It’s often said in business and marketing circles that people will mostly buy from those they know, like and trust.
If you are looking for cost-effective ideas to grow your business online, then help your prospects get to know, like and trust your organization better.
Adding a faculty directory to your site is a great way to personalize your business.
In this tutorial, you will learn how to easily create and add an easy-to-maintain simple faculty members directory in your site with no coding skills required.
How To Add An Employee Directory To Your WordPress Site: Tutorial
In this tutorial, we will install, activate and configure a no cost WordPress plugin called Simple Staff List.
Simple Staff List
(Simple Staff List – WordPress Plugin)
Simple Staff List lets you easily staff.
The first step is to install and activate this plugin.
Log into your administration and in your admin menu section, choose Plugins > Add New …
(WP Plugins Menu – Add New)
In the Plugins panel, search for “simple staff plugin”. This brings up the Simple Staff Plugin in your search results area.
Click on Install Now …
(WordPress Plugins – plugin search results)
Activate the plugin …
(Activate plugin)
After installing and activating the plugin, you will notice that new entry will have been added to the main WP menu called Staff Members …
(Staff Members)
All of the settings for the Simple Staff List plugin are configured and managed in this menu.
Configuring Simple Staff List
Depending on how many people are in your business and how you want to structure your employee directory, you could just start to add new staff details after installing the plugin, or create several groups (i.e. categories) that you will assign to individual employees.
Staff Members – Groups
To configure your categories go to your dashboard menu and select Staff Members > Groups …
(Staff Members – Groups)
This brings up the Groups screen in your web browser …
(Groups settings)
Note: Configuring groups is just like adding categories in WordPress …
(Groups work like WordPress categories)
Add new groups by typing in the following information:
- Group Name – Enter your group name here
- Slug – Type in the slug of your group name. Note: make sure that all letters are in lower case and use hyphens instead of spaces.
- Parent – Use this drop-down menu if you plan to set up nested groups
- Description – Type in the group description here
- Click Add New Group when done to set up your new group name …
(Groups settings area)
If you run a business that employs many people, the ability to create categories can be very useful. For example, you can create groups for founders, developers, faculties, etc.
Create as many groups and nested categories as you want by adding new Groups and then using the Parent drop-down menu to assign these to a hierarchical structure …
(Nested groups)
Remember to click the Add New Group button after entering new items …
To change Groups for individual entries, hover your mouse button over a category title and select the Edit link …
The selected item’s details open in the Edit Group page. Select a new parent group from the Parent drop-down menu …
(Edit Group screen)
Click Update to save your changes …
To change the Group name or slug, hover your mouse over the group name and choose the Quick Edit menu feature …
Click the Update Group button when done to save your changes …
Add as many group names as you need to until you are done creating your directory structure …
Add as many nested categories as you like …
(Nested groups)
After you are done setting up your groups, you can start adding staff details to your directory.
Staff Members – Add New
In your admin menu, select Staff Members > Add New …
(Staff Members – Add New)
This loads the Add New Staff Member section …
(Add New Staff Member section)
This section provides you with an easy-to-use interface for adding your staff member details and includes the following fields:
Name Section (1)
- Name: The staff member’s name
- Permalink: You can edit the permalink URL for each employee if required (this section appears after your first save).
Staff Photo Section (2)
- Photo: Upload a photo in this section
Staff Member Info Section (3)
- Position: Your staff member’s role
- Email: The employee’s email
- Phone Number: The employee’s phone number
- Facebook URL: Add the person’s Facebook address here (note: use the full URL, e.g. http://www.facebook.com/username)
- Twitter URL: Enter your company’s Twitter username into this field (note: only enter the username, not the full twitter URL)
Staff Member Bio Section (4)
- Staff Member Bio: Enter a profile description for your staff members here. As this uses the built-in WordPress Text Editor, you can add formatted content in this section.
Groups Section (5)
- Groups: You can assign the individual to a specific group (see the previous section to learn how to set up groups).
