Notify others of emergencies, problems, or hazards
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.
- Report delays, accidents, or other traffic and transportation situations to dispatchers or other bus drivers, using phones or mobile two-way radios.
- Post warning signs and lock building doors to secure area to be fumigated.
- Investigate and report on accidents.
- Inform designated employees or departments of items loaded or problems encountered.
- Respond to and report in-flight emergencies and malfunctions.
- Inform pilots about nearby planes or potentially hazardous conditions, such as weather, speed and direction of wind, or visibility problems.
- Report facts concerning accidents or emergencies to hospital personnel or law enforcement officials.
- Report vehicle defects, accidents, traffic violations, or damage to the vehicles.
- Report delays, accidents, or other traffic and transportation situations to bases or other vehicles, using telephones or mobile two-way radios.
- Report delays, accidents, or other traffic and transportation situations, using telephones or mobile two-way radios.
- Report delays or accidents.
- Report delays, mechanical problems, and emergencies to supervisors or dispatchers, using radios.
- Report to appropriate authorities any violations of federal or state pilotage laws.
- Report any observed navigational hazards to authorities.
- Communicate with dispatchers concerning delays, unsafe sites, accidents, equipment breakdowns, or other maintenance problems.
- Alert airport emergency services in cases of emergency or when aircraft are experiencing difficulties.
- Report delinquent student behaviors to school administration.
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.
- Air Traffic Controllers
- Airline Pilots, Copilots, and Flight Engineers
- Ambulance Drivers and Attendants, Except Emergency Medical Technicians
- Bus Drivers, School
- Bus Drivers, Transit and Intercity
- Captains, Mates, and Pilots of Water Vessels
- First-Line Supervisors of Helpers, Laborers, and Material Movers, Hand
- Heavy and Tractor-Trailer Truck Drivers
- Light Truck Drivers
- Motorboat Operators
- Pest Control Workers
- Refuse and Recyclable Material Collectors
- School Bus Monitors
- Shuttle Drivers and Chauffeurs
- Stationary Engineers and Boiler Operators
- Subway and Streetcar Operators
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Notify others of emergencies or problems”. 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.