Category: WordPress Plugins

Many business and marketing experts often raise the point that people generally tend to buy from people they already know, like and trust.

If you are searching for ways to sell more products online and get people to stay longer on your site, then make it easier for your visitors to get to know your business better.

If your website runs on the WordPress Content Management System, one way to easily help visitors get to know you better is to add a directory plugin that will let you display a directory listing with information about your partners, your faculty, or your staff members.

In this step-by-step tutorial, we show you how to easily create and add a list of staff members to your site without coding skills.

Step-By-Step Tutorial: How To Easily Add An Employee Directory

In this tutorial, we will install, activate and configure a free plugin called Simple Staff List.

Simple Staff List – WordPress Plugin

(Simple Staff List)

Simple Staff List lets you easily display information to visitors about your staff members on your website.

First, let’s install and activate the plugin.

Log into the WP administration and in your admin menu, select Plugins > Add New …

(WordPress Plugins Menu – Add New)

In the Plugins panel, search for “simple staff plugin”. This brings up the Simple Staff Plugin in your plugin search results.

Click on the Install Now button …

(WordPress Plugins  – Add Plugins screen)

Click on Activate Plugin …

(Activate plugin)

After the plugin has been installed and activated, you will notice that new menu entry will show up in your WordPress menu bar called Staff Members …

(Staff Members)

All of the settings and options for your plugin are configured and managed from the Staff Members menu.

Configuring The Simple Staff List Plugin

Depending on how many people are employed in your organization and how you want to structure your directory, you could just begin to add new employee details at this point, or create several groups (i.e. categories) to assign your individualstaff into.

Staff Members – Groups

Let’s start by configuring your categories. In your WP dashboard menu, select Staff Members > Groups …

(Staff Members Menu – Groups)

This takes you to the Groups settings screen …

(Groups settings area)

Note: Setting up directory groups is just like configuring WordPress categories …

(Groups work just like WordPress categories)

Create a new group by entering the following information:

1. Group Name – Type in your category name
2. Slug – Enter the slug of your group category name. Note: make sure that all letters are in lower case and use hyphens instead of spaces.
3. Parent – This section lets you set up a directory hierarchy
4. Description – Type in your category description in this field (optional)
5. Click Add New Group when done to create the new group …

(Groups settings area)

If you are a business that employs many people, the ability to assign people to different categories can be very useful. For example, you can create groups for founders, developers, departments, 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 directory hierarchy …

(Nested categories)

Remember to click on the Add New Group button after entering new items …

To edit or reassign Groups for individual items, hover your mouse button over a category title and select the Edit link …

The selected category details will open in the Edit Group screen. Select a new parent group from the Parent dropdown menu …

(Edit Group screen)

Click Update when done …

To edit your Group name or slug, hover over the group name and select Quick Edit …

Click the Update Group button to save your changes …

Continue adding group names in this section until you are done creating your directory structure …

You can add as many nested categories as you like …

(Add nested categories your staff directory)

Once you are done setting up your hierarchical structure, the next step is to begin to add staff details to your directory.

Staff Members – Add New

In your admin menu, select Staff Members > Add New …

(Staff Members Menu – Add New)

This brings you to the Add New Staff Member area …

(Add New Staff Member section)

This section provides an easy-to-use interface for adding your staff member profile and includes the following fields:

Name Section (1)

• Name: Your staff member’s name
• Permalink: Edit each employees’ permalink URL (this section appears after saving your details).

Staff Photo Section (2)

• Photo: Add a photo here

Staff Member Info Section (3)

• Position: Enter the employee’s role
• Email: Your staff member’s email address
• Phone Number: Add the person’s phone number
• Facebook URL: Type your company’s Facebook URL (note: use the full URL, e.g. http://www.facebook.com/username)
• Twitter URL: Type in your company’s Twitter username (note: only enter the username, not the full twitter URL)

Staff Member Bio Section (4)

• Staff Member Bio: Add a profile description for your staff member here. Since this uses the WordPress Text Editor, you can format content in this section.

