How To Add A Staff Directory In WordPress

Consumer behaviour research shows that people tend to buy from businesses they already know, like and trust.

Are you looking for ways to sell more products online or get people to stay longer on your site? Then one of the things you can do, is make it easier for visitors to get to know, like and trust your organization better.

Adding a ‘Meet Our Team’ directory to your site can generate greater trust, increase your online credibility and get more prospects to consider using your services.

This step-by-step tutorial explains how to create and add an easy-to-update staff directory in your web site.

Step-By-Step Tutorial: Adding A Staff Directory To Your WordPress Site

In this tutorial, we will install, activate and configure a no cost plugin called Simple Staff List.

Simple Staff List Plugin For WordPress

(Simple Staff List Plugin For WordPress)

The Simple Staff List plugin is free and lets you easily display information to visitors about your employee on your site.

First, let’s install and activate the Simple Staff List plugin.

Log into the WP dashboard and in your admin menu, click on Plugins > Add New …

(Plugins Menu – Add New)

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

Click on Install Now …

(WordPress Plugins  – plugin search results)

Click on the Activate Plugin link …

(Activate plugin)

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

(Staff Members)

All of the options and settings for your plugin are configured and managed in this menu.

How To Configure The Plugin

Depending on how many people are in your organization and how you want to structure your employee directory, you could start adding new staff entries after installing the plugin, or create different groups (i.e. categories) to place your individualmembers into.

Staff Members – Groups

Let’s start by setting up your groups. In your dashboard menu, select Staff Members > Groups …

(Staff Members – Groups)

This brings you to the Groups settings screen …

(Groups settings area)

Note: Configuring groups is just like configuring categories …

(Groups are like categories)

Create new groups by typing in the following information:

1. Group Name – Enter your category name here
2. Slug – Enter the URL-friendly version of your group name. Note: make sure that all letters are in lower case and use hyphens instead of spaces.
3. Parent – Use this section if you plan to set up nested groups
4. Description – Type in your group description in this field (optional)
5. Click the Add New Group button when finished to set up a new directory group …

(Groups settings)

If you run 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, project teams, departments, etc.

Create as many groups and nested groups as you want by adding new Groups and then using the Parent drop-down menu to assign these to a directory hierarchy …

(Nested groups)

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

To edit or reassign Groups for a particular entry, hover your mouse over a category title and click on the Edit link …

The selected item’s details will display in the Edit Group screen. Select a new parent category from the Parent dropdown menu …

(Edit Group screen)

Click the Update button to save your changes …

To edit the Group name or slug, hover over the group name and click on the Quick Edit menu feature …

Click on Update Group  when done …

Add as many group names as you need to until you are done creating your directory structure …

Add as many nested groups as you like …

(Nested groups)

Once you are done setting up your hierarchical structure, you can begin adding your people to your directory.

Staff Members – Add New

From your WordPress admin menu, select Staff Members > Add New …

(Staff Members Menu – Add New)

The Add New Staff Member settings area …

(Add New Staff Member screen)

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

Name Section (1)

• Name: Add the employee’s name
• Slug: You can modify your employees’ permalink URL (you will see this section after your first save).

Staff Photo Section (2)

• Photo: Upload a photo here

Staff Member Info Section (3)

• Position: Type in your staff member’s role into this field
• Email: Type your staff member’s email here
• Phone Number: Type the person’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: Add the person’s Twitter username here (note: only enter the username, not the full twitter URL)

Staff Member Bio Section (4)

• Staff Member Bio: Add a profile description for your employees here. This uses the WordPress Text Editor, so you can format content into this section.

Groups Section (5)

• Groups: Assign the individual to a specific group (see the previous section to learn how to set up groups).

Click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your screen …

(Screen options)

You can enable additional page settings …

(Enable additional fields in screen options)

Now that you know what each section does, enter your staff member’s details …

(Staff directory fields)

Once you have entered each of you staff member’s details, assign your entry to a directory group in the Groups section located in your sidebar …

(Groups feature)

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

(Groups > + Add New Group)

A field will appear allowing you to create a new group name, with a dropdown menu that lets you assign your new entry to a parent group. Type in the name of your new directory category and click on the Add New Group button …

Your new directory category will be created. Make sure that the checkbox is ticked …

(New group)

Note: You cannot edit groups when adding or editing 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 entering your team member’s details, click the Publish button to add them to your staff directory …

Click View Post …

To edit your staff member’s profile, click on the Edit Staff Member link in the WordPress admin toolbar …

(Edit Staff Member link – WordPress admin toolbar)

To learn more about using the WordPress admin toolbar, see this tutorial:

• The WP Dashboard – A Tutorial

Note: If ’not found’ page errors shows up like the one shown in the screenshot below, check that your site’s permalinks have been set up correctly …

(Not found error – Check your permalinks)

We have written a detailed tutorial on using WordPress permalinks here:

• Setting Up WordPress Permalinks

Repeat the above process to add new members to your directory directory.

