist, and founder of Productivityist. He is the author of The Front Nine: How to Start the Year You Want Anytime You Want, The Productivityist Playbook, and TimeCrafting: A Better Way to Get the Right Things Done, coming soon from Mango Publishing.
Here's a million-dollar question: how do you get people to do what you want them to? That's where Calls-to-Action (CTAs) come in.
2. Out of office sick leave template. You don’t need to tell the sender too much, but it is important to say you won’t be available. If it is a long-term illness, you might not have a date set for your return.
Give complete details of the person they can contact if there is an urgency. If you are in charge of multiple departments, you can add more people along with their expertise area so that customers know who they should reach.
I will be on leave returning Monday, August 10th. Please anticipate a delay in response. For urgent requests or escalations, please contact:
*When a holiday falls on a Saturday, it is observed on the preceding day. (When the preceding day is also a holiday, both holidays are observed on preceding days.) When a holiday falls on a Sunday, it is observed on the following work day.
Thank you for you message. Our offices are closed until [insert date] and I am out of the office. Our entire staff is reflecting on a wonderful year, resetting, and recharging for 2018. We will respond promptly after the holidays, but in the meantime we will be busy doing the following:
Oh my gosh, this is funny! It does sound kinda like, “some things are more important than work, JAN.”