If you click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your screen …
(Screen options tab)
You can enable additional features …
(Enable additional fields in screen options)
Now that you know what each section does, enter each of your employee’s details …
(Add Staff Member fields)
Once you have entered each staff member’s details, assign the new entry to a directory group in the Groups box located in your sidebar …
(Groups box)
Note: If you did not set up categories before adding new staff members, you can add a new group in this screen by clicking on Groups > + Add New Group …
(Groups - + Add New Group)
A field will display allowing you to enter a new group name, with a drop-down menu to assign your new entry to a parent group. Type in the name of your new group and click on the Add New Group button …
A new category will be added. Remember to tick the check box to assign your listing to the group …
(New group)
Note: You cannot edit groups when adding or making changes to new employee details. To edit a group entry, go to the Groups section of the plugin’s settings (see “Groups” section of the tutorial above for details).
***
After entering your employee’s details, click the Publish button to add them to the directory …
Click View Post …
You can modify the person’s profile by clicking the Edit Staff Member link in your WordPress admin toolbar …
(Edit Staff Member link – admin toolbar)
If you need help using the admin toolbar, refer to this tutorial:
Note: If you see ’page not found’ errors like the one shown below, check that you have correctly configured your permalinks …
(Check your permalinks if you get ’page not found’ errors)
We have written a detailed tutorial about using permalinks in WordPress here:
Repeat the above process to continue adding more details to your staff directory directory.
Staff Members – All Staff Members
After entering employee details to your directory, you can view and edit their details by selecting Staff Members > All Staff Members in your menu …
(Staff Members Menu – All Staff Members)
This brings up a table listing all the listing entries and their details …
(Staff Members details table)
If you need to edit an individual’s entry, hover your mouse over their list name, and a menu will appear.
Click on Edit if you need to modify the item’s Staff Bio, or Quick Edit to change details such as their name, slug, group, and publish status. You can also delete an entry from the directory by clicking on the Trash link, or view the entry on your site by clicking on View …
(Edit Staff Members profile)
Depending on what you are using the plugin for, your table can get quite long.
You can use the Search Staff Members search feature to locate entries if required …
(Search members)
You can specify which fields to display in this section. To hide or hide fields on your screen, click on Screen Options …
(Staff Members Screen Options)
Placing a tick in the item’s check box displays the field and unselecting it hides the field. You can also choose how many staff members are listed per page. Click Apply when done to update your settings …
Staff Members – Order
The plugin also features a drag-and-drop interface that allows you to specify the order that entries show on your directory page.
Select Staff Members > Order on the WordPress admin menu …
(Staff Members Menu – Order)
To rearrange the order of your listings, click and drag the entry to its desired location …
(Reorder employee listings using drag and drop)
Your list will automatically be reorganized …
(Reordered list entries)
Once you are done adding staff listing details to your directory, the next step is to make the directory show on your site.
Staff Members – Order
The Simple Staff List plugin also features a drag-and-drop interface that allows you to specify the order that entries display on your directory pages.
Select Staff Members > Order in your dashboard menu …
(Staff Members – Order)
To rearrange the order of your items, click and drag the entry to its new location …
(Reorder staff listings using drag and drop)
Your directory will be automatically reorganized …
(Reordered listings)
After adding all staff listing details to the directory, the next step is to make your directory display to your site users.
Simple Staff List – Additional Notes
The Simple Staff List plugin allows you to create the style and layout of your directory items using template tags and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets).
Templates Menu
To customize the layout and style of your employee directory, select Staff Members > Templates from the menu …
(Staff Members Menu – Templates)
This opens the Templates page …
(Simple Staff List Templates page)
To customize your directory listings, insert any of the allowed template tags inside the [staff_loop] [/staff_loop] code.
For example, here is a screenshot of the Default Staff Loop Template …
(Default Template)
The above code displays the listing shown below …
(Default Plugin Template Listing)
Notice that there are no Facebook or Twitter addresses showing in the above listing. To make these fields appear in the directory, you will need to add the [staff-facebook] and [staff-twitter] tags to the template, as shown in the screenshot below …
(Use template tags to customize your directory page)
Your staff details will now display with Facebook and Twitter addresses as shown in the example below …
(Directory listings with social media URLs)
Note: If you want to customize your directory but don’t want to mess around with editing code or are unsure of how to edit the template as shown above, please contact us for assistance.
