This is the Business English Podcast, Episode 138, How to Write Your Out-of-Office Auto-Response for Your Work Email.
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Good shaking, Michelle. How's it going? Good, Lindsay.
How are you? Feeling great. I'm feeling good, but I am excited because, well, I'm going to be leaving the office in a couple of hours here.
Usually on Fridays, I cut out early just because especially in the summer, we're often going up to the mountains or traveling somewhere.
But I have to remember to put up my out-of-office reply.
Um, so I need a few tips on this, you know, today.
Well, that's what we're talking about. So I mean, Lindsay, I mean, you recently went on vacation.
So did you make an out of office email then? i did i'm sure i did yeah yes i especially when i'm on vacations sometimes on the weekends i'll just forget and i just don't think about it um but on vacations i definitely want to make sure i do because people need to know they can't expect a quick reply right Right, right, right, right.
So that's what we're talking about today.
So I'm excited about this topic. We have an article from HuffPost.com, which is the number one big mistake you're probably making with your out-of-office reply.
Ah, interesting. Yeah, they say it's common to word your out-of-office message this way, but it could be causing you unnecessary issues when you get back by Monica Torres from June 6, 2023.
So it's very time pertinent. It's very recent, very modern.
I'm interested what Monica says. And if we have any thoughts on it, right, we're going to share what we saw in the article, but also add our own perspective here, guys.
Right. Oh, yeah. We have a lot of a lot of things to say here.
I'm excited to hear your thoughts and share mine.
So but guys also head on over to the All Ears English podcast.
We have episode 1922 was avoid this mistake.
How to not end business email. So you got to go over there to figure out and learn what it was.
Exactly. Exactly. I love those titles that are just so intriguing.
We're just not quite sure what that mistake is.
Right. And there's a mistake here too. So let's get into it.
I mean, what is the mistake in the out of office email?
Oh, oh, oh. so this is the quote from the article i'll just read it it says the big mistake many of us make is saying too much and over committing to a response by a certain date so that is so lindsay i mean do you like when you in your out of the office email for vacation or for the weekend do you say the exact date that you'll be back or do you give it any space I do say, but the thing is, I think of it a little differently.
So here's what I say for my weekend. I'll just read it to you.
I just pulled it up and pasted it into our notes.
My weekend response is to say, thank you for your email.
I'm out of the office until Monday. So that way I don't have to change it to any date, right?
I can use it every week. I will return your email when I'm back in the office.
Thank you, Lindsay McMahon, and then the company name.
But you know what? When I wrote that, I didn't think I'll get back to you on Monday.
I thought I'll read your email on Monday.
And I might get back to you on Wednesday.
Like you will be heard on Monday. You know what I mean?
So I don't, I don't know if it's that big of a deal.
Like I think people know, I think there is a common understanding in the corporate world that people are swamped on Mondays and especially if they've just been on vacation.
So I think we give people a little bit of a grace period.
Like if I send some, we coordinate with a lot of podcasts, agencies and things like that.
And if I hear back from someone that they're on vacation and, until next Monday.
I don't necessarily expect to hear back from them next Monday.
I expect to hear back from them next Tuesday or Wednesday, definitely before like the end of the week, because I want to give them a grace period because I know how crazy it is coming back from a vacation.
Yeah. Well, that's nice of you. I don't know if everybody, I don't know.
I don't know. I mean, it would be good if they did, but I guess there's a reason that they, they wrote this article.
It depends on the, you know, how important the issue is.
Are we talking about like a new potential business partnership or is it more of a customer service issue where like, maybe if your course isn't working or something, obviously that's important, right?
Yeah. well that's the thing is yeah you have to kind of like triage um yeah the emails that you get when you return and that must be like because lindsay you get hundreds of emails so that must be yeah yeah when you get back like sorting through all of that how do you even do that that's kind of complicated So I've been giving a lot of thought to this lately because we've been doing kind of a band-aid solution where I've just been having Jessica check my emails when I'm on vacation.
She goes into my inbox and acts like me and responds.
And yeah, she just takes my role for a few weeks because I don't know how to solve that problem.
