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I am looking for a term which would refer to all of the nontechnical staff at a technical company.

For example, if it is a software firm, the term would refer to, say, all HR, education, travel and relocation, wellness and finance staff.


Example

Without the great [nontechnical staff] at our company, our programmers wouldn’t have been able to achieve what they did.


Words I considered

I could use the term “nontechnical staff” but I do not like the fact that it denotes what they aren’t instead of what they are.

I also thought about “support staff”. According to Cambridge Dictionary, support staff are

the people who work for an organization to keep it running and to support the people who are involved in the organization’s main business.

However, the problem with this term is that, at a technical company, when someone hears the term “support staff”, the first thing that comes to mind is IT or technical support staff.

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  • 3
    Administrative staff?
    – user 66974
    May 18, 2021 at 9:59
  • @user66974 This sounds like what I'm looking for. I made a search and saw that, for example, Google seems to be using this term: "Our People Operations team (known elsewhere as HR) and administrative staff are the curious and creative colleagues..." (careers.google.com/teams/people)
    – hb20007
    May 18, 2021 at 10:04
  • 2
    You seem to be ignoring sales staff; they normally wouldn't be classed as admin, but nor are they technical.
    – Stuart F
    May 18, 2021 at 10:15
  • 1
    If you use non-technical — and it seems ok to me — be sure to hyphenate it. It makes it easier to read.
    – David
    May 18, 2021 at 18:02
  • 2
    muggles
    – psmears
    Jun 18, 2021 at 13:31

3 Answers 3

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I will go with administrative staff, or administrative and sales staff if sales staff are also included.

Thanks to Stuart F and David for providing the answer in the comments.

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Ancillary staff - defined here by

The ancillary workers in an institution are the people [...] whose work supports the main work of the institution.

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  • +1. This is the word but nobody likes being called it. Like calling custodians, janitors.
    – Mazura
    Sep 17, 2022 at 21:47
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Maybe just say "other members of our company" it simple and gets the point across.

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  • It sounds too impersonal in my opinion.
    – hb20007
    May 19, 2021 at 11:55

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