Leaving company - out of office message?

mrsmozzarella

My last day at my company is Wednesday and someone (random coworker) had asked if I'd be putting up an out of office type message letting people know. I've mentioned it to many outside contacts and a slew of internal folks, is this really necessary? I've received one before, but I wouldn't consider them the norm.

amamba

It depends on your type of job. I have always done this on my email and voice mail because I work with a lot of external constituents. I don't want their emails with questions to go unanswered and them not know that I left the organization.

BAMFMrsB

mrsmozzarella:

My last day at my company is Wednesday and someone (random coworker) had asked if I'd be putting up an out of office type message letting people know. I've mentioned it to many outside contacts and a slew of internal folks, is this really necessary? I've received one before, but I wouldn't consider them the norm.

I find it helpful when people leave the Co, yes. Our phones are OURS so the # assigned goes to the person's name. They will always have a full mailbox. We usually rotate them in and out with new people, but I find it helpful to have that info on the VM.

puppyluvr

They are normal where I work. I don't see any reason not to put one up. It's not like you will be using that email address ever again.

mrsmozzarella

Thanks, ladies. Nesties are so smart. My husband recently said, "maybe tomorrow, you could ask The Nest??" That's right!

revolution_breeze

The last company I worked at and this company that is not necessary.  All accounts were deactivated about 30 seconds after the employee as finished.

Starshiney

Please do!  I spent a week waiting for a vendor contact to get back to me, only to find out (right before my deadline) that he had left the company.  An out of office message would have saved me so much time!

SunRocks

revolution_breeze:

The last company I worked at and this company that is not necessary.  All accounts were deactivated about 30 seconds after the employee as finished.

My company deactivates, and then sets things up so incoming email for terminated employees gets forwarded.  If you are assigned to receive a termed employee's emails, IT sets you up with a secondary email inbox so the messages don't get lost amongst yours.

I assumed this was the norm, but apparently not.

YellowUmbrella

I would check with HR for their policy. At my company, departing employees' email and phone are forwarded to their manager.

womet

revolution_breeze:

The last company I worked at and this company that is not necessary.  All accounts were deactivated about 30 seconds after the employee as finished.

If this were the case, wouldn't someone get a bounceback saying that the email couldn't reach the person? If so, then the person would probably attempt to contact someone else in the company.

OP- I would put the out of office message up. If it works, it can only help your clients reach someone else.

laurainMI

SunRocks:

revolution_breeze:

The last company I worked at and this company that is not necessary.  All accounts were deactivated about 30 seconds after the employee as finished.

My company deactivates, and then sets things up so incoming email for terminated employees gets forwarded.  If you are assigned to receive a termed employee's emails, IT sets you up with a secondary email inbox so the messages don't get lost amongst yours.

I assumed this was the norm, but apparently not.

This is how it was at my last 2 jobs.

Madringal

They are not the norm here, but usually VM and email accounts are deleted within hours of a manager updating the systems that an employee has left the company.  But for most employees here I would say 99% of email comes from internal employees and not clients.

Flamingo Stalker

It's been common at the jobs I had before teaching.  One company automatically forwarded emails of past employees to others so we'd often see emails directed to other people.  I didn't like that because a lot of the time, people put rather personal info in to those emails that I didn't think other people should be reading.  I made sure to send an email to all friends who had emailed me at work to stop doing so!  I didn't want their emails going to anyone in the company.