I don't know what big companies do when... someone at a high level and a company is gone for two weeks and there could be pertinent business issues in their inbox do they just sit there i actually legitimately don't know what people do so that's what we've been doing but i don't think that's a long-term solution that is a band-aid Yeah.
I'd like to eventually be able to take a month off, right?
That's my dream. Take a month off. But that's not going to work out for a month.
So I don't actually know what to do. Weekends are easy.
Put up your away message. No one minds. But when you get into a week or two, it gets complex.
So yeah. Interesting. Abercrombie's Viral Denim Sale is back.
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Exclusions apply. See details online. Yeah, very interesting.
Okay, Michelle, what else do we need to know here?
Okay, so then they have information from somebody named Bonnie Dilber.
She's from a company called Zapier. Yeah, we know Zapier.
Zapier? Yeah, we know them. Oh, okay. So an app automation company.
Yeah. So what she says is to, you know, basically... fudge the date a little bit she said add some time on to the back end so she says so for example if your first day in the office is 5-1 say you'll get back to them the week of right 5-4 or however you want to work it out that was kind of example that they that that she gave but um okay Yeah.
Yeah. So so something like that is what she said.
And they said that, you know, this will make you feel as the person who was away.
You don't feel like you have to respond to everything right away.
And also make people not think, oh, well, Lindsay's getting back this day.
So I should hear from this day. And the thing is, they say, if you do respond earlier, people will just think, oh, wow, like she just died.
She got back to me early. That's so great.
So it gives you a little bit of flexibility, how important each email is and which ones you think can be saved.
So I don't know. What do you think about this?
Yeah, I mean, I think managing expectations or setting expectations is a big buzz term in the corporate world.
And I think it's really important, whether you're talking to your colleagues or someone who's trying to reach out to you about a business partnership, managing expectations.
I think it's always better to over-deliver than under-deliver.
Like in this case, reply earlier than they thought they'd hear back from you rather than be three days after they thought they were.
And now they're mad and then maybe they don't want to do business with you, something like that.
Yeah, I think it's good. I think it's good.
Yeah. So I think if you say the week of, right, that leaves it a little bit open ended.
So they don't know exactly which day. Maybe you're coming back Wednesday, maybe Thursday, maybe Monday.
Right. So but it also kind of, Lindsay, I think you have a point as well.
And I think for the weekend emails, this doesn't really work like that.
Yeah. Next week. Right. Right. Right. Oh, sometime.
I don't know. But I mean, I like I'm looking at yours now and I like what you say.
I am out of the office until Monday. I will return your email when I'm back in the office.
So just saying I'm out until. But you're not saying something like I will respond.
Yeah. Monday morning. You know, I think you don't want to overpromise.
Yeah. I think the other piece of OOO, again, this is a very common acronym in the corporate world.
What does it stand for? Let's make sure we get that, define that term.
Ooh, no, it stands for out of office. I know.
So it's weird, right? Because I only heard this come up a few years ago and people would be texting like, I'm ooh next week.
What are you talking about? Right. So it is corporate speak.
I'm I'm oh, oh, oh, you see this written in places you hear about this.
Great. So we know that I think it's important in your response to manage, like kind of try to filter the direction where emails can go.
Like Jessica's out for the next two weeks.
And in her out of office response, she says, I'm out until midnight. this date on a short vacation.
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So filtering things in different directions is really important if you're out more than a week, I would say. right and the article it did also talk about like boundaries and being away like and that idea of using a co-worker's name um and like instead of like they talked about you know responding to emails when you're away i think it said something about like um If you're at a conference, for example, I think they mentioned something about like, oh, I will be checking my email at this time or at these two times of the day.
And just kind of like you said, managing expectations so people don't think that you're just sitting there all day and they can reach out to you if it's something like a conference.
But I think, yeah, it depends whether you're on a personal vacation or a business trip and how much you want people to be able to contact you.
But I was thinking about, yeah, when it depends how big your company is, but.
They talked about, you know, assigning that role to someone as being contact to this person.
You know, how do you open up that conversation?
I thought we could do an episode about like asking someone to be your contact while you're away.
Yeah. I mean, it's all about communication.
We could do another episode on that for sure.