Staff Members – All Staff Members

After you are done adding employees into your directory, you can view and edit their details by clicking Staff Members > All Staff Members in the menu …

(Staff Members – All Staff Members)

This brings up a list of all your employees and any details you have added for each entry …

(Staff Members list)

If you need to change individual entries, hover your mouse over their list name, and a submenu will appear.

Click on Edit to make changes to their Staff Bio, or Quick Edit to change details like name, slug, group, and publish status. You can also delete someone from the staff directory by clicking on the Trash link, or view the entry on your site by clicking View …

(Edit Staff Members details)

Depending on what you are using the plugin for, your list can become unwieldy.

You can use the Search Staff Members search field to locate listing items …

(Search Staff Members search feature)

The plugin also allows you to specify which fields can display in this screen. To hide or hide fields on your screen, click on Screen Options …

(Screen Options)

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

Staff Members – Order

The plugin also features a drag-and-drop interface that lets you set the order that listings display on your directory page.

Select Staff Members > Order on the menu …

(Staff Members Menu – Order)

To reorder your listings, click and drag the item to its desired position …

(Reorder items using drag and drop)

Your list will automatically be rearranged …

(Reordered listings)

After adding your member details to the directory, the next step is to make the directory show to your visitors.

Staff Members – Order

The Simple Staff List plugin also features a drag-and-drop interface allowing you to specify the order that listings appear on your directory pages.

Choose Staff Members > Order in your menu …

(Staff Members – Order)

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

(Reorder items using drag and drop)

Your list will automatically be reordered …

(Reordered list entries)

Once you are done adding members’ details to your directory, the next step is to make the directory show to your site users.

Simple Staff List – Additional Notes

The Simple Staff List plugin allows you to customize the style and layout of your staff directory entries 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 your main admin menu …

(Staff Members Menu – Templates)

This brings up the Templates page …

(Customize your directory template)

To customize your directory, reorganize any of the allowed template tags inside the [staff_loop] [/staff_loop] code.

For example, below is the Default Template …

(Default Plugin Staff Loop 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 show in the directory, we will need to add the [staff-facebook] and [staff-twitter] tags to the template loop, as shown below …

(Template tags can be added to Staff Loop Template)

Here is what your listings page will now look like …

(Directory listings with social media links added)

Note: If you want to customize how your directory looks but don’t want to mess around with CSS code and template tags or are not sure how to edit the template as shown above, please contact us for help.

Usage Menu

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

In your menu, select Staff Members >Usage …

(Staff Members – Usage)

This opens the Usage page …

(Usage shortcodes)

This screen lists all different shortcode variations that you can use with this plugin.

A useful variation you can choose, for example, to display a list of staff members belonging only to a specific group is the shortcode [simple-staff-list group=”group name”], (e.g.:[simple-staff-list group=”sales managers”])

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

Options Menu

Choose Staff Members >Options in your menu …

(Staff Members Menu – Options)

This brings up the Options page …

(Simple Staff List – Options settings)

Here you can edit labels like Staff Members URL Slug and Staff Member titles

You can also export your staff members info from the Tools > Export section …

(Export Staff Members information)

If you need any help with this plugin, go to the Simple Staff List plugin website and contact the plugin author.

Other Employee Directory Plugins For WordPress

Simple Staff List is not the only for displaying a directory of your faculty members. For example, here are some other free WordPress plugins you can look at:

Modern Team Staff Directory

(Modern Team Staff Directory – WP Staff Directory 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:

• Modern Team Staff Directory – WP Staff Directory Plugin

Staff Directory

(Staff Directory – WP Staff Directory Plugin)

This plugin lets you easily display a list of staff/faculty/team members. The plugin supports staff categories and can be used for companies, teams, etc.

The plugin also lets you insert custom fields …

(Custom Details Fields Screen. Screenshot source: Staff Directory plugin website)

More info:

• Staff Directory – Plugin For WordPress

Faculty And Staff Directory

(Faculty And Staff Directory – WP Staff Directory Plugin)

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:

• Faculty And Staff Directory – WP Staff Directory Plugin

Company Directory

(Company Directory)

With the Company Directory plugin, you can add your employees to your website. Different layouts are included, including list and customizable single views, as well as fields like position title, email, phone number, pic and 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 employee in a customizable single view …

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

This plugin also uses a simple shortcode system.

Learn more about this plugin here:

• Company Directory – WordPress Plugin

Employee Spotlight

(Employee Spotlight – WordPress Plugin)

Employee Spotlight displays staff members, founders or just an 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.

The Employee Spotlight plugincomes with two sidebar widgets which display featured and recent employees, plus 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 circle grid. Screenshot sourced from Employee Spotlight plugin website)

More info:

• Employee Spotlight

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 website …

(Staffer archive page. Screenshot source: Staffer plugin website)

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

Go here to learn more about this plugin:

• Staffer – WP Staff Directory Plugin

If the directory plugins listed above 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 List
• Staff Directory WordPress Plugin
• Staff Directory Plugin WordPress
• etc.

Congratulations! Now you know how to add and create a simple staff or team member directory to your WordPress site, so your web visitors can get to know you and your company better.

Images of models used to portray sample staff members in this tutorial were sourced under creative commons license from pixabay.com

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