Communicate situation details to appropriate personnel
Part of the output can be produced by software today.
Software drafts well and sends at volume, and vertical support agents now resolve a large share of inbound questions end to end. What does not transfer is the relationship, and the judgment about when a message should not be sent at all.
| How automatable | Partly automatable |
|---|---|
| Kind of work | Routine communication and explanation |
| Jobs that do it | 8 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | Vertical agents, Builders |
| O*NET activity | Communicating with Supervisors, Peers, or Subordinates (4.A.4.a.2) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 8 occupations that perform it.
- Plan, direct, and supervise prescribed burn projects.
- Provide information to lab personnel concerning the source of an item of evidence and tests to be performed.
- Identify vehicles in violation of parking codes, checking with dispatchers when necessary to confirm identities or to determine whether vehicles need to be booted or towed.
- Monitor, note, report, and investigate suspicious persons and situations, safety hazards, and unusual or illegal activity in patrol area.
- Alert appropriate personnel to suspects' locations.
- Record license numbers of vehicles disregarding traffic signals, and report infractions to appropriate authorities.
- Contact leads or supervisors to discuss objects of concern that are not on prohibited object lists.
- Identify and report merchandise or stock shortages.
- Summon medical help for injured individuals and alert medical personnel to take statements from them.
- Perform simple vehicle maintenance procedures, such as checking oil and gas, and report mechanical problems to supervisors.
- Notify patrol units to take violators into custody or to provide needed assistance or medical aid.
- Inform other screeners when baggage should not be opened because it might contain explosives.
- Identify and report safety concerns to maintain a safe shopping and working environment.
- Notify command of situation and request assistance.
- Make arrangements for illegally parked or abandoned vehicles to be towed, and direct tow-truck drivers to the correct vehicles.
- Notify supervisors or other appropriate personnel when security breaches occur.
- Notify, or request notification of, medical examiner or district attorney representative.
- View images of checked bags and cargo, using remote screening equipment, and alert baggage screeners or handlers to any possible problems.
What we would actually use
One recommendation rather than a shortlist, because a shortlist is just your problem handed back. This is what we would buy for routine communication and explanation, and what it costs.
Drafting replies costs nothing beyond the assistant you already pay for. Only move to a support agent billed per resolution once the inbound volume is large enough that the per-resolution price beats the hour it takes you.
Chosen for the cheapest thing that does the job, not the best funded. Nothing on this site is sponsored, and the full landscape is there when you want to disagree with us.
The rest of the category
Context, not alternatives to weigh up. We name the layer rather than promise a named product does your specific task.
Matched from the kind of work, not from vendor marketing. Check any of them can reach the system your records actually live in — that connection, not the model, is where these projects stall.
How people actually do it
No workflow names this activity yet, but these automate the same kind of work, with the prompts to paste and what to keep for yourself.
Who does this work
8 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Notify others of emergencies or problems”. In practice they tend to be done by the same person, in the same sitting.
Method. The activity, its taxonomy placement and the occupations that perform it come straight from the public-domain O*NET 30.3 database. The automatability band is ours: we map each of O*NET’s 41 generalized work activities to how much of its output current software can produce, assuming a person still reviews and owns the result. It is a coarse three-way judgment on purpose. A precise-looking percentage here would be invented.