Thank you for your e-mail. I will be on leave on 26th Jan with no access to email. I will revert to you on my return on 27th Jan.
This is very useful in situations where you are changing jobs (as an employee) or a former employee has left your company (as an employer or HR manager). Permanent out-of-office emails help to guide correspondents appropriately.
.
I once had a coworker who would put up OOOs for absolutely everything, and it irked me to an unreasonable level. Spending the afternoon working with a colleague on a project? OOO. Just returned from vacation and trying to catch up? OOO. A lot of meetings that day? OOO.
I saw a version of this on IG that was an old school (paper) OOO from an associate pastor. It has a line like “if this is an emergency and you must speak to someone, Jesus is always available on the mainline.” Too funny.
I had a colleague who simply never answered her phone or set up her voicemail. She still listed the number on her business card and email .sig, she just never answered or checked voicemail. When she took a new job another colleague inherited her phone number and when he went to set up his voicemail there were basically eight years’ worth of messages left for her that he had to delete.
Image Source: https://www.yesware.com/wp-content/uploads/out-of-office-example-8.png
Hello, Thanks for reaching out to me. Unfortunately, I’m out of the office from [DATE] to [DATE] with limited / no access to email. If your query can wait, I’ll be responding to the emails I missed when I return on [DATE]. If not, contact [NAME] at [EMAIL] or [PHONE] and he/she will take care of you.
Writing an effective out-of-office message is a key part of running any business. Although it may seem so simple, an incomplete or unclear out-of-office message will cause problems before you leave as well as when you return.
This is so timely for me as I begin a 2 week vacation in 15 days (no I’m not counting days or anything). I have been agonizing over how much detail to share in my Out of office message as I will be completely unreachable during this time.
Now, make sure you take care of the additional settings for DND and turn off “Scheduled.” Make sure the phone can set on DND mode “Always,” otherwise you can expect some calls while the phone is not locked, which may ruin your vacation.
Hello, Happy holidays! Thank you for your email; we are currently closed for the Easter holidays. It won’t be possible to respond to our email as I have limited access to the internet. But once I am back I will respond as quickly as usual. Kind Regards,
With all that in mind, read on for a few examples of what you might actually write...
Setting your out of office may be different depending on the email provider you use. But whether you’re on Outlook, Gmail, or another platform, it should be a relatively straightforward process.
Education Details: 1. The traditional ones. Hello, Thank you for your email. I will be out of the office until [date of return]. If there is a need for an immediate assistance, then feel free to reach out to my colleague [contact name] on [contact email/phone number] who should be able to help.
Education Details: Select Turn off to disable automatic out-of-office replies. If you want to modify the dates for your automatic reply or the message sent, use the steps above to modify your settings. Note: For Outlook 2007, to turn off out-of-office replies, select Tools > Out of Office Assistant and uncheck the Send Out of Office auto-replies checkbox.
I had a coworker for the first 6 months or so of the pandemic set an out of office status on Teams that he was working from home and could be contacted at x number. Dude. We’re all working from home, and those stupid status messages are distracting!
I say I’m off-duty, or in non-working status, but I come from a DOD background. I no longer like to say out of the office. Unavailable is good too.