Before you put your coworker’s email address on your out-of-office message, get their approval and discuss a plan for handling requests and passing responsibilities back when you return.
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Leaving an email without a responder can appear unprofessional, lose potential business and, worst of all, make you look like Scrooge!
I guess I generally dislike ones where the person is actually around but just might take longer than usual to answer emails (except in public-facing inboxes, etc.) I understand that if I’m using email, you might not respond right away.
1) Communicate when a person will be back, or if they are out for an indeterminate period of time, tell me who I should be contacting instead 2) Communicate what I should expect. (For example, when I do my monthly reports, I have an out of office message that says that I’ll be slow to respond. I *will* actually check my email at least a couple of times, but I generally won’t respond to anything non-urgent.) 3) If the person is in a job that handles urgent requests, list who I need to contact instead if it can’t wait until they get back.
Here’s my OOO nightmare: when I was a graduate intern a few years ago, there was a volunteer with severe, marginally treated mental health concerns. Her behavior toward me was inappropriate to the point that my school assisted me with a safety plan. I obviously blocked her on everything I could think of. Unfortunately while I was on winter break she emailed my agency address from an account no one knew about, got my OOO message, assumed it meant I was open to communicating again, and proceeded to have a monthlong meltdown in my inbox when I didn’t respond. To this day I am grateful for my city’s utter lack of public transit, which prevented her from trying to find my home and family.
I know I’m supposed to say that I’ll have limited access to email and won’t be able to respond until I return — but that’s not true. My blackberry will be with me and I can respond if I need to. And I recognize that I’ll probably need to interrupt my vacation from time to time to deal with something urgent.
Yes! I hate the “at my earliest convenience” for the same reason – it comes across as “I’ll do it when I feel like it”. I would only use that phrase at work in terms of someone else (ie “at YOUR earliest convenience”).
The best holiday messages are short, cheerful and specific. Try to include the person’s name, as well as a memory from the holiday season or year.
Don’t beat around the bush! This is an expression that means you should get to the point. That is, you should make your message direct and brief. This will let the recipient quickly know that you’re not available and who they can contact instead. You can start with a simple greeting and then proceed to the message like in the following examples:
5.) Estimados/as clientes/as, nuestras oficinas permanecerán cerradas del 24 de diciembre al 2 de enero. Podrá contactar con nosotros en horario habitual a partir del lunes 5 de enero. Le deseamos a usted y a su familia unas felices fiestas y un próspero año nuevo lleno de éxitos.
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.
It’s Christmas, what are you doing emailing me? I’m extremely busy watching Home Alone, Die Hard, and the 1994 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Christmas Special on repeat until the new year. I might stop for food and toilet breaks, I also might now. Regardless of my general health and hygiene over the silly season, I’ll be back in office on January 2nd. Catch ya then, don’t forget to buy a pepperoni pizza for Splinter. (Source: Futureofworking.com)
How about warning people of what’s to come? Take a look at an example you can use below.
Now make your email unique when you are out for traveling for work and be a standard part of the job. If you are traveling to a conference you can set up your email.
I also think you should give this email tactic a try – especially when you return from an extended break or vacation.
I didn’t watch the video, but reading the transcript I got the vibe that the author is one of those people that thinks they are a lot more clever than everyone else does.