How To Add A Staff Directory In WordPress

Something that’s been proven to work in business, is that people will buy from those they know, like and trust.

If you are looking for quicker, easier and cheaper ideas to grow your business online and get people to stay longer on your site, then something you can do, is make it easier for visitors to get to know, like and trust you, your team and your business better.

If your website uses the WordPress CMS, one way to easily help visitors get to know you better is to display information about your key people, your team, or your staff using a staff list plugin.

This step-by-step tutorial will show you how to add an easy-to-update employee directory to WordPress.

Plugin Tutorial: Adding An Employee List Directory

In this tutorial, you will learn how to install, activate and configure a free plugin called Simple Staff List.

Simple Staff List

(Simple Staff List Plugin For WordPress)

Simple Staff List lets you display basic information to visitors about your staff on your site.

The first step is to install and activate the plugin.

Log into the dashboard and in your admin menu section, choose Plugins > Add New …

(Plugins Menu – Add New)

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

Click on the Install Now button …

(Plugins  – plugin search results)

Click on the Activate Plugin link …

(Activate plugin)

After installing and activating your plugin, you will notice that new menu will appear in the WordPress admin menu section called Staff Members …

(Staff Members)

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

How To Configure The Simple Staff List Plugin

Depending on the size of your business and how you want to structure your employee directory, you can start to add new staff members after installing the plugin, or create various groups (i.e. categories) that you will assign to your members.

Staff Members – Groups

Let’s start by setting up your directory categories. From your WordPress dashboard menu, choose Staff Members > Groups …

(Staff Members – Groups)

This brings you to the Groups screen …

(Groups settings screen)

Note: Adding groups works just like categories …

(Groups work like WordPress categories)

Add a new group by entering the following information:

1. Group Name – Type in your group category name
2. 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.
3. Parent – Use this drop-down menu if you plan to set up nested categories
4. Description – Enter the group description in this field
5. Click Add New Group when done to create your new directory group …

(Groups screen)

If you work with a business that employs many people, the ability to set up different groups can be very useful. For example, you can create a group for investors, project teams, faculties, etc.

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

(Nested groups)

Remember to click on the Add New Group button after creating each item …

To change Groups for an individual entry, hover your mouse button over a category title and click on the Edit link …

The selected category details open in the Edit Group page. Select a new parent group from the Parent drop-down menu …

(Edit Group screen)

Click Update when done …

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

Click Update Group to save your changes …

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

You can add as many nested groups as you like …

(Nested categories)

Once you are done setting up your groups, you can begin to add staff details to your directory.

Staff Members – Add New

In your admin menu, click on Staff Members > Add New …

(Staff Members – Add New)

This brings you to the Add New Staff Member settings screen …

(Add New Staff Member area)

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

Name Section (1)

• Name: The employee’s name
• Slug: You can change the slug associated with each staff member if you want (you will see this section after saving your details).

Staff Photo Section (2)

• Photo: Upload a photo here

Staff Member Info Section (3)

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

Staff Member Bio Section (4)

• Staff Member Bio: Type a profile description for your staff or faculty member here. This uses the WordPress Text Editor, so you can format content into this section.

Groups Section (5)

• Groups: This section lets you assign a staff or team member to a specific group (see the previous section to learn how to set up your groups).

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

(Screen options tab)

You will see options to enable additional page settings …

(Enable additional fields in screen options tab)

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

(Add New Staff Member settings)

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

(Groups section)

Note: If you have not set up groups before adding new staff members, 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 category and click on Add New Group …

A new directory category will be added. Remember to tick the check box to assign your listing to the group …

(New group)

Note: Groups cannot be edited when adding or making changes to an employee’s 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).

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After entering your staff member’s details, click the Publish button to add them to the staff directory …

Click View Post …

You can edit your employee’s profile by clicking the Edit Staff Member link in the WP admin toolbar …

(Edit Staff Member link – admin toolbar)

We have created a detailed tutorial about using the WP admin toolbar here:

• An Overview Of The WordPress Admin Page

Note: If you get ’page not found’ errors like the one shown below, check that you have correctly configured your site’s permalinks …

(Check your permalinks if you get ’page not found’ errors)

If you need help setting up permalinks in WordPress, go here:

• How To Configure WordPress Permalinks

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

Staff Members – All Staff Members

Once you are done entering employees into your directory, you can view and edit their details by choosing Staff Members > All Staff Members on your main menu …

(Staff Members Menu – All Staff Members)

This brings up a table displaying all your employees and details you have added with each entry …

(Staff Members details list)

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

Click on Edit if you want to update their Staff Bio, or Quick Edit to update details like name, slug, group, and publish status. You can also remove a list item from the employee directory by clicking on Trash, or view the entry on your site by clicking View …

(Editing Staff Members profile information)

If you have many entries, your table can grow quite large.

