Email etiquette at work

[damekindness]

When emailing at work to the in-house team I tend to start with Hello {first name} because it sounds open and friendly .

Rarely a Dear {first name} if it's something formal like performance management type things or I'm being passive aggressive

To external people its a Dear until I get to know them and then it seems too formal

The one thing that does set my teeth on edge is when people begin their emails with just the persons first name as in...

Doris,

Further to our meeting this morning,,,

AIBU to think that appears brusque or rude?

@WatchingFromTheSidelines

Yeah they throw you off guard. So lovely!

I'm a Good Morning/Afternoon person for anything except very informal usually. But I just don't understand Kind Regards - what does it actually MEAN? Didn't seem to exist when I was younger, and if I ask people what it actually means they tend to bluster a bit & tell me it's the correct way to do it because everybody else does it.

I'm anything, depending on who I'm emailing and the purpose. I send so many email queries to certain people in a day I don't even bother with hi all the time, especially when the person is in the same room as me

So when I first started emailing in the early 2000s when there wasn't a norm I used to start with just 'Doris' - it was thought 'Dear' was for letters and 'Hi' wasn't something you'd use professionally.

I moved on to 'dear' and 'kind regards' but now 90% of emails I get end with 'Best'so I use that. I always thought it was an abbreviation of best wishes, I don't understand why people don't like it.

Generally I find men are much more succinct and clear emailers, there's much less ambiguity because there's less concern for being see as rude.

I'd much rather return to 'doris' because it just strips out another decision: do I know this person well enough for Hi, etc etc. Mostly I just wish there was an agreed international norm as as can be seen here people can and do take offence at most things.

I used to work with someone who signed off her emails with "Kind regards". Let's just say the sentiment didn't match the rude bossy tone of the email. Signing Kind regards when there isn't any kindness in the email is not good.

If she's not deliberately trying to be PA, it might just be an auto signature which gets stuck at the end of whatever she's written and she's so used to it that she doesn't ever stop and think about how it comes across (or does but can't be bothered to change it).

On a related note, how twee, annoying and pathetic are those auto-signatures set up by manufacturers (unless you specifically go in and stop them) that say "Sent from my iPad Air/Galaxy S8" or whatever? Is it meant to be a boast that you own a fancy piece of their hardware? Free advertising? Is it a relic from the old days of laborious physical number buttons on phones and no on-screen keyboard, to alert people as to why your email might seem terse? It's just so ridiculous, though - I couldn't care less what device you're using; the same as, if you send me a snail mail, I'm really not interested in the least whether you bought the stamp from the post office, corner shop or Tesco!

If you’re sending hundreds if not thousands of emails a day, even typing ‘Hi’ could end up wasting too much time. That’s why a lot of senior people start emails with first names. As email is an informal form of communication there is no need to stand on ceremony unless of course you’re buttering someone up.

Don't traditional letters in French end with a standard phrase that's 10 words long and the equivalent of our 'yours sincerely' ? Has that carried through to email as well in the French-speaking world?!

I too find just the name and no proper sign off abrupt. Yes, good time-management is important in business but so is positive social interaction. Is the nano-second you've saved omitting dear/hi worth the cost of an employee feeling rebuffed? And if you're of the school of thought of "I don't care how people feel reading my emails", well perhaps you should care.

I agree that too much waffle is not on - but pleasantries are important in UK social interaction and can't just be dispensed with.

What really annoys me is the signature using fancy script 'handwriting', awful!

I also started off with Dear and Kind regards many years ago, and find it hard to stop being so formal. These days I use Hi when I know the person, and Dear when I don't. I sometimes send a "dear all" email to a group of people.

I sign off Kind regards or Many thanks. Don't like BW.

I only get no dear from my bosses, but I don't use it to people I manage as I think it can seem a bit curt. I think my team think I'm brusque too, but I'm just old. And formal. (And don't get me started on smilies in emails....).

'Dear (name)' When formal (eg to outside the organisation)
'Good morning/afternoon (name)' to colleagues where 'hi' might be seen as too informal
'Hi (name)' to close colleagues or when message is informal.
A colleague on my team just uses 'name' and also just ends 'her name' with no thanks, kind regards or anything. I know she's not being deliberately rude but it does grate on me.
My other massive bug bear is when people greet me by my first name in correspondence of any kind without first checking that it's ok with me. Way too familiar for my liking and also comes across condescending depending on who it's from and the context of the correspondence.

I start with: Good morning/afternoon Doris

And end with: Best wishes or Many thanks NC4

I like to mix it up a bit.

Standard where I work is
"Hi Doris" or "Doris". You would tend to use the latter if you didn't know the person very well (or at all).

What really annoys me is the signature using fancy script 'handwriting', awful!

Eurgh. Especially when they choose a script that makes it look like they're 7 - with great big flourishing loops on the Fs and Gs and little hearts or smiley faces instead of a dot over Is and Js.

I don't really like it, but I work with a lot of old fashioned men and its just the way they write.

I use All the best. Is that acceptable?

Warm regards = You're being a tit.

Warmest regards = I have already arranged someone to water my plants when I am doing jail time for harming you.

Yes, dreadful. Usually in green or pink font. Nearly as bad as smileys or emojis.

Also, I don't know if it's just me or if anybody else hates it in email or letters where people use your full name.

Dear Karen = fine
Dear Mrs Williams = fine
Dear Karen Williams/Dear Mrs Karen Williams = so cold and distant. I'm sure I'm very irrational, but I always read a sneery unwritten 'if THAT'S what you call yourself' at the end.

I agree OP. I'd go from 'Hello Chris' in email one, to 'Hi' or just no greeting, in follow-up messages. So I drop the name, as I'm already in conversation with that person.

'Chris' .... does sound brusque and bossy.

I particularly dislike 'Kind regards', because the first person I knew who habitually used it was the opposite of kind, so it reads as extremely passive aggressive to me!

I also feel that 'regards' cannot be kind. 'Best regards', 'kind thoughts', 'warm feelings' all make sense but kindness doesn't match with regards.

The sign off I dislike most though, is 'Best'. It's nonsensical. Best what?

We all use 'Thanks, MyName' at the end of emails.

Pretty much global across EMEA and NA. APAC differ a little.

Kind regards is more formal. I would tend to use that when for example, having to intervene in an issue and needing to be more formal.

I use All the best. Is that acceptable?

I think that's one of the more sincere, natural-sounding sign-offs.

Much better than 'Stay lucky, punk' at any rate

watching middle east?

my customers are all over the world and the ones from the middle east are generally the most polite I get thank you's in all sorts of formats!

rudest are eastern Europeans!

What I detest is asap on the end. It is inferring I'd better get on it right away and their time is so much more important than mine.
If you're going to put asap for whatever reason as least write it out in full and don't end your email with it.

It's implying that, not inferring madcatlady. Sorry to be annoying but they imply, you infer (from what they have said). To infer is to draw inferences from.