personale

Personale is an Italian term used as both a noun and an adjective. As a noun, il personale denotes the body of people employed by an organization—the staff or workforce. The term is commonly used in business, administration, and public services to refer to employees as a group, for example, il personale è stato convocato or il personale amministrativo. As an adjective, personale describes something relating to a person or to individuals, or something private, such as dati personali (personal data) or spazio personale (personal space). The word can apply to both people and attributes linked to individual privacy.

Origin and usage: Personale derives from Latin personalis, from persona meaning person. In modern Italian it functions in both senses described above; in human-resources contexts it is often paired with a department or function, e.g., personale amministrativo, personale docente, personale tecnico, or personale non docente in schools and universities.

Distinctions: personale as a noun refers to a collective workforce, whereas dipendente refers to an individual employee; persone is the plural of persona (person). The adjective form personale is used to denote privacy or individuality, as in dati personali, and should not be confused with the English loanword personal in borrowed phrases.

See also: personnel, human resources, data protection.