Operand clash with date table and varchar date strings in cross join

Question

This follows on from my previous question, but since I tried to simplify, I appear to have missed something Daily snapshot table using cte loop

I am trying to set up the below cross join between dates and an employee table. I need a daily count according to division and department, but the dates won't link easily since the dates are stored as varchar (not my choice, I can't change it).

I now have a date table that includes a style112 (yyyymmdd) key that I can link to the table, but there seems to be a failure somewhere along the joins.

I'm so close, but really am lost! I have never had to work with string dates and wouldn't wish it upon anyone.

    DECLARE @DATESTART AS Date = '20180928';

    DECLARE @DATEEND AS Date = '20181031';

    WITH Dates AS (
        SELECT  @DATESTART AS Dte
        UNION ALL
        SELECT  DTE + 1
        FROM Dates
        WHERE Dte <= @DATEEND  )

    SELECT
        Dt.Dte
        ,CAST(DTC.Style112 AS VARCHAR)
        ,Emp.Division_Description
        ,Emp.Department_Description
        ,(SELECT
                COUNT(*)
            FROM ASS_D_EmpMaster_Live E

            WHERE
                E.[Start_Date] <= CAST(DTC.Style112 AS VARCHAR)
                AND (E.Leaving_Date > CAST(DTC.Style112 AS VARCHAR)
                            OR E.Leaving_Date = '00000000')
                                 ) Counts
    FROM Dates Dt

    LEFT JOIN ASS_C_DateConversions DTC
        ON DTC.[Date] = Dt.DtE


        CROSS JOIN
            (
                SELECT DISTINCT
                    Division_Description
                    ,Department_Description
                FROM
                    ASS_D_EmpMaster_Live e              
                ) Emp

    OPTION (MAXRECURSION 1000)

Desired output:
Date            Dept1    Dept2    Dept3
20180901       25       231       154
20180902       23       232       154

Answer 1

I don't think you need the conversion table at all and I would remove it. And I believe the subquery should look like this:

SELECT COUNT(*)
FROM ASS_D_EmpMaster_Live E
WHERE
         CAST(E.Start_Date   AS DATE) <= Dt.Dte
    AND (CAST(E.Leaving_Date AS DATE) >  Dt.Dte OR E.Leaving_Date = '00000000')