Direct construction or extraction personnel
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 | 16 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 16 occupations that perform it.
- Supervise, coordinate, or schedule the activities of construction or extractive workers.
- Supervise solar installers, technicians, and subcontractors for solar installation projects to ensure compliance with safety standards.
- Dig or direct digging of post holes and set poles to support structures.
- Direct the casting of the concrete and supervise laborers who use shovels or special tools to spread it.
- Observe distribution of paving material to adjust machine settings or material flow, and indicate low spots for workers to add material.
- Direct or train workers to install, maintain, or repair electrical wiring, equipment, or fixtures.
- Train or supervise others in laying pipe.
- Direct helpers engaged in pipe cutting, preassembly, or installation of plumbing systems or components.
- Hire, train, or supervise new employees or apprentices.
- Train, direct, or supervise other construction inspectors.
- Supervise crew members, and provide assistance in training them.
- Direct rig crews in drilling and other activities, such as setting up rigs and completing or servicing wells.
- Direct drilling crews performing activities such as assembling and connecting pipe, applying weights to drill pipes, or drilling around lodged obstacles.
- Place safety cones around blast areas to alert other workers of danger zones, and signal workers as necessary to ensure that they clear blast sites prior to explosions.
- Guide and assist crews laying track and resetting supports and blocking.
- Drill holes into sides of stones broken from masses, insert dogs or attach slings, and direct removal of stones.
- Assign work to employees, based on material or worker requirements of specific jobs.
- Monitor work of contractors and subcontractors to ensure projects conform to plans, specifications, schedules, or budgets.
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
16 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Carpenters
- Cement Masons and Concrete Finishers
- Construction and Building Inspectors
- Continuous Mining Machine Operators
- Derrick Operators, Oil and Gas
- Electricians
- Explosives Workers, Ordnance Handling Experts, and Blasters
- First-Line Supervisors of Construction Trades and Extraction Workers
- Paving, Surfacing, and Tamping Equipment Operators
- Pipelayers
- Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters
- Rock Splitters, Quarry
- Rotary Drill Operators, Oil and Gas
- Service Unit Operators, Oil and Gas
- Sheet Metal Workers
- Solar Energy Installation Managers
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Direct construction or extraction 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.