Supervise employees
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 | 57 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 57 occupations that perform it.
- Establish personal offices in local districts or states, and manage office staff.
- Manage sales team, including setting goals, providing incentives, and evaluating employee performance.
- Direct the hiring, training, or performance evaluations of marketing or sales staff and oversee their daily activities.
- Oversee regional and local sales managers and their staffs.
- Assign, supervise, and review the activities of public relations staff.
- Assign, supervise, and review the activities of fundraising staff.
- Supervise or provide leadership to subordinate security professionals, performing activities such as hiring, investigating applicants' backgrounds, training, assigning work, evaluating performance, or disciplining.
- Plan, direct, or coordinate the activities of workers in branches, offices, or departments of establishments, such as branch banks, brokerage firms, risk and insurance departments, or credit departments.
- Supervise employees performing financial reporting, accounting, billing, collections, payroll, and budgeting duties.
- Supervise subordinate employees.
- Oversee workers including supervisors, inspectors, or laboratory workers engaged in testing activities.
- Direct and coordinate activities of personnel engaged in buying, selling, and distributing materials, equipment, machinery, and supplies.
- Supervise the activities of workers engaged in receiving, storing, testing, and shipping products or materials.
- Plan, direct, supervise, and coordinate work activities of subordinates and staff relating to employment, compensation, labor relations, and employee relations.
- Hire, supervise, and train support workers.
- Direct and supervise construction or related workers.
- Direct and coordinate activities of teachers or administrators at daycare centers, schools, public agencies, or institutions.
- Direct and coordinate activities of teachers, administrators, and support staff at schools, public agencies, and institutions.
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
57 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Advertising and Promotions Managers
- Buyers and Purchasing Agents, Farm Products
- Claims Adjusters, Examiners, and Investigators
- Commercial Divers
- Compensation and Benefits Managers
- Construction Managers
- Coroners
- Editors
- Education Administrators, Kindergarten through Secondary
- Education Administrators, Postsecondary
- Education and Childcare Administrators, Preschool and Daycare
- Electrical and Electronics Repairers, Powerhouse, Substation, and Relay
- Farm Labor Contractors
- Farmers, Ranchers, and Other Agricultural Managers
- Financial and Investment Analysts
- Financial Examiners
- Financial Managers
- First-Line Supervisors of Firefighting and Prevention Workers
- First-Line Supervisors of Mechanics, Installers, and Repairers
- First-Line Supervisors of Security Workers
- Fish and Game Wardens
- Fitness and Wellness Coordinators
- Fraud Examiners, Investigators and Analysts
- Fundraisers
- Fundraising Managers
- Funeral Home Managers
- Heating, Air Conditioning, and Refrigeration Mechanics and Installers
- Human Resources Managers
- Industrial Production Managers
- Legislators
- Loan Officers
- Logisticians
- Logistics Engineers
- Loss Prevention Managers
- Maintenance and Repair Workers, General
- Market Research Analysts and Marketing Specialists
- Marketing Managers
- Medical and Health Services Managers
- Medical Equipment Repairers
- Meeting, Convention, and Event Planners
- Mobile Heavy Equipment Mechanics, Except Engines
- Natural Sciences Managers
- Park Naturalists
- Property, Real Estate, and Community Association Managers
- Public Relations Managers
- Purchasing Agents, Except Wholesale, Retail, and Farm Products
- Purchasing Managers
- Quality Control Systems Managers
- Sales Managers
- Security Management Specialists
- Security Managers
- Social and Community Service Managers
- Training and Development Specialists
- Transportation, Storage, and Distribution Managers
- Treasurers and Controllers
- Wholesale and Retail Buyers, Except Farm Products
- Zoologists and Wildlife Biologists
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Supervise personnel 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.