The Road to Kojimachi

The word staff in English can take a few different meanings, but the meaning you probably think of first is: a worker for a department or organization.

But this meaning is not strictly correct. The real meaning is not for a single worker, but for an entire group of workers of a department or company or similar.

Dictionary: (n) 1: personnel who assist their superior in carrying out an assigned task; "the hospital has an excellent nursing staff"; "the general relied on his staff to make routine decisions" 2: the body of teachers and administrators at a school; "the dean addressed the letter to the entire staff of the university"

This group meaning is very important, and the two most common mistakes are 1) to use staff to mean a single person and 2) to use the word as a plural (staffs) to mean two or more individual workers.

Incorrect: A staff of the Marketing Department will be here soon.
Correct: A staff member from the Marketing Department will be here soon.

(Note that in natural spoken English we would say, "He works for the Marketing Department". Also "I work for DSi", not "I am a staff of DSi").

Incorrect: The survey will be undertaken by the staffs of DIEA.
Correct: The survey will be undertaken by several employees of DIEA.

Note that staff can be used as a plural. But in only two ways. One way is as a non-count noun for some undefined number of employees from a particular organization.

Example: After the opening ceremony, staff will be available to answer questions.

The other way is to refer to multiple complete sets of employees.

Example: This order affects the staffs of the Accounting Department and the Personnel Department.

So, are you a staff or an employee?