Many companies opt for some kind of stale convention for provisioning work emails. Something like: {firstName}.{lastName}@{companyDomain}
There are a lot of conveniences for conventions like this. Normalization for managing access to systems, “guessability” for new comms, avoiding collisions, and fewer squabbles over who gets “john@{companyDomain}”.
But, IMO, this is a missed opportunity for most companies.
Why? Because a work email is one of the very first, most long-lasting, and most frequently observed signals that an employer gives to an employee.
Think about it. Work email is square one of employee onboarding. It then gets embedded into their daily workflow… as the use it to log into systems, or share it with others to communicate.
The difference between a “cool” email and a conventional email can be a big deal. One tells the employee that they are a record in an identity database, a cog in the machine. The other tells the employee that they are an individual with unique attributes to bring to the company.
While I’m not an advocate of the “bring your whole self to work” idea, I do think that embracing someone for their unique skillset and perspective (when it comes to work things) is much better than the templatization signal in the conventional email schema.
This is a no brainer for early companies, when there are fewer collisions to worry about. But even after you hire a few “Bill”s or “Janet”s, you can still offer your team a better email than first.last. Here are some ideas:
Some Better Convetions
First Name Only
{firstName}@{companyDomain}
Example: shayne@example.com
Last Name Only
{lastName}@{companyDomain}
Example: osullivan@example.com
First Name + Last Initial
{firstName}{lastInitial}@{companyDomain}
Example: shayneo@example.com
Initials
{firstInitial}{middleInitial}{lastInitial}@{companyDomain}
Example: sko@example.com
Professional Handle
You probably don’t want emails like “sc00terDude15@example.com”, but most adults have a deep bag of “handles” that they are used to creating on various sites. Be open to one of those when there is a collision.
For me, that may be something like:
shayneosull@example.com
osully@example.com
sos@example.com
shayneos@example.com
Be Flexible
Maybe the most important thing is just to recognize that the work email you give someone is indeed a signal. If you are an early company and can’t give them “firstName@”, let them propose a reasonable alternative, or let them pick from a few ideas.
It’s a small thing, but it sends the right message.