Adding office hours in email signature – tips and examples

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A professional email signature can include many details, like your social media accounts, website, job title, office address, and more. But one often-overlooked piece of information to add to your busiest business communication channel is your office hours.

Adding your normal business hours to your email signature comes with many benefits. Mainly, it helps people understand when you’re online and when your company is open. However, there are more advantages to including this information than just this.

Example:

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Whatever your industry or role, here’s everything you need to know about adding office hours to your email signature.

Why include office hours in your email signature?

Including your normal working hours in your email signature is a simple but effective way to improve your communication. Here are some of the main reasons why it’s a good idea.

Sets clear expectations

When you make your office hours clearly visible to everyone you communicate with, people know when they can expect a response from you.

This small detail helps manage people’s expectations, respect flexible work arrangements, and reduce possible frustration if they don’t get an immediate response.

It also means your contacts won’t feel obligated to respond to any emails outside your work hours – making their lives easier, too.

Improves time management

Outlining your normal work hours helps you avoid interruptions outside these hours.

If clients or colleagues know when you’re available, they’re less likely to contact you at inconvenient times. And if they do contact you outside of work hours, they understand that they may not get a response to their message until you’re back in the office during your designated hours.

This works especially well for flexible working arrangements where your schedule could be irregular or confusing.

Ease of access

For any time-sensitive businesses like a help desk or a medical clinic, it’s important that clients know when they can reach out for support or schedule appointments. Clear working hours in your email signature make this information readily available.

Not only does this provide a better experience for your clients, but it also makes your communications and appointments a lot easier to manage.

Build trust with your contacts

Consistently responding to people during your stated hours builds trust. Clients and colleagues will appreciate knowing when they can count on your availability, and they’ll be happy to leave you alone when you’re not on the clock.

Improved work-life balance

Although it’s a small detail, defining your availability can create a better work-life balance.

By clearly outlining your work hours and sharing this with everyone you come into contact with, you create a strict rule about when you’re at work and when you’re not. This can help you stay focused during work hours and truly disconnect when you’re finished for the day.

How to format office hours in your email signature

Formatting your normal working hours in your email signature should be clear and straightforward. Simply include this information in the same section where you mention your job title, company, or professional address.

Here are a few things to keep in mind when doing this:

• Be clear and concise: Use simple and direct wording for your office hours. Avoid unnecessary details to keep it easy to read.
• Use a consistent time format: Choose either the 12-hour or 24-hour clock and stick with it throughout your signature.
• Include time zones: If you work with clients or colleagues in different time zones, always include your own time zone to prevent misunderstandings.
• Specify days: Clearly indicate which days you are available. If your hours vary on different days, make sure to note that. You could also highlight upcoming out-of-office dates.
• Mention exceptions: If your office is closed on certain days, like holidays, or if you have a flexible work schedule or your own work schedule compared to the rest of the business, briefly mention this.

It’s also worth mentioning that your office hours could be incorporated alongside a booking calendar for your availability. Using a booking calendar in your email signature is one of the best ways to manage your schedule if you book meetings with your contacts.

Best practices for including office hours in the email signature

As is always the case when adding information to your email signature, keep it simple when including your office hours. This is a relatively small detail, so it shouldn’t take up a large portion of your signature or stick out too much.

That being said, here are a few of the best tactics for including office hours in your signature:

• At the end of the signature: Place your office hours right at the end of your email signature. This keeps them visible without taking up too much space.
• In text format: Include your office hours directly in the text of your signature. This is the most straightforward way and ensures everyone sees them, and it’s the easiest solution for creating a purely informational email signature if you’re not going to go the HTML signature route.
• As a banner: The most visually appealing way to create an email signature is with a designed banner. If you use an email signature banner, incorporate your office hours when your other professional information is listed.
• With an external link: For complex or changing hours, link to an updated webpage. Useful when signature space is limited.
• Only do it if necessary: Add office hours only if relevant to your role and communications. Otherwise, keep your signature concise.

Office hours in email signature example

Incorporating office hours into your email signature may seem straightforward, but you must follow careful design practices to do it the right way. This ensures your email signature remains easy to read and user-friendly while offering the necessary information.

To help you get this right, here are a few examples of office hours in email signatures for different use cases.

Business hours with icon

In this example, a clock icon (with calendar) precedes the business hours, making the information instantly recognizable.

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Business hours in signature with link

When creating a business hours email signature, you can also add links to external locations, making the section interactive.

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Creating email signatures

Creating a professional email signature with details like your office hours requires the right tools. Ideally, you’ll want to use a platform like Bybrand where you can manage dynamic signatures across an organization through a single platform.

This is the best approach, as it lets you control everyone in your company’s email signature. This means all signatures can stay consistent and include the same details, which is incredibly important if your office hours change.

All you need to do is set up an email signature using one of the templates. You have endless options here for designing a signature that matches your industry and brand. You can do this for each department.

Then, automatically fill in individual details using a designated space integrated with your Bybrand email signature manager. Your company’s information and look stay the same (even your office hours), but each person on the team gets their own signature.

These signatures can be exported in HTML formats and easily applied to any email client. This is the best approach for an email signature that performs well, loads easily, and provides a professional representation of your department or company.

Final thoughts

If it’s relevant to your role, then incorporating office hours into your signature can be a great way to enhance your communication.

Make sure you use the right tool for managing your email signature and include these times in your signature design. Do it properly, and it can streamline your email comms in a bigger way than you’d realize.

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