Coordinate operational activities
Little of this can be handed to software today.
The reporting and paperwork around management automate well. Directing, developing and evaluating people does not, and people do not accept it when it is attempted on them.
| How automatable | Barely automatable |
|---|---|
| Kind of work | Managing, training and developing people |
| Jobs that do it | 15 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | Enterprise platforms |
| O*NET activity | Guiding, Directing, and Motivating Subordinates (4.A.4.b.4) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 15 occupations that perform it.
- Coordinate the disposal of hazardous waste.
- Coordinate the release of personal effects to authorized persons and facilitate the disposition of unclaimed corpses and personal effects.
- Coordinate communication between patients, family members, medical staff, administrative staff, or regulatory agencies.
- Coordinate activities with other supervisory personnel or with other work units or departments.
- Coordinate special programs, such as United Way campaigns, that involve payroll deductions.
- Schedule and coordinate transfer and delivery of security certificates between companies, departments, and customers.
- Coordinate or maintain office tracking systems for correspondence or follow-up actions.
- Negotiate and arrange transport of goods with shipping or freight companies.
- Determine response requirements and relative priorities of situations, and dispatch units in accordance with established procedures.
- Arrange for necessary repairs to restore service and schedules.
- Arrange for delivery, assembly, or distribution of supplies or parts to expedite flow of materials and meet production schedules.
- Coordinate and direct office services, such as records, departmental finances, budget preparation, personnel issues, and housekeeping, to aid executives.
- Coordinate conferences, meetings, or special events, such as luncheons or graduation ceremonies.
- Route proofs with marked corrections to authors, editors, typists, or typesetters for correction or reprinting.
- Initiate or conduct airport-wide coordination of snow removal on runways and taxiways.
- Plan for or coordinate office services, such as equipment or supply acquisition or organization, disposal of assets, relocation, parking, maintenance, or security services.
- Participate in the administration of municipal elections, such as preparation or distribution of ballots, appointment or training of election officers, or tabulation or certification of results.
- Plan production commitments or timetables for business units, specific programs, or jobs, using sales forecasts.
What we would actually use
Nothing in our landscape addresses this work. That is the honest answer rather than a padded list: this activity needs a person present, or a machine rather than a software agent.
Buy nothing. The reporting and paperwork around management run on whatever you already use for documents, and the part that is actually managing people does not automate at any price.
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.
Enterprise platforms
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
15 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Airfield Operations Specialists
- Brokerage Clerks
- Brownfield Redevelopment Specialists and Site Managers
- Cargo and Freight Agents
- Coroners
- Court, Municipal, and License Clerks
- Dispatchers, Except Police, Fire, and Ambulance
- Executive Secretaries and Executive Administrative Assistants
- First-Line Supervisors of Office and Administrative Support Workers
- Patient Representatives
- Payroll and Timekeeping Clerks
- Production, Planning, and Expediting Clerks
- Proofreaders and Copy Markers
- Public Safety Telecommunicators
- Secretaries and Administrative Assistants, Except Legal, Medical, and Executive
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Direct organizational operations, activities, or procedures”. 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.