Receive information or instructions for performing work assignments
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 | 13 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 13 occupations that perform it.
- Receive written or oral instructions regarding material movement or excavation.
- Follow supervisors' instructions as to which parts to restore or replace and how much time the job should take.
- Attend preflight briefings concerning weather, altitudes, routes, emergency procedures, crew coordination, lengths of flights, food and beverage services offered, and numbers of passengers.
- Read maps and follow written or verbal geographic directions.
- Read maps and follow written and verbal geographic directions.
- Report to taxicab services or garages to receive vehicle assignments.
- Interpret train orders, signals, or railroad rules and regulations that govern the operation of locomotives.
- Read switching instructions and daily car schedules to determine work to be performed, or receive orders from yard conductors.
- Receive oral or written instructions from yardmasters or yard conductors indicating track assignments and cars to be switched.
- Receive information regarding train or rail problems from dispatchers or from electronic monitoring devices.
- Read work orders or receive oral instructions to determine work assignments or material or equipment needs.
- Read operating schedules or instructions or receive verbal orders to determine amounts to be pumped.
- Receive starting signals from conductors and use controls such as throttles or air brakes to drive electric, diesel-electric, steam, or gas turbine-electric locomotives.
- Receive, relay, and act upon instructions and inquiries from train operations and customer service center personnel.
- Receive instructions from dispatchers regarding trains' routes, timetables, and cargoes.
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
13 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Automotive Body and Related Repairers
- Bus Drivers, School
- Excavating and Loading Machine and Dragline Operators, Surface Mining
- Flight Attendants
- Laborers and Freight, Stock, and Material Movers, Hand
- Light Truck Drivers
- Locomotive Engineers
- Pump Operators, Except Wellhead Pumpers
- Rail Yard Engineers, Dinkey Operators, and Hostlers
- Railroad Brake, Signal, and Switch Operators and Locomotive Firers
- Railroad Conductors and Yardmasters
- Shuttle Drivers and Chauffeurs
- Taxi Drivers
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.