In an environment where inflation is structural, demand stays fragile, and pricing corridors keep narrowing, packaging companies are searching for every reliable lever to manage cost. PPWR, AI, new materials, smart manufacturing, sustainability, the industry’s agenda is full. All important. All forward looking. Yet one strategic lever remains strikingly underexposed, even though it ranks among the largest cost positions of any plant: the workforce.
More precisely, almost no one manages workforce with the same rigor as assets or materials. When the topic does come up in a strategic or structured way, it shows up almost exclusively as a cost position and therefore as a candidate for the next headcount cut. That is exactly where the problem starts.
What the earnings calls reveal, and what they leave out
An analysis of Q1 2026 earnings calls across 30+ packaging companies paints a clear picture: inflation (59%), supply chain (56%), innovation (65%) and sustainability (44%) dominate management discussions. Restructuring is mentioned by 41% of companies, strikingly often as a reflex to the other pressure topics.
What barely shows up at all: workforce as a lever for productivity and resilience. Labor costs are mentioned in only 6% of the calls, hiring in 3%. When the topic surfaces, it is almost exclusively framed on the cost side. That is more than a linguistic observation, it reflects how management teams strategically frame the topic and how they prioritize it.
Why the reflex is more expensive than the problem
Labor cuts look easy on paper: visible, quantifiable, fast to execute. In transformation programs, we have seen the pattern repeat itself: headcount gets reduced based on rough benchmarks or broad assumptions, and at first the program looks good. Labor costs go down, the savings show up. A few months later, the picture flips. OEE drops, spoilage rises, total cost moves in the wrong direction. One cost line improves, the system as a whole gets less effective.
The reason is structural: a production system depends on certain roles being in place. Removing positions without understanding their function in the system often destroys more value than it saves. And in a labor market where skilled packaging talent is scarce, backfilling those gaps becomes expensive, if it succeeds at all.
Resource efficiency is an outcome, not an initiative
The real strategic question is not: how many roles can we cut? It is: what role does each function play in the production system, and where does the genuine efficiency potential sit?
With one of our key clients, we took exactly that approach: staffing standards across a multi plant production network, defined through the actual effort drivers in each production area, sometimes machine hours, sometimes the complexity of changeovers. Combined with activity based benchmarking, KPI comparison (OEE, spoilage, utilization), and peer group discussions in which plant managers were not defending against benchmarks, but learning from each other on equal footing.
The outcome across 10+ facilities: 15% productivity increase and 10% labor cost savings. More important than the numbers, however, is what sits beneath them: when operations are staffed and run at the right standard, energy and material efficiency follow almost naturally. Resource efficiency is then no longer the target of an isolated program, it is the natural result of a strategically designed operating model.
We presented exactly this thesis in May 2026 in a keynote at Interpack, together with Thomas Götzl. The reactions from the audience confirmed what we suspected: the topic strikes a nerve. Several attendees shared that they still manage workforce primarily as a cost factor, but had not yet started looking at it systematically as a resource lever.
The question that matters in 2026
Anyone responsible for strategy, operations or transformation in the packaging or manufacturing industry should ask less how fast costs can be reduced in 2026, and more how structurally.
Is workforce defined in your operating model as a cost block or as a strategic performance lever?
This distinction decides whether your next efficiency wave stabilizes or destabilizes your system.
Want to discuss the approach for your production network? Get in touch.