Groups Section (5)

• Groups: You can assign your employee to a group (see the previous section of this tutorial to learn how to set up your groups).

If you click on the Screen Options tab at the top of the screen …

(Screen options)

You can enable additional page settings …

(Enable additional fields in screen options)

Now that you know what each section does, enter each employee’s details …

(Staff directory fields)

After you have finished inputting details, assign your item to a directory group in the Groups section in the sidebar …

(Groups section)

Note: If you have not set up groups before starting to add staff member details, you can add a new group in this screen by selecting Groups > + Add New Group …

(Add a new group inside your Groups box)

A field will display allowing you to enter a new group name, with a dropdown menu that lets you assign your new entry to a parent group. Enter your new directory category and click on Add New Group …

Your new category will be created. Remember to tick the checkbox to assign the person’s details to the group …

(New group)

Note: Groups cannot be edited when adding or editing employee details. To edit an item, go to the Groups section of the plugin’s settings (see “Groups” section above for details).

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After filling in the person’s details, click the Publish button …

Click View Post …

You can update the staff member’s profile by clicking the Edit Staff Member link in your admin toolbar …

(Edit Staff Member link – WP admin toolbar)

For a detailed tutorial on using the dashboard admin toolbar , go here:

• Your WordPress Dashboard Explained

Note: If errors like the one shown in the example below shows up, check that you have set up your site’s permalinks correctly …

(Page error? Check your permalinks)

If you need help setting up WordPress permalinks, see this tutorial:

• How To Change Your WordPress Permalinks

Repeat the above process to add new details to your employee directory directory.

Staff Members – All Staff Members

After entering employee details to your directory, you can view and edit their details by choosing Staff Members > All Staff Members in your menu …

(Staff Members Menu – All Staff Members)

This brings up a table displaying all the listing entries and their details …

(Staff Members details)

If you need to make changes to an individual’s entry, simply hover your mouse over their listing, and a submenu will appear.

Click on Edit to update the Staff Bio, or Quick Edit to change details such as their name, slug, group, and publish status. You can also delete a member from the employee directory by clicking on the Trash link, or view the entry on your site by clicking on View …

(Editing Staff Members details)

Depending on what you are using the plugin for, your table can grow quite large.

Use the Search Staff Members search box to find entries if required …

(Search Staff Members search box)

The plugin also allows you to specify which fields to display in this section. To show or hide fields on your screen, click the Screen Options tab at the top of your page …

(Staff Members Screen Options)

Tick or untick the checkboxes to display or hide specific fields. You can also specify how many staff members are shown per page. Click Apply when done to save your screen options …

Staff Members – Order

Simple Staff List also features a drag-and-drop interface that allows you to arrange the order in which entries show on your directory pages.

Select Staff Members > Order on your main menu …

(Staff Members – Order)

To reorder your listings, click and drag the entry to the new location …

(Rearrange items using drag and drop)

Your staff list will be automatically reordered …

(Reordered list items)

Once you have added staff details to your directory, the next step is to add the directory to your visitors.

Staff Members – Order

The Simple Staff List plugin also features a drag-and-drop interface that lets you specify the order in which your employees appear on your directory pages.

Select Staff Members > Order on the main menu …

(Staff Members Menu – Order)

To rearrange the order of your entries, click and drag the item to a desired position …

(Rearrange listings using drag and drop)

Your directory will automatically be reordered …

(Reordered list items)

After adding all members’ details to the directory, the next step is to display the directory to your visitors.

Simple Staff List – Additional Notes

The plugin also lets you customize the style and layout of your employee directory items using template tags and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets).

