Discuss problems or issues with supervisors
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 | 16 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 16 occupations that perform it.
- Identify children showing signs of emotional, developmental, or health-related problems and discuss them with supervisors, parents or guardians, and child development specialists.
- Confer with parents or guardians, other teachers, counselors, and administrators to resolve students' behavioral and academic problems.
- Confer with parents or guardians, teachers, counselors, and administrators to resolve students' behavioral and academic problems.
- Confer with parents, guardians, teachers, counselors, or administrators to resolve students' behavioral or academic problems.
- Meet with other professionals to discuss individual students' needs and progress.
- Communicate behavioral observations and student progress reports to students, parents, teachers, or administrators.
- Meet with other instructors to discuss individual students and their progress.
- Notify superior when restoration of artifacts requires outside experts.
- Notify instructors of errors or problems with assignments.
- Meet with supervisors to discuss students' grades or to complete required grade-related paperwork.
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
16 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Adapted Physical Education Specialists
- Adult Basic Education, Adult Secondary Education, and English as a Second Language Instructors
- Career/Technical Education Teachers, Middle School
- Career/Technical Education Teachers, Secondary School
- Elementary School Teachers, Except Special Education
- Kindergarten Teachers, Except Special Education
- Middle School Teachers, Except Special and Career/Technical Education
- Museum Technicians and Conservators
- Preschool Teachers, Except Special Education
- Secondary School Teachers, Except Special and Career/Technical Education
- Self-Enrichment Teachers
- Special Education Teachers, Kindergarten
- Special Education Teachers, Middle School
- Special Education Teachers, Preschool
- Special Education Teachers, Secondary School
- Teaching Assistants, Postsecondary
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.