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Talk soon loser. Hehe bye. Hasta la pasta.
No, I haven’t asked AI to write me this article and it’s started hallucinating. These bizarre messages are a sample of the somewhat eclectic email sign-offs that Gen Z workers have adopted in recent years.
The move to ditch traditional email etiquette isn’t just being driven by workforce newbies. Employees across the board have become increasingly laissez-faire with their sign-offs and signatures.
A British Airways ad in 2023 included a tongue-in-cheek out-of-office (OOO) message, which reads: “Hi there, I have received your email. I have printed it off. And now I’m using it to light flaming cocktails for the whole bar. Best, Lucy.”
Granted Lucy is the creation of some inspired marketing exec, but it’s prompted other (real-life) workers to follow suit. Even Hubspot has a list of twenty “funny out-of-office messages” including a personal favorite: “Hi, I’m Troy McClure. You might remember me from such out-of-office messages as Avenge My Death if I Don’t Return from DMEXCO… Catalina Wong is out of office until September 27. She wanted me to let you know that she’ll get back to you after her return.”
And then we have the email signatures that have become a cocktail of contact information, social media buttons, calendar scheduling links, pronouns, working hours, and more.
In or out?
It’s a lot to contend with. As the arbiters of employee communication, company culture, and team productivity, it benefits HR teams to be clear on what is funny and what is facile, what is informative and what is irrelevant; and what is clever and what is clutter.
“Do not feel you need to respond until…” messages
An email trend over the past few years has been to include notes in signatures and sign-offs that include some variation on “Do not feel you need to respond until your usual working hours.”
As the boundaries between work and home lives have become more blurred, such messages are an attempt from some employees to reassure their peers – often subordinates – that they do not need to reply to an email sent out of ours.
Positive in intention, but some HR professionals argue that a note in an email is hardly going to cut the mustard and is instead a cop-out for leaders to fly in the face of work-life balance.
“In my view, it is not the right way to go,” says Lisa M. Sánchez, VP of Employee Experience and Engagement (HR) at ArtCenter College of Design. “Employees will naturally feel obligated to respond. The best approach is to not send the message at all.” Sánchez suggests a better policy would be to create wellness boundaries to limit contact outside of working hours to emergencies or changes in work schedules.
Verdict: OUT
Working Hours
A better option may be to include core working hours on the email signature. This can help an employee’s peers recognize when that worker is in or out of their working hours, giving them insight into when they should send an email (or not). It could also keep workers, in particular leaders, accountable by clearly showing when they have sent an email outside of their own working hours.
Verdict: IN
‘Funny’ OOO messages
A bit of humor is, of course, perfectly acceptable. If it’s part of the company or team culture to engage in some light-hearted jokes about how much nicer it is to be on a beach sipping a cocktail than stuck at a desk drafting reports, HR leaders would do well to avoid spoiling this particular custom.
However, any humor should not be at the expense of the information for an alternative contact in the employee’s absence. Whether it’s a customer or a colleague, there’s nothing worse than receiving an OOO message without any additional information other than “I’ll be out of the office and will respond as soon as possible,” argues Sánchez.
“It’s appropriate to add an alternative person’s name, phone number, and/or email address for emergencies or immediate concerns, and it’s important to include your date of return so that people have a timeframe by which to reach you directly,” she explains. “Not including contact information can be frustrating because now someone will have to keep searching for someone to provide assistance.”
Sánchez notes that her team provides employees with an OOO message that is standard, which includes the date of return and who to contact in an emergency.
It’s a worthwhile practice, as the laughter will quickly wear off if employees are consistently wasting time trying to track down who they are meant to contact in their colleague’s absence.
Verdict: IN, but only if there’s valuable contact information too.
‘Funny’ sign-offs
For many employees, signing off an email with a “Best,” “Warm regards,” or a “Many thanks,” feels too formal and stuffy when they are only emailing colleagues. Others will simply embed a stock sign-off into their email signature to save a few precious seconds with each email send.
Enter the Gen Z-led era of “Yours unfaithfully,” “Mean regards,” “Bless up,” “Pop off”, “Humble yourself,” and “Stay hydrated queens.”
These sign-offs, given they have no bearing on the rest of the email or someone’s ability to contact a colleague, should be safe to leave untouched—provided they don’t breach the company’s code of conduct in any way.
In fact, encouraging employees to get creative and have fun with their email sign-offs could be a great way to build morale across teams.
Verdict: IN
Email signature contact information
Just like an OOO, an email signature isn’t complete without some comprehensive contact information.
“In my HR department, we all use the same format for our signature block, which includes our full name, job title, department name, phone and fax numbers, email and website addresses, physical work address, and our College’s logo” explains Sánchez. “Cohesiveness is key in the spirit of internal and external customer service and employee experiences.”
Verdict: IN
Some guidance from HR teams would certainly be welcome to avoid email signatures, sign-offs, and OOO messages that lead to communication blocks, and to prevent cluttered messages.
While it may be useful for employers to give employees clear direction on what to include in their signature, it would be a shame for HR to spoil the party and rule out the possibility of workers expressing their creativity through the unexpected medium of sign-offs. And with that in mind…
My name is Inigo Montoya, You killed my father, Prepare to die,
Benjamin
