An elevator operator (North American English), liftman (in Commonwealth English, usually lift attendant), or lift girl (in British English), is a person specifically employed to operate a manually operated elevator.

While largely considered an obsolete occupation, elevator operators continue to work in historic installations and fill modern-day niches.

For many years, elevators in public buildings were operated by an employee of the business, who doubled as a friendly guide to tenants of the building or departments of the store. In many cases the operator had the responsibility of ensuring safe loading, door closure and synchronizing the floor of the elevator cabin with that of the building. And in the event of mechanical problems, they would be a calming influence while waiting for the repair technician. The operator might have been someone incapable of other work, such as an injured veteran.

Being an effective elevator operator required many skills. Manual elevators were often controlled by a large lever. The elevator operator had to regulate the elevator's speed, which typically required a good sense of timing to consistently stop the elevator level with each floor. In addition to their training in operation and safety, department stores later combined the role of operator with greeter and tour guide, announcing product departments, floor by floor, and occasionally mentioning special offers.

With the advent of user-operated elevators such as those utilizing push buttons to select the desired floor, few elevator operators remain. A few older buildings still maintain working manually operated elevators and thus elevator operators may be employed to run them. In Dayton, Ohio, the Mendelson Liquidation Outlet operates out of an old Delco building that has an old passenger elevator run by an operator. The Fine Arts Building in Chicago; the Young–Quinlan Building in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota; City Hall in Buffalo, New York; the Commodore Apartment Building in Louisville, Kentucky; City Hall in Asheville, North Carolina; and the Cyr Building in downtown Waterville, Maine are a few in the United States to employ elevator operators.^{[citation needed]} In 2017, it was estimated that over 50 buildings in New York City used elevator operators, primarily in apartment buildings on the Upper East and West Sides of Manhattan, as well as some buildings in Brooklyn. The Stockholm Concert Hall, in Sweden, employs an elevator operator by necessity since there is an entrance to the elevator directly from street level, requiring an employee to be positioned in the elevator to inspect tickets.

In more modern buildings, elevator operators are still occasionally encountered. For example, they are commonly seen in Japanese department stores such as Sogo and Mitsukoshi in Japan and Taiwan, as well as high speed elevators in skyscrapers, as seen in Taipei 101, and at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Some monuments, such as the Space Needle in Seattle, the Eiffel Tower in Paris and the CN Tower in Toronto, employ elevator operators to operate specialized or high-speed elevators, discuss the monument (or the elevator technology) and help direct crowd traffic.

There are a few elevator operators working in the New York City Subway system. They are located at five stations: 168th Street, 181st Street at St. Nicholas Avenue and at Fort Washington Avenue, 190th Street, and 191st Street in Washington Heights, upper Manhattan. In these stations, elevators serve as the sole or primary means of non-emergency access. The elevator attendants currently serve as a way to reassure passengers as the elevators are the only entrance to the platforms, and passengers often wait for the elevators with an attendant. The attendants at the five stations are primarily maintenance and cleaning workers who suffered injuries that made it hard for them to continue doing their original jobs.

The elevators were automated during the 1970s, but the operators were retained, though they were reduced in quantity in 2003.