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Why don’t people update their out-of-office messages when they aren’t going to be available to respond? It’s beyond frustrating.

Elaine Varelas explains the importance of setting up out-of-office messages to help mitigate frustrations of both colleagues and outsiders who may be trying to reach you.

Q.  I want to have reasonable expectations of the people that I work with. In business, it's standard that someone will get back to you within 24 hours, maybe 48. When that doesn't happen, I get really aggravated. I would like to know that professionals that I work with are relatively responsive. Why don’t they put their out-of-office message on if they are going to be away and not able to respond to my messages?

A. I understand your frustration. I recently tried to reach out to someone in a service industry in my town and tried repeatedly to get in touch with her. I finally heard back from her days later with an apology note saying that she was out for a few days for an illness and was sorry that she hadn't been available to help me. In my response to her, I told her that while I certainly hoped that she was feeling better, I was extremely disappointed she hadn't made the effort to update her voicemail and email to reflect that she wasn’t available. This small courtesy could have greatly helped balance out people's expectations of what that response time would be. I realize that she may not have had remote access to her email and voicemail to change the message and that this may be the case for many employees, but I doubt it. 

It seems that with the ease of changing voicemail and email messages, that people could do this on a daily basis if they needed to let people know that they aren’t available to respond for whatever reason, whether it’s vacation, jury duty, an illness, a business trip, a death in the family, etc. There are some industries and roles, where people need to know on daily if someone is available, and if they aren’t, when they will be. And with more people working remotely these days, letting people know what your status can be more important than letting people guess why you're not responding.

As we approach the holidays with potential office closures, your own organization (and it may differ by group) should set parameters about out-of-office messages and also what messages get sent internally and externally. In many cases, you may want to include a point of contact for emergencies in the message. In high level service organizations, employees are asked to update their out-of-office voice and email messages, and to include a standard message in their email signatures a week or two in advance of office closing to give clients advance notice of the closure.

For example: LOOKING AHEAD – Please note that Keystone Partners’ office will be closed from Monday, December 25th until Tuesday, January 2nd. We wish you a safe and happy holiday season.

You work all year to develop good relationships with your colleagues, clients, and customers. Don't lose potential business over a lack of follow-through over the upcoming holidays. It’s a professional courtesy to let your clients and customers know when you will be unavailable during the holidays. Upon your return after the holidays, be consistent with follow-up and ensure that you respond to any phone calls or emails that came in during your time away. By managing communication expectations during your time off, people will welcome your call backs and you won’t have to apologize to everyone who tried to reach you! What better way to start the New Year! Boston.com

By Elaine Varelas