Usage Menu
In addition to being able to customize your listing templates, the Simple Staff List plugin allows you to display your staff profiles differently using modified shortcodes.
In your WordPress admin menu, select Staff Members >Usage …
(Staff Members Menu – Usage)
This opens the Usage screen …
(Simple Staff List – Usage shortcodes)
This screen provides a list of all different shortcode variations allowed by the plugin.
A useful shortcode variation you can add to your page, for example, to display only members belonging a specific group is the shortcode [simple-staff-list group=”group name”], (e.g.:[simple-staff-list group=”sales managers”])
You can also display listings in ascending or descending order by inserting the shortcode [simple-staff-list order=”DESC”] (descending).
Options Menu
Click Staff Members >Options on your menu …
(Staff Members Menu – Options)
This opens the Options screen …
(Options screen)
This section lets you edit some of the labels used in the plugin
You can also export your staff members data from the Tools > Export page …
(Export Staff Members plugin information)
If you need plugin help or support, go to the Simple Staff List plugin website.
Additional WordPress Plugins For Creating Employee Directories
Simple Staff List is not the only plugin you can use to display a faculty directory in WordPress. For example, here are a few other free WordPress plugins you can look at to add an employee directory on your site:
Modern Team Staff Directory
(Modern Team Staff Directory – Plugin For WordPress)
Modern Team Staff Directory helps you collect your team information and showcase it anywhere on your site in beautiful grids, columns and tables. This premium plugin features over a dozen presets and provides editors that make it easy to edit and update your directory.
(Modern Team Staff Directory – Responsive Templates)
Learn more here:
Staff Directory
(Staff Directory)
This plugin lets you easily create a directory of team/faculty/staff members. The plugin supports staff categories and can be used for churches, teams, etc.
You can also set up custom fields …
(Custom Details Fields. Screenshot source: Staff Directory website)
More info:
Faculty And Staff Directory
(Faculty And Staff Directory – WordPress Staff Directory Plugin)
This plugin provides a simple and flexible faculty and staff directory for a small college or university.
The plugin also includes a widget that allows you to feature a profile in a widget area.
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Company Directory
(Company Directory – Plugin For WordPress)
With Company Directory, you can add your employees to your website. Different layouts are available, including grid and table views, plus as fields like job title, email, phone, image and staff bio, allowing visitors to get to know your company and capabilities.
Visitors can click through from your list, grid, and table views to learn more about each staff member in a customizable single view …
(Display your staff and faculty members in an easy-to-view format. Screenshot sourced from Company Directory plugin website)
This plugin uses shortcodes.
For more details go here:
Employee Spotlight
(Employee Spotlight – WordPress Staff Directory Plugin)
Employee Spotlight displays team members, partners or just a single person in a 4-column circle grid page. This page can be easily created with a setup assistant upon plugin activation.
Employee Spotlight installs with two sidebar widgets that let you display featured and recent employees, plus two responsive views which adjust to the device screen size.
Detailed information about each employee can be displayed in their own page, as well as in summary …
(Responsive layout with circle grid. Screenshot source: Employee Spotlight plugin website)
For more details go here:
Staffer
(Staffer)
The Staffer plugin uses custom post types for staff management and supports the display of staff members via a shortcode, allowing you to easily create and manage a staff directory on your site …
(Staffer archive page. Screenshot source: Staffer website)
Staffer works with almost all WordPress themes, and also allows for custom template use and custom content wrappers.
Go here to learn more about the plugin:
If the above plugins aren’t what you’re looking for, just go online or visit the WordPress plugin directory and search for:
- Add Staff Directory To WordPress
- WordPress Staff List
- Staff Directory WordPress Plugin
- Employee Directory WordPress
- etc.
Congratulations! Now you know how to add and create a simple staff directory to your WordPress site, so you can showcase the people in your business, team, or organization.
Images of persons used to portray fictitious staff members in this tutorial were sourced under creative commons license from pixabay.com
***
"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now