Meaning & use
staff member
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Meaning
nouncountableformal
Someone who works for an organization such as a school, hospital or company as part of its regular team.
Grammar: Countable: one staff member, ten staff members.
Patterns
- a staff member at something
- a staff member of something
A staff member at the front desk helped us find the room.
Every staff member must wear an identification badge.
The school thanked each staff member for their hard work.
Word forms
| plural | staff members |
|---|
Common combinations
- ask a staff member
- If you cannot find the book, ask a staff member.
- new staff member
- The new staff member starts on Monday.
- senior staff member
- A senior staff member will review your application.
- full-time staff member
- She became a full-time staff member after her internship.
- staff member on duty
- The staff member on duty unlocked the gym.
Synonyms and how they differ
- employee
- Employee is the usual everyday word and stresses the job contract, while staff member sounds more formal and stresses belonging to a team.
- worker
- Worker is broader and can describe any person doing work, not necessarily for one organization.
- colleague
- Colleague describes someone from your own point of view as a fellow worker, not their job status.
- team member
- Team member fits any group working together, even volunteers, whereas staff member suggests an employer.
Opposites
Word family
- staff noun
- all the people who work for an organization
- staffer noun
- informal word for a member of staff, especially in politics or journalism
- staffing noun
- the providing of workers for an organization
- understaffed adjective
- having too few workers
Commonly confused: staff member or personnel?
staff member vs personnel
Personnel means the people employed by an organization as a group, or the department that deals with them, and is not used for one individual.
Practice
If you need directions inside the museum, ask a ___.
Choose one answer.
After the article a, a singular countable noun is needed, so staff member is correct. Staff members is plural, and staffing and staffed are not nouns for a person.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “staff member”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.