peekgenticTalk to usGuides · Office automation
Before you hire another office person, ask these 5 questions
- Write down what the hire would do hour by hour.
- Count the retyping: that's the part to automate.
- A $60k hire is about $85.7k a year with benefits (BLS).
What the research says
- For U.S. private employers, wages are 70.0% of what an employee costs and benefits are the other 30.0%. So a $60,000 salary is about $85,700 a year in real cost, before recruiting, training or desk space. Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026.
The 5 questions
- What would this person do, hour by hour? List the tasks. If the list is mostly "help with orders" or "keep up with email", you are hiring for volume, not for a new skill.
- How much of that is retyping? Sit at the busiest desk for one hour. Count how many emails, PDFs or portal screens get copied into your system by hand. That count is the part software can take over.
- Is the extra work steady growth or a spike? A hire is a yearly cost. If the pressure comes from a busy season or a few big customers, a hire stays on the payroll after the rush ends. Automation handles more volume without another seat.
- What does the hire really cost? Salary divided by 0.70 is a fair starting point (see the research above). Run your own numbers in the hire-or-automate calculator.
- What happens when the person who knows the rules leaves? If one veteran knows which customer sends which format and which part number maps to which item, a new hire needs months of their time. Putting those rules in the system protects you either way.
What your answers mean
| If the new role is mostly… | Then |
|---|---|
| Talking to customers, selling, solving unusual problems | Hire. People are the right tool for judgment. |
| Copying orders, POs, invoices or requests into a system | Automate that typing first. Your current team checks the work instead of doing it. |
| A mix | Automate the typing now, then look again in 60 days. Many teams find the hire isn't needed. |
Real example: Atlantic Food Bars. A Dallas-area manufacturer of hot and cold food equipment for national grocery chains, with 8 people in the office and 2 plants, handling dozens of orders a day. The office was about to hire another person (a $60,000+ a year seat) to keep up. Instead, software now reads each order email and fills out the work, and the team checks it in about a tenth of the time. It was built around how their team already worked, and what their veterans knew now lives in the system, so new people get up to speed fast. Read the case study →
FAQ
How do I know if I need another office employee?
List what the new person would do hour by hour. If most of it is retyping information from emails and PDFs into your system, automate that part first and see if the need goes away.
What does a $60,000 office employee really cost?
About $85,700 a year. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (June 2026) says wages are 70.0% of total compensation, so divide the salary by 0.70, before recruiting and training.
Can automation take the place of an office hire?
It can take over the retyping part of the job. A person on your team still checks and approves every item, so the team you have handles more.
Who helps Dallas companies with this?
Peekgentic, a Dallas firm, comes to your office, watches the desk for 20 minutes and tells you straight whether to hire or automate.
Get more out of every person in your office.
Peekgentic is a Dallas firm that builds custom software around the way your team already works: orders, purchasing, invoices, spreadsheets, email. Not a one-size-fits-all platform you have to bend your process to fit. Your know-how goes into a system that's simple to use, so a new hire gets up to speed fast. We'll come watch how your office runs for 20 minutes and tell you straight where it's worth automating.