The telephone operators

America had 235,000 telephone operators in 1930. They were the people who plugged cables into switchboards to connect your call. When a town switched to dial, it happened in a day.

For the young women working those boards, the impact was immediate. Employment fell by half to four fifths, and it stayed that way. The younger ones who came after found other work, in offices, restaurants, and salons. But operators already over 26 were about 7 percent less likely to be working a decade later.

One company handled it differently.

Studied by the US Women's Bureau in 1933, this company had stopped hiring permanent staff two years before the switchover. They used temporary workers, managed the natural attrition, and on the day the switch flipped, they laid off four women. Four.

They saw the change coming, assessed the impact, and planned for it.

I think about this story a lot. That switchover happened in a day. Industry-wide, it took a year or two. AI is nowhere close to that speed. You have time.

Time to look at the work your team does and ask where the changes will land. Time to figure out what your people will need. The operators who spotted the change early and moved into new roles brought skills that made them more valuable, not less.

Nobody likes change. But you can see this one coming. Assess what it means for your business and start moving while the choice is still yours.