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In my boss's recent email to me, he CC'ed someone who will be working with me in the future and asked me to connect with him.
I am wondering what the proper workplace etiquette would be for reaching out to this person.
Or is there another way which I have not listed that would be better than those two?
There is nothing wrong, per se with either approach.
Personally, I would do a "reply all" first, then send a second email to the individual.
So, first mail:
Thank you Boss, for the introduction, and welcome (Coworker). (Coworker), I will be reaching out to you personally so that we may become better acquainted, and arrange a meeting to discuss working together.
Then, second email
(Insert greeting here) (Coworker).
I am YumekaMengjiaLYU, your new coworker. As I mentioned in my email to Boss and you previously, I would like to set up a meeting so that we may discuss our future working relationship. Is there a time/place that is convenient to you?
(Insert signature)
Not word for word, but something in this vein
Let's say your boss is Betty and your new contact is Dave. A clever and efficient approach called the "BCC Switcheroo" is described here:
“Great to meet you, Dave!” you write. “Let’s definitely get together to talk about world domination. Betty, thanks for introducing us—I’m moving you to BCC so you don’t need to read all our scheduling emails.”
That is, you send your reply email with your boss on "blind carbon copy" (BCC). In this way, you can thank them and they know that you are following through. Yet this also automatically removes your boss from any subsequent messages, even if your new contact uses Reply All, because the email does not contain your boss's address as a recipient. All of this is accomplished with one email, rather than two as in Old_Lamplighter's answer.
Sometimes BCC is considered sneaky, but that does not apply here because you are explicitly noting in the email who is on BCC and why.
Your question addresses a scenario that is frequent and challenging enough that it was precisely the motivation of the article linked above, discussing this solution in detail.
If your boss is the busy type or very senior.
Hi Steve, can we meet at 0500 tomorrow on Slack? Cheers, Fattie.
Boss, confirming I'm meeting the new person Steve, tomorrow at 0530. Thanks, Fattie.
There is no need to add office politics, like this:
Boss, confirming I'm meeting the new person Steve, tomorrow at 0530. I suggested 0500 but I guess some people have differing commitment levels. Steve seems to take a long time replying to simple emails. Perhaps family problems? I reviewed Steve's question trail on Stackoverflow and "basic" is a term that comes to mind. BTW your blue suit looked fabulous today boss. Thanks, Fattie.
So, no need for that sort of thing :)
Send an email to the new person, with a carbon copy (CC) to the boss. The contents should be an introducing yourself and perhaps the project.
