Draft

Automate the Work or Hire Another Person?

A guide to the honest math between an automation and a new hire.

Automate anything that is repeatable, rule-based, and measurable. Hire for anything that requires judgment, relationships, or unpredictable input. Most teams get this backwards — they hire for repetition and automate for judgment. Fix that order and both budgets go further.

How to decide, in one pass

Is the process documented? If not, no automation will save it.
Does the output vary meaningfully per case? Judgment work — hire.
Would a checklist cover most of it? Automation candidate.

The order we usually recommend

Document the process end-to-end.
Automate the mechanical parts.
Hire around what is left.
Review quarterly — the boundary moves.

Frequently asked

Can an assistant replace a hire completely?

Almost never. It can free the hire to do the parts only a human can do.

What if the process is not documented?

Start there. Automation without documentation is a bug factory.

Ready to turn this read into a decision?

Plan your automation

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