Out Of Office? How many of us are still sneaking a look at emails?

Perhaps the only people worse than the ‘work every hour’ Steven Bartlett types are the ones who claim they can achieve the opposite.

We are talking about those among us who can put an Out Of Office message up and keep to it. (Not in itself a crime, but advertising how seamlessly you switched off on LinkedIn definitely should be.) I can only applaud your resolve, because I can’t help but glance.

OOO season is well underway and the format of the automated message is generally the same: 'I’m out of action for x number of days, with only intermittent access to emails and you’ll be lucky if you get a reply.'

I tell myself every year that the email is being abandoned at the airport (and I’ve probably lied to colleagues that this has happened in the past) but in reality it’s not as easy as that. Projects are ongoing, dates are being proposed for meetings in the autumn and deadlines can’t always wait.

That instinct to have a quick check while you’re holiday is strong and in my case overpowering. But like doom-scrolling before bed, no good can come of it. This year alone I self-sabotaged my own break to receive genuinely difficult news (which could have waited), and near-enough wrote off a day of the holiday.

For lawyers, it is a tricky balancing act. Many firms trumpet their policies of solicitors always being available to clients, with mobile numbers routinely shared and the service sold partly on the basis that they are ‘on’ at all times. Pinging back an automated message is anathema to that mantra.

Many law firms routinely market their lawyers as being ‘always available’ and the pressure on those lawyers to stick to this must take its toll. Client service is one thing, but firms need to be realistic with clients about the speed of response they can expect and the need for lawyers to get a break. And crucially, they need to stress with their lawyers that a break means exactly that, and even if the temptation is always there to log in, that is not the expectation from above.

One idea shared online struck me as a nice compromise. The lawyer in question said their out of office message was clear that they would not be checking emails and that colleagues would gladly fill in during their absence. If the matter was truly urgent, they could be contacted on their mobile phone.

Crucially, the OOO message did not include the mobile number: the idea being that if a client matter was so crucial that the lawyers’ number had been shared previously, it was crucial enough to interrupt a holiday. Otherwise, if you didn’t have their number, you’re just going to have to wait.