Templates Menu

To customize the layout and style of your staff list, select Staff Members > Templates from your WP admin menu …

(Staff Members Menu – Templates)

This brings up the Templates screen …

(Customize your directory template)

To customize your directory, 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 Simple Staff List Template)

The above code displays the listing shown below …

(Default Template Listing)

Notice that no Facebook or Twitter URLs are showing in the above example. To make these fields show in your directory, we will need to add the [staff-facebook] and [staff-twitter] tags to the template loop, as shown below …

(Template tags added to Staff Loop Template)

Your employee entries will now display with Facebook and Twitter links as as shown below …

(Directory listings with social media URLs added)

Note: If you want to customize how your directory looks but don’t want to mess with template tags or are not sure what to do, please contact us for assistance.

Usage Menu

As well as being able to customize your directory templates, the Simple Staff List plugin lets you display your listings differently using modified shortcodes.

In your main admin menu, select Staff Members >Usage …

(Staff Members Menu – Usage)

This opens the Usage screen …

(Simple Staff List – Usage Shortcode section)

This screen provides a list of all different shortcode variations allowed by the plugin.

A useful shortcode variation you can decide to use, 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=”Gold Level associates”])

You can also make your listings display in ascending or descending order by adding the shortcode [simple-staff-list order=”ASC”] (ascending).

Options Menu

In the main menu, select Staff Members >Options …

(Staff Members Menu – Options)

This opens the Options screen …

(Simple Staff List – Options settings)

Here you can modify labels like Staff Members URL Slug and Staff Member title

Finally, you can also export your staff members data from the Tools > Export menu …

(Export Staff Members plugin information)

If you need plugin help or support, visit the Simple Staff List plugin site.

Additional WordPress Plugins For Creating Employee Directories

Simple Staff List isn’t the only plugin you can use. Here are other free plugins you can look at:

Modern Team Staff Directory

(Modern Team Staff Directory – Plugin For WordPress)

This plugin 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 about this plugin here:

• Modern Team Staff Directory – WP Staff Directory Plugin

Staff Directory

(Staff Directory – WP Plugin)

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 add custom fields …

(Custom Details Fields Screen. Screenshot sourced from Staff Directory website)

Go here to learn more:

• Staff Directory – WordPress Staff Directory Plugin

Faculty And Staff Directory

(Faculty And Staff Directory – Plugin For WordPress)

Faculty And Staff Directory was developed to provide a simple and flexible faculty and staff directory for a small college, school or university.

The plugin also installs a widget that allows you to feature a profile in a widget area.

Learn more here:

• Faculty And Staff Directory – WordPress Staff Directory Plugin

Company Directory

(Company Directory – Plugin For WordPress)

With the Company Directory plugin, you can easily add your employees, team or faculty to your site. Different layouts are available, including list and customizable single views, as well as fields like title, email, phone number, photo and staff bio, allowing visitors to get to know your company and capabilities.

Visitors will be able to click through from your list, grid, and table views to read more about each employee in a customizable single view …

(Display your staff and faculty members in an easy to view format. Screenshot source: Company Directory plugin website)

This plugin also uses a simple shortcode system.

For more details go here:

• Company Directory – WordPress Plugin

Employee Spotlight

(Employee Spotlight – Plugin For WordPress)

Employee Spotlight displays staff members, founders or just one individual member of your team in a four-column circle grid page. This page can be easily created with a setup assistant on plugin activation.

Employee Spotlight comes with two sidebar widgets that let you display featured and recent employees, plus two responsive views which adjust to the viewer’s screen.

Detailed information about  each faculty member can be displayed in their own page, as well as in summary …

(Responsive layout with employee circle grid. Screenshot sourced from Employee Spotlight website)

Go here to learn more:

• Employee Spotlight – WordPress Plugin

Staffer

(Staffer – Plugin For WordPress)

This 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 plugin website)

Staffer works with almost all WordPress themes, and also allows for custom template use and custom content wrappers.

More info:

• Staffer – Plugin For WordPress

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
• WordPress Plugin Staff Directory
• Staff Directory Plugin WordPress
• etc.

Congratulations! Now you know how to add and create a simple directory of staff members to your WordPress site, so you can better showcase the people in your business, team, or organization.

Models used to display fictitious staff members were sourced under creative commons license from pixabay.com

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