The word ‘STAFF’ — and how to use it.

The word ‘staff’ poses a problem for many users of English in Hong Kong. What exactly does it refer to? Is it singular or plural? Is it a countable noun or an uncountable noun? ​

In fact, grammatically speaking, ‘staff' is a singular count noun. However, it is generally used in English to refer not to a single individual but to a collection of individuals. ‘Staff’ means ‘all the people employed by a particular organisation’. So when we use the word ‘staff’ in English, we are using a singular noun to refer to a group of people.

There are a number of words like this in English. Another one is the word 'audience', which is a singular count noun but is always used to refer to a collection of all the people attending a show or performance. Sometimes this kind of noun is referred to as a 'collective noun'.

For Hong Kong writers, it's important to remember that 'staff' (and similar words, like 'audience') cannot be used to refer to just one person. So for example, we cannot say:

• Please tell your new staff that she must not wear jewellery to work.

This sentence is clearly talking about an individual, not a collection of people. To refer to an individual like this, we need to use an expression like 'staff member' or 'member of staff':

• Please tell your new member of staff that she must not wear jewellery to work.

Because 'staff' refers to ALL the employees of an organisation, it is not necessary to use the word in the plural:

• NOT -- We invite all our staffs and their families to the Christmas Dinner.
• BUT -- We invite all our staff and their families to the Christmas Dinner.
• OR --   We invite all our members of staff and their families to the Christmas Dinner.

Exactly the same is true of the way we use the word 'audience'

• NOT -- At the concert, the audiences were noisy.
• BUT -- At the concert, the audience was noisy.
• OR --   At the concert, the members of the audience were noisy.

One final point to remember: there are a few contexts where words like 'staff' and 'audience' CAN be used in the plural. If we are talking about people employed by more than one organisation, for example, we have more than one set of staff and can use the plural form to describe them:

• The staffs of the Yau Ma Tei office and the Tsuen Wan office got together for a sports day

Similarly, if we are talking about more than one audience group, the plural can be used:

• The audiences for the concert varied in size between Monday and Saturday.