Staff can be composed of directors, employees, contractors and other contingents. Can any give me a word that will describe all of these types of people?
Colleague doesn't work as that's when talking about your colleagues, I've seen associate but I'm not crazy about it, but if it's all I've got, it's all I've got.
Is there a canonical term out there that describes what I'm after? I'd imagine it'd be used like this:
The staff of Acme Corp is composed of talented {x}s
This may not be a corporate entity; it could be a school or a small business for example. Actually as I type it, a school's a good example – it's got teachers, a principal, at least one vice-principal, caretaking staff, cleaning staff, etc. What would one word be to describe all of these people?
Best Answer
The word staff used in this sense is already singular. It derives from the idea of support provided by a stick, a staff or stave.
It was originally a military term - for a staff of officers:
But it has come to apply to any organisation which is managed:
So I'm afraid the bad news is that since it is already singular, you cannot derive from it something which is "more singular". The only possibility, other than member of staff is to describe the person by name, e.g. the deputy assistant butler, twice removed. (Quotations from Oxford English Dictionary)