Few people use "Dear ..." to start emails in my company. Even to clients, we write "Hello John," or "Hi John." I struggled with that for awhile, because it did seem too informal to me, but finally caved. Clients who write to me for the first time start their emails "Hi TimeofChange." Once they are familiar with me, they often simly start an email with my name sans greeting(TimeofChange, ...) or dispense with the greeting altogether, and simply jump into the body of the email. That also is the case with the company's leadership when they write to me. I always use a greeting when writing to everyone, although I am beginning to think that it brands me as lower status than I really am, at least within our firm. Good grief, this is complicated.

In case you are wondering, this is true for young and not-so-young colleagues and clients.

Nobody at my company writes paper letters as far as I can tell.

Regards,
Time of Change