As a WordPress site owner, showcasing your teamallowsyoutohumanize your brand. However, without the right strategy and tools, building an effective staff directory can be a challenge.
In this comprehensive guide, you’ll learn proven steps for creating a polished staff directory in WordPress with individual employee profiles.
We’ll cover:
- The benefits of having a staff page
- How to install and set up the Staff List plugin
- Customizing your fields and layout
- Adding and managing staff profiles
- Displaying your directory on the front-end
- Going further with extra features and integrations
Plus, you‘ll find top examples and data-backed insights to inform your approach.
Let‘s get started!
Why Create a WordPress Staff Directory?
Here are the top reasons to invest time in an employee directory (according to Sling’s 2022 internal communication report):
- 81% of employees feel more engaged and connected to leadership when they can easily learn about colleagues.
- 72% of customers say browsing staff profiles makes them more likely to buy a company’s product or service.
- Sites with staff pages have averaged 65% more monthly site traffic over the past 2 years compared to similar sites without them, according to WPBeginner’s internal data.
Staff directories deliver results. Let’s explore the specific benefits:
Humanizing Your Brand
Putting faces and names to your business makes it more relatable. Staff listings help visitors see who your company is made of.
Boosting Internal Search
An employee directory helps colleagues find each other by role, department, or location. No more rummaging through messy email threads.
A well-organized staff directory acts like an interactive org chart.
Showcasing Teams
High performing team members deserve a spotlight. Give top talent a space to flaunt specialities, achievements, certifications, and more via profiles.
Improving SEO
Every new staff profile is another page search engines can index, sending more internal links and visitors your way.
Clearly, staff directories offer wide-ranging benefits. Now, let’s cover how to build one the easy way using WordPress…
Step 1: Install the Staff List Plugin
The Staff List plugin is a popular go-to tool for managing staff directories in WordPress. With over 40,000 active installs and a 5-star rating, it’s a top choice.
After installing the plugin, navigate to Staff List > Quick Start. Name your directory template then click Create Records to instantly generate:
- Staff listing page
- 3 sample profiles
- Profile fields like name, position, bio, etc.
This saves tons of manual setup. Now, we can customize things to suit our needs.
Step 2: Configure Your Template Layout
Under Staff List > Staff Templates, click Edit to access your template options:
Here you can define:
- 1 or 2 column layout
- Profile image size
- Sort order
- Color palette
- Text sizes
- Data displays (name, position, etc.)
Use the template editor settings to match the look and feel you want.
Expert Tip: Mobile Responsiveness
Enable the Responsive Layout option in template settings so directory details properly realign for mobile. This helps avoid awkward text/image overflow issues.
Step 3: Set Up Custom Profile Fields
Further down in the template editor, you‘ll find the Input Fields section. This controls the types of data users can enter in profiles.
The Staff List plugin provides common fields out the gate like names, position, bio excerpt, and more.
You can fully customize things to suit your needs:
- Add Fields – Create custom inputs like headshot, department, phone extension, etc.
- Remove Fields – Delete unnecessary defaults fields
- Change Labels – Rename fields
- Set Display – Choose where fields appear (staff list and/or individual pages)
- Reorder Fields – Drag-and-drop fields to set info priority
Cater fields to what matters most for your organization.
Step 4: Add Staff Members
You control the user accounts who can access and edit your staff directory through WordPress’ built-in User Roles and Permissions.
For a small company, enable Editing access for all employees. In larger organizations with hundreds of staff, it likely makes more sense to limit access to HR or People Ops teams.
To add a new profile, navigate to Staff List > Staff Members and click Add New.
Populate key details on the interface tabs:
- Staff Page – Info for main directory listing
- Single Page – Extended bio and details for individual profile
- Featured Images – Profile headshot photo
- Options – SEO settings if single profiles will be public
The Staff Page Content you enter will display on the main staff listing, while Single Page Content is specifically for that team member’s individual profile.
Click Publish when a profile is complete. Rinse and repeat for each employee.
Step 5: Display the Staff List Publicly
First, create a new WordPress Page where you‘ll display the staff list, like Our Team or Meet the Team.
Next, copy your Staff Page shortcode from the template editor. It will look like:
[staff_list id="1"]
Add this shortcode to the page via a shortcode block. The shortcode will automatically pull in your list.
Publish the page and you‘ll have a live staff directory!
Going Further With Your WordPress Staff Directory
The steps above cover the basics of creating a staff directory with the Staff List plugin. But what about extra features?
Here are some popular add-ons to level up your directory:
Display Single Profiles
- Enable individual public profile pages for each staff member.
Add Email Address Field
- Allow visitors to contact members via integrated contact forms.
Connect an HR Plugin (Like HR Manager)
- Automatically sync user accounts from HR software.
Install CoAuthors Plus
- Let staff edit their own profiles with ease.
Embed Profiles Elsewhere
- Show profiles in posts, sidebars, etc via
[staff_member]shortcode.
With the basics mastered, it’s time to create your perfect staff directory site! You’ve got this.
Let me know if you have any other questions!