Use the Search Staff Members search box to find a member …

(Search Staff Members search field)

The plugin also lets you specify which fields to display in this screen. To show 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 select how many staff members are listed per page. Click Apply when finished to save your settings …

Staff Members – Order

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

Select Staff Members > Order on your menu …

(Staff Members Menu – Order)

To rearrange the order of your items, click and drag the item to the new position …

(Reorder items using drag and drop)

Your directory will automatically be rearranged …

(Reordered list entries)

After adding all member listing details to the 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 allowing you to specify the order in which entries appear on your directory page.

Select Staff Members > Order on the menu …

(Staff Members – Order)

To rearrange the order of your items, click and drag the entry to its desired position …

(Reorder items using drag and drop)

Your list will automatically be reordered …

(Reordered list)

Once you have added all of your employees’ listing details to the directory, the next step is to make your directory display on your site.

Simple Staff List – Additional Notes

The Simple Staff List plugin allows you to create the style and layout of your employee 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 your menu …

(Staff Members Menu – Templates)

This brings up the Templates screen …

(Customize your directory template)

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

For example, below is a screenshot of the default template used for displaying directory listings …

(Default Simple Staff List Staff Loop Template)

The The code shown above displays your directory listing as shown below …

(Default Plugin Template Listing)

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

(Use template tags to customize your listings page)

Here is what your staff list will now look like …

(Employee profiles with social media URLs)

Note: If you want to customize how your directory looks but don’t want to mess with CSS styles and template tags or are unsure of what to do, please contact us for help.

Usage Menu

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

In your menu, choose Staff Members >Usage …

(Staff Members Menu – Usage)

This brings up the Usage screen …

(Usage shortcodes)

This screen displays all different shortcode variations allowed by the Simple Staff List plugin.

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

Or, you can make your listings display in ascending or descending order by inserting the shortcode [simple-staff-list order=”DESC”] (descending).

Options Menu

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

(Staff Members – Options)

This opens the Options page …

(Simple Staff List – customizable fields)

This section lets you edit some of the labels used in the plugin

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

(Export Staff Members plugin information)

If you need additional information about the Simple Staff List plugin, go to the Simple Staff List faq page.

Other Employee Directory Plugins

Simple Staff List is not the only plugin you can use. Here are some other free plugins you can use:

Modern Team Staff Directory

(Modern Team Staff Directory)

The Modern Team Staff Directory 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)

More info:

• Modern Team Staff Directory – WordPress Staff Directory Plugin

Staff Directory

(Staff Directory)

With the Staff Directory plugin, you can easily display a list of faculty/team/staff members. The plugin supports staff categories and can be used for companies, schools, etc.

This plugin also lets you add custom fields …

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

More info:

• Staff Directory – Plugin For WordPress

Faculty And Staff Directory

(Faculty And Staff Directory)

This plugin provides a simple and flexible faculty and staff directory for a small college or university.

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

More info:

• Faculty And Staff Directory – WP Staff Directory Plugin

Company Directory

(Company Directory)

This plugin lets you easily add your employees to your site. Different layouts are available, including list and table views, as well as fields like title, email address, phone, photo and 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 employee in a customizable single view …

(Display your staff and faculty members in an easy-to-view format. Screenshot sourced from Company Directory website)

This plugin uses simple shortcodes.

For more details, visit the plugin site here:

• Company Directory – WordPress Plugin

Employee Spotlight

(Employee Spotlight – WordPress Plugin)

Employee Spotlight displays team members, founders or just a single member of your team in a 4-column circle grid page. This page can be easily created with a setup assistant upon plugin activation.

This plugin comes with 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 circle grid. Screenshot source: plugin website)

For more details go here:

• Employee Spotlight – WP Plugin

Staffer

(Staffer – Plugin For WordPress)

This plugin uses custom post types for employee 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 sourced from Staffer plugin website)

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

For more details go here:

• Staffer – Plugin For WordPress

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

Congratulations! Now you know how to add a simple employee or faculty directory to your WordPress site with no coding skills required, so your web visitors can get to know your organization better.

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

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