Consumer buying habits have successfully shown that people generally will buy from people they know, like and trust.
Are you searching for quicker, simpler and cheaper ways to grow your business online and increase user interaction with your site? Then make it easier for your visitors to get to know, like and trust you, your team and your business better.
If your web presence is driven by the WordPress CMS, one way to easily help visitors get to know you better is to add a directory plugin that lets you display information about your partners, your faculty, or your employees.
In this tutorial, we are going to show you how to easily create and add an updatable list of staff members in your WordPress site.
Step-By-Step Tutorial: Adding An Employee Directory To Your WordPress Site
In this tutorial, you will learn how to install, activate and configure a no cost plugin called Simple Staff List.
Simple Staff List WordPress Plugin
(Simple Staff List WordPress Plugin)
Simple Staff List lets you display basic information about your employee on your site.
The first step is to install and activate the Simple Staff List plugin.
Log into your WordPress dashboard and navigate to Plugins > Add New …
(Plugins Menu – Add New)
In the Plugins screen, search for “simple staff plugin”. This should bring up the Simple Staff Plugin in your search results area.
Click on Install Now …
(Plugins – plugin search results)
Click on the Activate Plugin link …
(Activate plugin)
After your plugin has been installed and activated, you will see that a new menu will display on your WordPress menu called Staff Members …
(Staff Members)
All of the settings and options for the Simple Staff List plugin are configured and managed in this menu.
Configuring Simple Staff List
Depending on the size of your business and how you want to structure your directory, you could just start to add new employee entries after installing the plugin, or create several groups (i.e. categories) to place yourmembers into.
Staff Members – Groups
To configure your categories go to your WordPress dashboard menu and select Staff Members > Groups …
(Staff Members Menu – Groups)
This brings you to the Groups panel …
(Groups settings screen)
Note: Setting up groups works just like WordPress categories …
(Groups work like categories)
Create a new group by typing in the following information:
- Group Name – Enter your group name here
- Slug – Enter the slug of your group. Note: make sure that all letters are in lower case and use hyphens instead of spaces.
- Parent – Use this section if you plan to set up nested categories
- Description – Type in the category description (optional)
- Click Add New Group when done to set up a new category …
(Groups screen)
If you work with a larger organization, having the ability to create categories can be very useful. For example, you can create a group for founders, developers, departments, etc.
Create as many categories and nested groups as you need by adding new Groups and then using the Parent drop-down menu to organize these into a directory hierarchy …
(Nested categories)
Remember to click the Add New Group button after creating each new item …
To edit or reassign Groups for a particular item, hover your mouse over a category title and click on the Edit link …
The group details open in the Edit Group screen. Select a new parent group category from the Parent drop-down menu …
(Edit Group screen)
Click the Update button to save your changes …
To edit the Group name or slug, hover your mouse over the group name and select Quick Edit …
Click Update Group when done …
Continue adding group names to this section until you have created your directory structure …
You can add as many nested groups as you like …
(Add nested groups to your staff directory)
After you are done setting up your hierarchical structure, you can begin adding staff details to your directory.
Staff Members – Add New
In your admin menu, select Staff Members > Add New …
(Staff Members Menu – Add New)
This opens up the Add New Staff Member section in your browser …
(Add New Staff Member section)
This area provides an easy-to-use interface for adding your staff member information and includes the following fields:
Name Section (1)
- Name: Your employee’s name
- Permalink: Edit the slug for your employee if you want (this section appears after saving your details).
Staff Photo Section (2)
- Photo: Upload a photo of your staff member
Staff Member Info Section (3)
- Position: Add the employee’s position
- Email: Your staff member’s email address
- Phone Number: Add the employee’s phone number into this field
- Facebook URL: Add the person’s Facebook URL (note: use the full URL, e.g. http://www.facebook.com/username)
- Twitter URL: Type in your employee’s Twitter username (note: only enter the username, not the full twitter URL)
Staff Member Bio Section (4)
- Staff Member Bio: Type in a profile description for your employees here. This uses the WordPress Text Editor, so you can add formatting to the content entered in this section.
