Updated March 3, 2025
Reading Time: 2 minutes
Out of the Office For The Festive Period
The holiday season has begun. You’ve gotten through Thanksgiving, and it’s now that busy try-to-get-everything-done period before Christmas and New Year. You might be flat out with a Christmas rush or busy planning for next year. To make this busy period even worse (or better, depending on your perspective) you’re going to be taking time off in the middle of it. So, how do you get your holiday checklist ready to prepare for time off over the festive period?
Nobody wants to be checking their work emails on boxing day. So what do you need to set up before settling down for your Turkey to make sure you can stay out of the office until it’s time to get back to the office.
Holiday Checklist
OOO – Setting up a good out of office is integral. You want your customers and staff to know when you won’t be available. While we live in an era of 24/7 availability it is still alright to switch off.
- Make it clear when you will be out of the office internally. Make sure that everyone else in your team knows when you’ll be away. You don’t want anything left for you that would otherwise be dealt with.
- Set up an out of office response to your email (but make sure it only sends once). There’s always someone you’ll forget, doing this will make sure that they get the message.
- Notify and large, or important, clients personally. They will appreciate the personal touch and you can be sure they’ve got the message.
- Stick to it – Nothing is more confusing than responding to emails when you’re supposed to be out of office. If you respond to one email but don’t respond again all day, is that because you are working on it, or have gone back to the eggnog? Still to your plan.
Opening Hours – If you have a brick and mortar presence then make it clear online what your opening hours are going to be for the holidays. Adjust your Google my Business hours so they show when you will actually be open. Remember to do that if you have a Facebook page too, and consider sending out a tweet/ posting on LinkedIn or even an email to your mailing list if you feel it’s necessary.
Christmas Offers/ January Sales – Pretty obvious advice here, but if you’re planning any sales after the holidays or new year discounts, then get them ready to go before you leave the office. You can automatically queue AdWords campaigns to start on a certain date, so if you want to run PPC ads to cash in on people’s Christmas money you don’t have to log in to turn it on.
The same goes for offers you might want to take down. Make plans to remove any Christmas offers in time to put your New Year’s ones up.
Have You put Up All Your Decorations Yet?
If you’ve done all of this, then you can put your feet up and relax. You’re not going to need to check your emails until all the presents have been unwrapped.
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