Staffer Plugin Adds Staff Management and Profiles to WordPress

Adding staff, board members, or another collection of individuals is a common requirement when building an online presence for an organization. The best way to make sure that your staff member data is portable when you change themes, is to add it via a plugin.

Staffer is a newly approved plugin on WordPress.org that stores staff/employee information in a custom post type. It allows you to create and manage a directory of staff members, which displays on the frontend as individual profiles and a grid style directory.

Individual staff member pages can easily be created just like you would compose a regular post. The plugin adds a metabox to the editor for including staff member details such as a member’s title and social links. Member profile pictures are assigned using the featured image.

Staffer offers a wide range of settings for customizing the display of the directory and profiles, including the following:

• Optional staff grid layout
• Set listings per page
• Set a custom Staffer page title (default title is Staff), used as the archive page title and within breadcrumbs
• Set a custom URL slug
• Option to disable all Staffer CSS
• Custom content wrappers
• Ability to add custom CSS

Staffer is compatible with nearly every WordPress theme. For the few cases of incompatibility, the option to use custom content wrappers will usually solve any issues. Developers can also create their own archive-staff.php and single-staff.php files to override the plugin’s templates. If you want to order staff profiles, the plugin’s author recommends using the Post Types Order plugin in combination with Staffer.

I tested the plugin and it works as advertised. Staffer adds minimal styles, which helps it to integrate well with the rest of your site. If you’re in need of a ready made custom post type for staff management, Staffer is a flexible option that’s easy to use. Download it from WordPress.org.