Oversee business processes
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 | 10 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 10 occupations that perform it.
- Coordinate recall or market withdrawal activities as necessary.
- Prepare and process import and export documentation according to customs regulations, laws, or procedures.
- Direct administrative details, such as financial operations, dissemination of promotional materials, and responses to inquiries.
- Direct or coordinate Web-based fundraising activities, such as online auctions or donation Web sites.
- Administer employee insurance, pension, and savings plans, working with insurance brokers and plan carriers.
- Conduct or oversee collection of corporate intelligence to avoid fraud, financial crime, cyber attack, terrorism, and infrastructure failure.
- Supervise auditing of establishments, and determine scope of investigation required.
- Direct service of legal documents, such as subpoenas, warrants, notices of assessment, and garnishments.
- Manage or operate real estate offices, handling associated business details.
- Oversee installation of equipment such as water heater wraps, pipe insulation, weatherstripping, door sweeps, or low-flow showerheads to improve energy efficiency.
- Direct the collection and preparation of laboratory samples as requested by regulatory agencies.
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
10 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
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.