Monitor activities of individuals to ensure safety or compliance with rules
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 | 12 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | Enterprise platforms |
| O*NET activity | Monitoring Processes, Materials, or Surroundings (4.A.1.a.2) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 12 occupations that perform it.
- Monitor operations to ensure that staff members comply with administrative policies and procedures, safety rules, union contracts, environmental policies, or government regulations.
- Monitor employee and patron activities to ensure liquor regulations are obeyed.
- Circulate among gaming tables to ensure that operations are conducted properly, that dealers follow house rules, or that players are not cheating.
- Observe and monitor staff performance to ensure efficient operations and adherence to facility's policies and procedures.
- Oversee subject enrollment to ensure that informed consent is properly obtained and documented.
- Oversee day-to-day group activities of residents in institution.
- Monitor athletes' use of equipment to ensure safe and proper use.
- Inspect sporting equipment or examine participants to ensure compliance with event and safety regulations.
- Follow those who breach security until police or other security personnel arrive to apprehend them.
- Monitor sanitation practices to ensure that employees follow standards and regulations.
- Observe and monitor children's play activities.
- Monitor passenger behavior to identify threats to the safety of the crew and other passengers.
- Walk aisles of planes to verify that passengers have complied with federal regulations prior to takeoffs and landings.
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
12 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Chefs and Head Cooks
- Childcare Workers
- Clinical Research Coordinators
- Coaches and Scouts
- Flight Attendants
- Food Service Managers
- Gambling Managers
- Lodging Managers
- Social and Human Service Assistants
- Transportation Security Screeners
- Transportation, Storage, and Distribution Managers
- Umpires, Referees, and Other Sports Officials
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Monitor individual behavior or performance”. 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.