Groups Section (5)
- Groups: You can assign the individual to a specific group (see the previous section of this tutorial to learn how to set up your groups).
Click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your screen …
(Screen options)
You will see options to enable additional features …
(Enable additional fields in screen options)
Now that you know what each section does, enter each of your staff member’s details …
(Add Staff Member fields)
After you have finished inputting details, assign your new entry to a directory group in the Groups feature located in your sidebar …
(Groups box)
Note: If you have not set up categories before starting to add new staff members, you can add a new group by selecting Groups > + Add New Group …
(Add a new group inside your Groups box)
A field for creating a group name will display, with a drop-down menu to assign your new entry to a parent group. Type in the name of your new category and click on Add New Group …
A new directory category will be added. Remember to tick the check box to assign a person to the group …
(Groups section)
Note: You cannot edit groups when adding or making changes to new employee details. To edit a group item, go to the Groups section of the plugin’s settings (see “Groups” section above for details).
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After typing in your employee’s details, click the Publish button to add them to the directory …
Click View Post …
To edit the person’s profile, click on the Edit Staff Member link in your admin toolbar …
(Edit Staff Member link – admin toolbar)
For a detailed step-by-step tutorial about using the admin toolbar , go here:
Note: If ’not found’ page errors like the one shown in the screenshot below shows up, check that you have configured your permalinks correctly …
(Check your permalinks if you get ’not found’ page errors)
To learn more about setting up permalinks, see this tutorial:
Repeat the above process to add new details to your staff or faculty directory.
Staff Members – All Staff Members
After you are done entering staff details to your directory, you can view and edit their details by clicking Staff Members > All Staff Members in the WordPress admin menu …
(Staff Members Menu – All Staff Members)
This brings up a list with all your staff members and the details you have added with each entry …
(Staff Members table)
If you need to change an individual’s entry, hover over their list name, and a submenu will appear.
Click on Edit if you need to update their Staff Bio, or Quick Edit to edit details like name, slug, group, and publish status. You can also delete a listing from the staff directory by clicking on the Trash link, or view the entry on your site by clicking View …
(Edit Staff Members profile info)
If you have many employees added to this section, your list can get quite long.
You can use the Search Staff Members search feature to locate member details if necessary …
(Search members)
You can specify which fields can display in this screen. To show or hide fields on your screen, click the Screen Options tab at the top of your page …
(Screen Options)
Placing a tick in the item’s checkbox displays the field and unselecting it hides the field. You can also specify how many staff members are shown per page. Click Apply when finished to update 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 in your WordPress admin menu …
(Staff Members – Order)
To reorder your listings, click and drag the item to the new location …
(Rearrange listings using drag and drop)
Your directory will automatically be rearranged …
(Reordered listings)
Once you have added members’ details to the directory, the next step is to make the directory display to your visitors.
Staff Members – Order
Simple Staff List also features a drag-and-drop interface allowing you to specify the order in which entries display on your directory page.
Select Staff Members > Order on the WP admin menu …
(Staff Members Menu – Order)
To rearrange the order of your entries, click and drag the entry to a new location …
(Rearrange listings using drag and drop)
Your list will be automatically reordered …
(Reordered list entries)
Once you have added all of your members’ details to the directory, the next step is to make your directory show to your site visitors.
Simple Staff List – Additional Notes
Simple Staff List lets you edit the style and layout of your staff directory listings using template tags and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets).
Templates Menu
To customize the style and layout of your directory, select Staff Members > Templates from the dashboard menu …
(Staff Members Menu – Templates)
This opens the Templates screen …
(Customize your directory template)
To customize your directory listings, reorganize any of the allowed template tags inside the [staff_loop] [/staff_loop] code.
