Direct organizational operations, projects, or services
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 | 19 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 19 occupations that perform it.
- Direct, plan, or implement policies, objectives, or activities of organizations or businesses to ensure continuing operations, to maximize returns on investments, or to increase productivity.
- Direct sustainability program operations to ensure compliance with environmental or governmental regulations.
- Direct administrative activities directly related to making products or providing services.
- Coordinate activities of departments, such as sales, graphic arts, media, finance, and research.
- Direct or participate in emergency management and contingency planning.
- Direct daily operations of department, analyzing workflow, establishing priorities, developing standards and setting deadlines.
- Oversee training programs.
- Direct activities of accounting or operations departments.
- Direct or coordinate production, processing, distribution, or marketing activities of industrial organizations.
- Direct the tracking of defects, test results, or other regularly reported quality control data.
- Direct inbound or outbound operations, such as transportation or warehouse activities, safety performance, and logistics quality management.
- Coordinate clerical, record-keeping, inventory, requisitioning, and marketing activities.
- Prepare and maintain attendance, activity, planning, accounting, or personnel reports and records for officials and agencies, or direct preparation and maintenance activities.
- Prepare, maintain, or oversee the preparation and maintenance of attendance, activity, planning, or personnel reports and records.
- Plan or direct research, development, or production activities.
- Organize and supervise activities, such as the processing of incoming and outgoing mail.
- Manage and oversee operations, maintenance, administration, and improvement of commercial, industrial, or residential properties.
- Perform administrative and management functions related to the practice of law.
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
19 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Advertising and Promotions Managers
- Chief Executives
- Chief Sustainability Officers
- Computer and Information Systems Managers
- Education Administrators, Kindergarten through Secondary
- Education and Childcare Administrators, Preschool and Daycare
- Farmers, Ranchers, and Other Agricultural Managers
- Financial Managers
- First-Line Supervisors of Mechanics, Installers, and Repairers
- General and Operations Managers
- Industrial Production Managers
- Investment Fund Managers
- Lawyers
- Natural Sciences Managers
- Postmasters and Mail Superintendents
- Property, Real Estate, and Community Association Managers
- Quality Control Systems Managers
- Security Managers
- Transportation, Storage, and Distribution Managers
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.