Tips for leaving a good out-of-office message

Posted by Ian McKenzie

Written on June 26, 2009

: Image by silas216 via Flickr

We’re heading into vacation season in this part of the world. It’s time to get away from the office, kick back and relax. However, if you spend your well-deserved break worrying about your work load on return to the office, it’s going to affect your ability to relax.

A little bit of preparation before you leave will ensure less to worry about on return. A good out-of-office message is a must. A well-prepared message can go a long way to decrease the backlog of messages waiting for you when you get back to work.

A good out of office message has three parts:

Dates of your absence. Let the contact know when you are out of the office. It helps them decide what their next step is going to be; whether to wait for your return or to direct their request elsewhere.
Reason for absence. I like to let my contacts know whether I am on a business trip or vacation. A business trip means I am connected to the office in some way and might be able to respond to a message. If I’m on vacation, I’m out of contact range.
Who to contact in your absence. I try and leave contact information for alternate contacts when I am out of the office; a minimum of one up to as many as are needed.

Just because you leave an out-of-office message, it doesn’t mean that you have communicated to the sender. There are three things you should keep in mind when composing the message. It should be:

Complete: give all the detail necessary. Don’t say, “I’m out of the office” or “I’m gone for two weeks.” Make it precise. “I am away from the office starting July 1 and will be back July 15. The same applies to your alternate contacts. Let the sender know who to contact and how to get a hold of them.
Concise: keep it as short as possible while still making it complete. Use short, bulleted phrases. People don’t want to read a novel in your out-of-office reply.
Clear: make sure it’s easy to understand. Don’t use abbreviations, job titles or internal jargon that will not be understood by everyone sending you a message.

Rather that coming back to a packed e-mail in-box and a full voice-mail box, spend a few minutes crafting a useful out-of-office message and people will be able to redirect or park tasks appropriately.

A second look at VoiceMail (tuaw.com)
Google Voice takes a step toward launch (news.cnet.com)
Time For Voice-Mail To Throw In the Towel (tech.slashdot.org)

How to Leave a Good Out-of-Office Message

Some out-of-office messages for your e-mail

Sample Voice Mail Templates

Communication

Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to my feed and get articles like this delivered automatically to your feed reader.

Comments

Thanks Ian for the tips. Incidentally I’ll be out of office for 2 weeks from next Wed onwards for a meditation retreat, so I’m going to apply all these tips here.

Comment by Celes | CelestineChua.com on June 26, 2009 @ 1:15 pm

This is some great information . I found this site http://www.eventsbyecs.com/ they put together my business event and it was a great turn out.. I thought I would share this info.

Comment by special event planning on July 8, 2009 @ 10:09 pm

Great tips on leaving an out of office message. I would add to ensure the contacts you list while you are away are not away also. One of my pet peaves is the circular out of office messages. You know the ones: Ann’s out of office message says “You can contact Mary in my absence.” When you email Mary it bounces back with “You can contact Ann in my absence.”

Comment by Lavender Lady on January 12, 2010 @ 5:17 pm

I’ve fallen into the trap of the “circular” out-of-office message. That is mostly likely to happen when people create a default message and don’t review it for each absence.