It is important to consider early on a strategy for what format your company’s staff email addresses will take. Your final decision will depend on the number of employees and how you expect this to grow throughout the life of your business.

• If you do not plan to employ more than 5 staff, it is acceptable to have firstname-only email addresses, such as david@example.com. The chance of having two identical first names is relatively low, and with the size of the business, you can append an initial if needed.
• For 5-20 staff, you might choose a firstname/surname initial format, such as davidj@example.com, or use the full firstname/surname approach, such as davidjohnson@example.com or david.johnson@example.com.
• For 20-200 staff, always prefer davidjohnson@example.com or david.johnson@example.com.
• For more than 200 staff, consider dividing email addresses across departments, such as david.johnson@hr.example.com.

For smaller staff numbers, also consider the benefits of creating email aliases for misspellings of staff names, and shortcut names using people’s initials for internal use (e.g. dtj@example.com).

Beyond staff email addresses, you should also get into the habit of utilising department-specific email addresses (which can simply forward to the relevant person(s) in the company.) Examples include accounts@, sales@, support@, hr@, complaints@, privacy@ and jobs@. This way, you can easily delegate work from one staff member to another by simply changing the recipient of the forwarder. This is beneficial both to smaller businesses, which share the load among few staff, and larger businesses, which need continuity over staff transition.