For example, here is the Default Template …
(Default Plugin Template)
The This code will display your directory listing as shown below …
(Default Staff Loop Template Listing)
Notice that no Facebook or Twitter URLs are showing in the above example. 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 below …
(Template tags can be added to Staff Loop Template)
Your staff entries will now display with Facebook and Twitter addresses as shown in the example below …
(Employee profiles with social media links added)
Note: If you want to customize your directory listings but don’t want to mess with template tags or are not sure how to edit the template as shown above, please contact us for help.
Usage Menu
In addition to allowing you to customize your directory templates, the Simple Staff List plugin allows you to display your staff profiles differently using modified shortcodes.
In your menu, click on Staff Members >Usage …
(Staff Members – Usage)
This brings up the Usage screen …
(Simple Staff List plugin shortcodes)
This screen lists all the shortcode variations allowed by the Simple Staff List plugin.
A useful variation you can select, for example, to display only members of a specific group is the shortcode [simple-staff-list group=”group name”], (e.g.:[simple-staff-list group=”sales trainers”])
You can also make your listings display in ascending or descending order by inserting the shortcode [simple-staff-list order=”ASC”] (ascending).
Options Menu
In your menu, select Staff Members >Options …
(Staff Members – Options)
This brings up the Options screen …
(Simple Staff List – customizable fields)
This section lets you modify some of the labels used in the plugin
You can also export your staff members info by going to your menu and selecting Tools > Export …
(Export Staff Members info)
If you need plugin help or support, go to the plugin support page and contact the plugin developer.
Other Employee Directory Plugins
Simple Staff List is not the only for creating a directory of your team members. Here are other free WordPress plugins you can look at:
Modern Team Staff Directory
(Modern Team Staff Directory – WordPress Plugin)
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)
To learn more about this plugin go here:
Staff Directory
(Staff Directory – WordPress Staff Directory Plugin)
This plugin lets you easily create a directory of staff/faculty/team members. The plugin supports staff categories and can be used for churches, schools, etc.
This plugin also lets you use custom fields …
(Custom Details Fields. Screenshot sourced from Staff Directory website)
More info:
Faculty And Staff Directory
(Faculty And Staff Directory – Plugin For WordPress)
Faculty And Staff Directory 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 profiles in a widget area.
Go here to learn more:
Company Directory
(Company Directory)
Company Directory lets you easily add your employees to your site. Different layouts are available, including grid and table views, plus as fields like job title, email, phone number, photo 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 read more about each staff member in a customizable single view …
(Display your staff and faculty in an easy-to-view format. Screenshot source: Company Directory website)
This plugin uses shortcodes.
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Employee Spotlight
(Employee Spotlight – WordPress Plugin)
Employee Spotlight displays team members, partners or just a single member of your team in a four-column circle grid page. This page can be easily created with a setup assistant on plugin activation.
With the Employee Spotlight plugin, you get two sidebar widgets which display featured and recent employees selected in the editor, and two responsive views which adjust to the viewer’s screen.
Detailed information about each employee can be displayed in their own page, as well as in summary …
(Responsive layout with employee circle grid. Screenshot sourced from plugin website)
Go here to learn more:
Staffer
(Staffer – WordPress Staff Directory Plugin)
Staffer uses custom post types for employee management and supports the display of staff members via a shortcode, allowing you to easily create and manage an employee directory on your site …
(Staffer archive page. Screenshot sourced from Staffer plugin website)
Staffer works immediately with many popular WordPress themes, and also allows for custom template use and custom content wrappers.
For more details go here:
If the above plugins aren’t what you’re looking for, search the WordPress plugin directory or go online and search for:
- Add Staff Directory To WordPress
- WordPress Staff Directory Plugin
- Staff Directory WordPress Plugin
- Staff Directory Plugin WordPress
- etc.
Hopefully, now you know how to easily add an easy-to-manage list directory of employees or faculty members to in WordPress using a free plugin.
Models used to display fictitious staff members in this tutorial were sourced under creative commons license from pixabay.com
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