Confer with coworkers to coordinate work activities
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 | 19 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 19 occupations that perform it.
- Confer with researchers, clinicians, or information technology staff to determine data needs and programming requirements and to provide assistance with database-related research activities.
- Supervise and coordinate work of reporters and other editors.
- Consult with managers or other personnel to resolve problems in areas such as equipment performance, output quality, or work schedules.
- Correspond with customers and confer with coworkers to answer inquiries, discuss market fluctuations, or resolve account problems.
- Confer with company personnel regarding feasibility of complying with writers' requests.
- Meet with supervisor daily to submit completed assignments and discuss progress.
- Confer with production, sales, shipping, warehouse, or common carrier personnel to expedite or trace shipments.
- Check with home offices after completed deliveries to confirm deliveries and collections and to receive instructions for other deliveries.
- Scan status charts and computer screens, and contact emergency response field units to determine emergency units available for dispatch.
- Confer with department supervisors or other personnel to assess progress and discuss needed changes.
- Meet with individuals, special interest groups, and others on behalf of executives, committees, and boards of directors.
- Collaborate with graphic artists, editors and writers to produce master copies according to design specifications.
- Communicate with customers, employees, and other individuals to answer questions, disseminate or explain information, take orders, and address complaints.
- Confer with personnel, such as management, engineering, quality control, customer, or union workers' representatives, to coordinate work activities, resolve employee grievances, or identify and review resource needs.
- Coordinate work with that of engineers, technicians, and other aircraft maintenance personnel.
- Notify facility personnel of equipment shutdowns.
- Review work orders and discuss work with supervisors.
- Report hazardous field situations and damaged or missing meters.
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
19 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Automotive Service Technicians and Mechanics
- Avionics Technicians
- Bioinformatics Technicians
- Brokerage Clerks
- Control and Valve Installers and Repairers, Except Mechanical Door
- Correspondence Clerks
- Couriers and Messengers
- Desktop Publishers
- Editors
- Electrical and Electronics Repairers, Powerhouse, Substation, and Relay
- Electrical Power-Line Installers and Repairers
- Executive Secretaries and Executive Administrative Assistants
- First-Line Supervisors of Mechanics, Installers, and Repairers
- First-Line Supervisors of Office and Administrative Support Workers
- Interviewers, Except Eligibility and Loan
- Office Clerks, General
- Order Clerks
- Production, Planning, and Expediting Clerks
- Public Safety Telecommunicators
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Communicate with others about operational plans or activities”. 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.