Life happens: Be ready to take time off at a moment’s notice

One of the pre-vacation rituals for most employees is that final day at the office before heading out of town. Make that the final night. There are voicemails to leave, emails to write, job directions to explain and more. Most employees beginning a vacation want to do so with a clean slate and a clean conscience. Doing a little extra work before you go can help alleviate some work-related stress and help people truly relax.

But what about the day-to-day instances that come up? The stomach flu. The child with a high fever. The death in the family. How does one prepare for taking time off when that time off isn’t planned in advance?

Hannah Blanch, an HR consultant in Providence, Rhode Island, offers a few tips to help employees step away for a day or two when outside circumstances take you away from the office.

1. Prepare an email telling others what you do each day, especially if those duties are essential to the workflow of others. You don’t have to be incredibly specific but you should create an email that outlines what needs to be done and how it should be done. If the work can wait until you return, mention that to your colleagues. Consider your email a template that can be updated with specific details that are applicable on the days you need to be absent from the office.

2. Ask a co-worker to be your backup for when you’re not there. And offer to do the same for them. Perhaps the two of you can brief each other on what needs to be done when you’re not there so you each have a serious backup who can step in and get the job done.

3. Let your clients and co-workers know you’ll be out of the office via your outgoing email message and voicemail. No need to get too specific but it’s courteous to leave a quick message telling others that you won’t be in the office that day and, if possible, who they can reach out to for work-related issues. And update those outgoing messages if the situation that took you away from work continues. If you feel like an outgoing message will alienate clients, you can have your messages and phone calls forwarded to an employee who will be handling your work.

4. Take work with you, but only if you want to. If you’ll have downtime when dealing with whatever situation has occurred, it’s OK to take some work with you. Blanch suggests avoiding the essential tasks — you should already have a plan to leave that work to others — and instead take work that has a later deadline. “Maybe there’s a project you can’t work on when you’re dealing with the daily workload,” Blanch says. “If you’re going to be out for a day or two, it can be a nice way to catch up on some work and to give yourself a diversion if you’re going to be doing a lot of waiting. But remember, it’s your choice.”

5. Decide whether or not you want to be contacted when you’re out and let others know. In some cases, an occasional phone call from the workplace is no big deal but in other, more serious situations, it can add more stress to an already stressful situation. Don’t be afraid to ask co-workers to refrain from reaching out with questions and let them know you’ll check in, if possible, and will respond to all issues when you return to work.