What Manufacturers Talked About in 2026: A Year of Roundtables
Quarterly sessions. Two tracks. One year of manufacturing leaders comparing notes on what is actually working on the floor and in the front office.
In 2026, KMS ran two roundtable series open to all manufacturers, one for executives and one for HR leaders, both facilitated by Phillips & Co. Each track met virtually through the spring and summer, then both came together in person at the SWOT Summit on October 13. The format stayed the same every time: a small group, a timely topic, and a conversation driven by what participants were dealing with in their own operations.
Here is what manufacturers talked about this year, and the ideas worth borrowing from it.
Five Things that Kept Coming Up
The executive and HR tracks met separately and covered different ground, but the same handful of ideas surfaced in nearly every session.
Leaders belong on the floor. This was the most consistent message of the year. Executives in August put it plainly: "Leaders are watched more than we like to think we are. Even in the parking lot, employees are taking leads from what we do." HR leaders in March tied consistent floor presence directly to retention, and one October participant described sitting down with a floor expert as the fastest way to find "answers to things you didn't even know were questions."
Say it more than once, in more than one place. Whether the topic was a new ERP, a new priority or a new policy, leaders agreed that a message delivered once at a leadership meeting rarely reaches the people it affects. The August executive group set the expectation that managers may need to repeat important messages "2, 3, and 4 times." The October group added the test: "How many times have we watched a CEO speak and it is like gibberish? How can I expect the entire staff to understand it?"
A strong performer is not automatically a strong supervisor. Both tracks had learned this the hard way. Executives described supervisors still "glued to a machine all day" with no time to lead. HR leaders in June reframed early struggles in a new role as a support gap, not a capability gap, and the October HR group pushed back on promotions that amount to "hey, you are doing this position next week."
Change sticks when the people doing the work help design it. One manufacturer shared that engineers used to update workstations after hours, only to find operators had changed everything back by morning. When operators were put on the design team for a new 5S initiative, adoption held 18 months later. The same pattern showed up in automation: machines introduced to remove the tasks employees disliked most went from resisted to requested.
Flexibility is a strategy, not a workaround. Manufacturers described building room to move on purpose: subcontracting rough work to local shops, bidding on jobs beyond current capability and subbing them out, pushing purchasing authority deeper into the organization, and keeping a summer 4/10 schedule once a plant proved it could hold productivity.
The Executive Roundtable in 2026
Q1 2026: Innovation and Change. Senior leaders opened the year on the gap between generating ideas and actually rolling them out, and compared how they decide what gets priority and how they earn buy in once it does.
Q2 2026: Performance and Growth. The group worked through what growth should mean beyond revenue, which metrics actually tell a leader something, and when walking away from a market is the right call.
Q3 2026: Culture and Engagement. Phillips & Co. framed the session around four levers: what leaders model, prioritize, reward and tolerate. The conversation spent the most time on that last one, and on the distance between the culture leaders describe and the one the floor experiences.
Q4 2026: Leading Today’s Manufacturing Organization. In person at the SWOT Summit, leaders took on three questions: how decisions travel from the boardroom to the floor, how to build agility into capacity planning, and how to keep customer relationships personal in a high tech environment
The HR Roundtable in 2026
Q1 2026: Recruitment and Retention. People leaders started with the reality of a tight labor market, then worked live challenges brought by the room, from interview no shows to third shift retention to competing with larger employers in rural areas.
Q2 2026: Risk, Compliance and Change Management. HR leaders defined risk well beyond regulatory compliance, with AI use, cybersecurity and manager judgment calls near the top of the list, and compared lessons from large system rollouts that did not go to plan.
Q3 2026: Building Better Workflows for Manufacturing Teams. In person at the SWOT Summit, HR leaders compared how they get new hires floor ready, how they set up new managers, and what happens when the floor goes off script.
Ideas worth borrowing
A sample of what came out of the room this year, each one something a manufacturer already has running in their plant.
- Put a bell on the production floor to pull the team together the moment something changes
- Hold optional "Friday 15s" so employees across locations can share updates and celebrate colleagues
- Text candidates the day of their interview to confirm details instead of relying on email or calls
- Offer "golden tickets" worth 8 hours of PTO for picking up even a partial weekend shift
- Pilot a summer 4/10 schedule and make it permanent at plants that hold productivity
- Give a small employee task force the budget, timeline and freedom to redesign the lunchroom
- Automate the jobs people dislike most first, and let operators experience the benefits before expanding
One More Session This Year
KMS hosts the final HR Roundtable of 2026 on December 16, virtually. Roundtables are open to all manufacturers, free for KCMN members, and the agenda comes from the people in the room. Bring a challenge you are working through and leave with ideas from peers who have already solved it.
Roundtables return in 2027 with new topics. Watch for session dates from KMS and KCMN.
