Free www.roberthalf.com https://www.roberthalf.com/blog/salaries-and-skills/vacation-time-how-to-craft-an-effective-out-of-office-message · What to include in your out-of-office message A good out-of-office email reply incorporates the following elements: The exact dates of your time off — If you are simply re-activating the message you used during your last time away, make sure you change the dates, and double-check to ensure they’re right.
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As 2020 winds down, lots of people (us included) will be out of the office celebrating the holidays with family and friends. Here are some really funny, clever and snarky out-of-office messages sent this year, courtesy of HubSpot Blogs (full article here).
I’ll get back to you when I return to civilization. Or to an area with WiFi. Or to the office on May 10th. Whichever comes first.
I dislike it, too. But I add it, because we have managers who do check their email on days off & respond. That’s above my pay grade as far as I’m concerned, but I don’t want people to think that I might be checking.
Written by Braden Becker @BradenBecker
Yes, qualifiers can be helpful. Limited vs no email access, out of the office versus working off site, regular out of the office versus extended leave, etc.
It is important to understand that your auto-response message can go to anybody, even your top management people. Try to avoid any embarrassment by taking the time to proofread the message.
Q. Will Supply Chain, Purchasing, Receiving, Mail Services and other such departments be open during winter break?
If the person keeps you on the message thread in which they then contact someone else (ideally, the person you stated in your out of office message as the one who’s handling urgent issues in your absence), you are literally kept in the loop and can see for yourself that all was handled when you get back. Of course, this works even better if you check the most recent items in your inbox first when you get back.
If you require immediate assistance in my absence, please contact John on 0912345678 or [email protected]. He will be available to deal with your inquiry.
Like, I don’t feel confident enough to do it myself, but the OOO writer is probably a known Quirky Person and I admire that to an extent.
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.
Every November without fail, when I take a week off for deer season, I start my OOO with “GONE HUNTIN’!”
I worked for a federal contractor back during the Great Recession when government offices were shut down/working with a skeleton crew. I still remember getting OOOs from almost every email address in the agency we worked at explaining they were on furlough & to contact one specific person if the issue was urgent. We all assumed this poor person was hiding under her desk, rocking back & forth, with her head in her hands.
Which is why the workers who do have the ability, whether through place within the hierarchy or company culture, should not squander it. In fact, they should recognize the OOO as an opportunity to model and normalize organizational or even industry-wide guardrails (as opposed to bullshit feebly-maintained ‘boundaries’). It’s why, starting this summer, we need to embrace the blunt, descriptive OOO message.
I pretty consistently just do “Greetings, I will be out of office from (date) to (date) with (limited/no) access to email. If you need assistance, please contact (boss) at (email address) – otherwise, I will follow up with you upon my return. Thanks!”