Out-of-office emails are getting a refresh — and helping employees set work-life boundaries
The Current14:25Why employees are shaking up their out-of-office replies
An out-of-office email used to only need a few things — the fact that you’re away from work, what day you’ll return and who to contact in the meantime.
Not anymore.
Rather than a copy-and-paste message, employees have given the humble out-of-office reply a revamp.
“Until Thursday, just pretend I don’t exist,” reads one shared by Canadian content creator Laura Whaley. She gathered examples submitted by her millions of followers.
Another says, “For any urgent matters, please take a deep breath because only a few are.”
The aim is to have some fun with the otherwise short, routine automatic replies.
Whaley says the sometimes bold or sarcastic comments are more than a means for employees to add a little personality at work — they’re a way for people to assert balance between their work and personal lives.
She says it’s not uncommon to receive an out-of-office response only to get an actual reply not long after from the person who is supposed to be enjoying a vacation.
“There’s kind of this expectation that’s been set [where] you’re out of office, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re disconnected from work,” Whaley, who shares corporate communication advice on TikTok after spending years in those work environments herself, told The Current’s Matt Galloway.
“So taking the opportunity to really say ‘I’m out of office until Friday with no access to email, you cannot reach me,’ is setting boundaries.”
Tech blurred work-life boundaries: expert
Statistics Canada data from 2023 shows that 21.2 per cent of Canadian employees reported high levels of work-related stress, with balancing work and life named as a top cause of that stress.
Paola Accettola, CEO of the Toronto-based HR consulting firm True North, says she’s glad that employees are challenging the narrative when it comes to out-of-office emails.
“We’re all exchanging our time for work, so you might as well have fun doing it,” Accettola said.
She says more of the out-of-office emails landing in her inbox break the traditional mould — especially by including details about why people are taking a break from work. An early one she remembers receiving noted that the sender’s entire organization would be taking a mental health week, for example.
“I applaud it because I think that it is such a healthy way to signal not just within your organization, but to other organizations, what you really believe in,” Accettola said.
Renee Heath, a communications professor at the University of New Hampshire who has researched work-life balance, agrees that these emails are a shift away from a work culture where everything is deemed urgent.
Technology has transformed our relationships with work in positive ways, like making it easier to work from home and giving people more agency over their lives, according to Heath. But the hyper-connectivity that brought emails straight to your smartphone birthed a “dark side” where employees were expected to be reachable all the time, Heath says.
Heath adds that while the line has been blurred over the years, on-the-clock and off-the-clock time is a boundary employees are more clearly entitled to and have an easier time enforcing — hence why the out-of-office email has been given a shake up.
“It’s shining a light on what can be kind of ludicrous at times — that we’re sitting on beaches and working on our laptops,” Heath said.
Concern about anti-work attitude
But not everyone is a fan.
Chris Fenning, a business communication trainer and author of Effective Emails, says he’s seen the out-of-office trend rise and fall throughout the years.
In the early days of digital connectivity, he remembers being able to buy a very long and absurd preset answering machine message that was essentially a long prank on the caller. He even scheduled a few informal emails in the early 1990s himself.
A new law has come into effect in Australia, giving most employees the ‘right to disconnect’ by ignoring work calls and emails outside of work hours. A similar plan is being worked on in Canada, though some experts warn it won’t make much of a difference.
Fast forward 25 years and Fenning says he no longer finds the messages so funny. Adding some personality with details about where you’re vacationing is OK, but he says some of the trending examples suffer from a serious lack of professionalism.
“When I get a message from someone that says ‘I’m not at work today, thank God, because my job sucks,’ that’s a really bad reflection on the entire company,” Fenning said.
While he agrees that part of the OOO trend might have to do with work-life balance, he’s not sure this is the best way to go about it.
“Actions speak louder,” Fenning said. “The act of not replying is a far better demonstration of your ability to detach from work when you’re not there than making a big show of it.”
Have fun, but don’t be a jerk
If you’re planning to set an out-of-office response over the holidays, the experts agree that cranking the sarcasm and anti-work attitude up to 100 might not be the best plan.
All communication leaves an impression, Heath says, so senders should be cautious of what their automatic reply will be telling people that email during your absence.
“It’s like anything you put out into the public world, somebody else now can interpret it any way they want, and so you have less control over how that message is understood,” Heath said.
Heath says you should strive to leave a message that lets the recipient know that you’re a competent person who deserves a break. “And if it kind of stays in that realm and … doesn’t diminish anybody as you express that message, then I think you’re doing OK,” she said.
TikTok creator Whaley says a good out-of-office message also puts the helpful bits of information — like who to contact instead — front and centre.
Whatever you write, Fenning says, make it short.
“Do not write War and Peace. Make sure that you have kept it to the point as much as possible.”
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