Use email forwarding and Out of Office Auto Reply at the same time?

After a frustrating research as to why Out of Office AutoReply is not working I discovered the feature is disabled if email is being forwarded to another address.

However, I can't be the only one with the following scenario:

1.  User leaves the company

2.  Management wants to alert anyone emailing the departed user that he is no longer with the company using Out Of Office reply

3.  Management also wants the email automatically be forwarded to the person temporarily taking over the departed person's duties.

Is there any way to get this done so both forwarding and AutoReply work at the same time?

Thanks,
Zrinko