And, you know, we can consult with people in the corporate world and see how they do that and bring that to you guys for sure.
In a small company, it's kind of obvious, right?
Right. It's good to have the conversation anyway. anyway.
Just know like, hey, you're my contact. Emails are coming to you for this.
They're coming to you for this for sure.
I think at a conference, it's a little different.
That's why conferences are so intense, right?
So that's why I always try to stay at the hotel of the conference because there's just no time to be flying around town.
You're trying to get to the sessions. You're trying to network.
You're trying to go to the dinners and you're doing all your work.
You're doing like a regular workload. It's insane.
Right. But I don't think we have a pass to just send everything to other people during conferences.
Also, the other piece that our listeners need to keep in mind is your company might have a clear policy on this.
So go to your company policy, ask your coworker, is there a template?
Is there a policy? Is there something that your company wants you to do here?
Yeah. Go to that first. Yeah. Yes. Because if you write your own and then there was something.
Yeah. So definitely see if there's a policy on that.
So, Lindsay, any other thoughts on this?
What what do you do to set boundaries when you're away?
I think the away message is great. This OOO message is the best way to do it.
And then I think boundaries come down to your own mentality, right?
So if I come back that Monday and I'm like, oh my God, I got to get all these back right away.
I can't have them wait. Then I've already kind of traipsed on my own boundaries.
Right. Like I've messed up my own state of mind coming back.
So we need to reclaim our mind states a little bit when we come back that Monday morning.
We need to know it's going to be insane and we need to prioritize like what what who has to hear from me today and who can wait till Wednesday.
Yeah. Do you find that before you leave for a trip that it's hard for you to like let go and you think like you're thinking about so much?
Like I feel like sometimes I'm like really into trying to work ahead.
And then I think like, How do I like let it go without being worried?
And then somehow it just does like somehow like when I when I actually get leaving and go to the airport, you know, it just kind of floats away.
But do you do you ever have that moment where you're like, oh, totally.
Well, that's why it's the same thing as delivering a successful presentation.
The way that you can actually relax and give a good presentation is by preparation.
So it's the same thing. So I usually start two weeks before I'm going to leave.
If I'm going to leave for a two-week trip, I start thinking about it two weeks ahead of time.
I make a huge document and I have all these scenarios.
If the app breaks, this is who you contact.
If the podcast breaks, this is who you... If this happens, this is what you do.
There are scenarios. So everyone knows what to do, who to contact, lots of numbers, lots of phone numbers.
Wow. And you do actually, I was just on a call yesterday about this, that it's a coaching program we're in where someone was about to leave the office for a month and she and her coworker, her like number one person working for her was on the call too.
And they were talking about their process.
Like what's the emergency plan? What do we do if this happens?
So you have, so then if you go through all those steps, you can leave in peace.
Yeah. go to the airport and everything's taken care of.
If you don't, you're going to be stressed out.
I don't know what it is. It's not even that I'm so like, there's so many, you know, but for some reason, I just always have that moment right before I leave.
Like, I guess maybe it's because of the movie Home Alone.
Like, did I forget anything? Like, pass this to Kevin, you know, like, so I always like have this like one, like, just like moment in my head where I'm like, and then I and then I let it go.
But as long as you just don't forget your kids when you go on vacation, that's all that matters.
You have to do. Exactly. So anyway, guys, this was fun.
Any takeaways for today, Lindsay? I love that we brought in the Home Alone conversation.
Great movie, by the way. Classic Christmas film.
Yeah. O-O-O, you know, the acronym, gotta know it, guys.
Very common in English. And think about, go to your company and see if there's a policy or a template around writing your out-of-office message.
If not, listen to this episode again. Think about being strategic with your out-of-office reply.
I love it. Yes. And if you are, when I said fudge it, like don't, make it a lie that you can't get out of like don't you know just say I will be back the week you know you don't want to just like make up something so oh yeah an important point as well yeah yeah if we don't you know we need trust to do business so business relationships won't continue if people don't trust you so that's the source of yeah success right there good stuff Michelle all right well let's get off the mic and I'll talk to you soon all right bye Lindsay take care bye Thank you for listening to Business English, a podcast just for you, the high achieving global professional.
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