Supervise service workers
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 | 15 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 15 occupations that perform it.
- Develop staff service or retail goals and guide staff in goal achievement.
- Direct workers compiling summary sheets for each race or event to record amounts wagered and amounts to be paid to winners.
- Direct or coordinate the activities of entertainment and recreation related workers.
- Direct or coordinate the activities of workers, such as hotel staff or hair stylists.
- Supervise staff and monitor gambling tables to ensure security of the game.
- Supervise staff and games and mediate disputes.
- Schedule or manage staff, such as volunteer usher corps.
- Direct the work of wardrobe crews during dress rehearsals or performances.
- Supervise funeral attendants and other funeral home staff.
- Manage funeral home operations, including the hiring, training, or supervision of embalmers, funeral attendants, or other staff.
- Perform clerical and administrative duties such as keeping records, paying bills, and hiring and supervising personnel.
- Train or supervise other hairstylists, hairdressers, and assistants.
- Supervise and coordinate the work activities of personnel, such as training staff members and assigning work duties.
- Supervise, train, and evaluate residence hall staff, including resident assistants, participants in work-study programs, and other student workers.
- Direct or coordinate the activities of workers, such as flight or car attendants.
- Train, supervise, schedule, and evaluate workers.
- Supervise the activities of housekeeping personnel.
- Supervise students' housekeeping work to ensure that it is done properly.
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
15 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Barbers
- Costume Attendants
- Embalmers
- First-Line Supervisors of Entertainment and Recreation Workers, Except Gambling Services
- First-Line Supervisors of Gambling Services Workers
- First-Line Supervisors of Passenger Attendants
- First-Line Supervisors of Personal Service Workers
- Gambling and Sports Book Writers and Runners
- Gambling Dealers
- Hairdressers, Hairstylists, and Cosmetologists
- Morticians, Undertakers, and Funeral Arrangers
- Recreation Workers
- Residential Advisors
- Spa Managers
- Ushers, Lobby Attendants, and Ticket Takers
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.