In this bonus episode, host Keith Knoke from Antea Group USA is joined by Alizabeth Smith to explore one of the most overlooked aspects of risk management: organisational culture. Together they discuss practical examples of how organisations can strengthen safety culture, improve employee engagement, and create systems that reinforce risk awareness across global operations.
This bonus episode of Rethinking EHS, Season 3 focuses on the invisible cultural factors that shape organisational risk and safety performance.
The discussion highlights how companies can have strong procedures, audits, and compliance systems in place while still experiencing serious incidents because underlying cultural issues remain unresolved. Through real-world examples, the episode explores how communication breakdowns, siloed decision-making, and inconsistent leadership behaviours can undermine even the most mature EHS programs.
Ultimately, the episode underscores that strong safety culture requires more than documentation and compliance — it depends on leadership alignment, open communication, consistent behaviours, and a long-term investment in people.
Guest quotes:
Alizabeth Smith:
“The risk they hadn’t controlled, the risk they hadn’t looked at, was cultural.”
Alizabeth Smith:
“If you don’t deal with communication and consistency, people start believing the program will change in six months anyway.”
Timestamps:
00:00:00 – Introduction to cultural risk management
00:00:33 – Case study: when strong systems still failed
00:01:25 – Identifying cultural breakdowns and lack of trust
00:02:46 – Communication silos in large organisations
00:03:55 – Building a global risk register and consistent controls
00:05:00 – Why onboarding and training often fall short
00:06:09 – Wearables, micro-training, and new approaches to engagement
00:07:27 – Executive incentives and unintended reporting behaviours
00:09:39 – Leading indicators versus lagging indicators
00:11:44 – Case study: transforming culture in a global manufacturing company
00:15:04 – Developing future EHS leadership internally
00:15:51 – Closing reflections
Sponsor Copy
Rethinking EHS is brought to you by the Inogen Alliance. Inogen Alliance is a global network of 70+ companies providing environment, health, safety, and sustainability services, working together to provide one point of contact to guide multinational organizations to meet their global commitments locally. Visit inogenalliance.com to learn more.
Links
https://Inogenalliance.com/resources
https://Inogenalliance.com/podcast
Keith on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keith-knoke-27587a7
Alizabeth on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alizabeth-aramowicz-smith-61618615/
Produced by https://madcontent.co.nz/
00:00:00:02 - 00:00:09:01
Keith Knoke
Hello and welcome to season three of rethinking EHS Global Goals and Local Delivery, brought to you by Indigent Alliance. Today we are talking about risk management.
00:00:09:03 - 00:00:24:24
Keith Knoke
I'm Keith Knoke, executive Vice president and into USA and chair of the board for the Inogen Alliance. And today we'll be talking to Alizabeth Smith, senior consultant at Antea Group USA. When we talk about risk management, we often think about hazard controls and compliance, all the basic stuff.
00:00:24:24 - 00:00:33:07
Keith Knoke
But in practice, some of the most significant risk organizations face are cultural, and they often are invisible until something goes wrong.
00:00:33:09 - 00:00:50:10
Alizabeth Smith
I think I think there's a couple of different ways to talk about that. One is, is that, you know, we know and I can think of a great case example where we worked with a, you know, a large multinational company. They came to us because their incident rates were just continuing to go up. And but they had all the bells and whistles.
00:00:50:10 - 00:01:06:04
Alizabeth Smith
They had programs, they had training, they were doing audits, they had done everything. And we sort of sat back and started talking to a couple of people. You know, we did some interviews of their key stakeholders, and we started to notice there was a shift in how people talked about health and safety and environmental health and safety in particular.
00:01:06:04 - 00:01:25:12
Alizabeth Smith
And we realized the risk that they hadn't controlled, the risk they hadn't looked at was cultural. And so for them in particular, because this is a company that had had a fatality, we actually even experienced the alliance. We went out and looked at a couple of the facilities where we were seeing these numbers, trying to see if there was a trend, this seasonality taking into it.
00:01:25:13 - 00:01:43:20
Alizabeth Smith
And our our partner was there with their manager, just like, yeah, I'm really uncomfortable on this crosswalk. Like, it really doesn't look like it's in great condition. And he goes, oh, no one's died here. And she's like, well, no, someone did die here. Oh, that's just a contractor. She's like, I'm out. I was like, wait, like, there it was.
00:01:43:21 - 00:02:02:05
Alizabeth Smith
You know, it was it was a total misfire. You know, all the policies and documents and everything looked beautiful. Those the misfire, the culture of the importance that it applied to not just their employees, but to their contractors, to their visitors, to the child that's walking in front of their factory in the morning. Right. And I think that was that moment for them where we really set down.
00:02:02:05 - 00:02:20:21
Alizabeth Smith
We did a cultural survey with them and found that, you know, their team was not giving them great information going up the up the channels because they didn't have trust. They didn't feel that, you know, that, you know, these things are being rolled out. They didn't really understand what everybody was doing. And some people were doing their own thing in Mexico and a different thing and pull in a different.
00:02:20:22 - 00:02:46:10
Alizabeth Smith
And they all knew that because they, you know, we're communicating even down to not having the ability to communicate on the shop floor. Like there was no computer kiosk. You couldn't use your cell phone. That sense of lack of trust in the employees. And so that was a great example that, you know, everything was perfect. Other examples are when you get these major companies right and the left hand and the right hand really don't know what each other are doing.
00:02:46:12 - 00:03:10:05
Alizabeth Smith
That's about communication. Part of that is about trying to be sparkly in a large organization. Right. You're trying to make your mark. And a lot of times, young chess managers might be like, I see this thing, I've got to fix it. And they're fixing it in a silo and not in a very collaborative way. And we'll run into sort of that same thing where, you know, really smart people doing really great things, but not realizing that someone's already working that on that over there.
00:03:10:05 - 00:03:26:11
Alizabeth Smith
If they could all just give them in the room. We might be able to make a change that's really significant for the organization. And I think that's where our role as consultants are. A lot of times we see it before they see it and we're like, hey, did you know there's nothing else to this to be like, hey, let's get you guys together.
00:03:26:12 - 00:03:44:07
Alizabeth Smith
Because what's happened is that you were so large, you're unable to communicate effectively. And in that lack of communication, it filters down into the culture because everyone gets. It'll change in a minute. Don't worry. Like if you don't deal with that, they'll. The new guy will come in six months. It'll be a new program. We don't, you know.
00:03:44:08 - 00:03:55:15
Alizabeth Smith
And that's not what you want. You want to have consistency. You want to have have that ability to to keep that risk top of mind and all those controls in
00:03:55:17 - 00:04:20:03
Alizabeth Smith
So when you think about I know you've done a number of these, these cultural assessments and cultural health and health and safety assessments within organizations and from some really simple shops to some complex, high risk type of organizations. I'm curious, are you. What's what is the most common challenge to creating a robust health and safety culture? What would you say that is?
00:04:20:05 - 00:04:40:20
Alizabeth Smith
your risk. And I break it down this way with a lot of clients. You know, they're usually like, oh we've got risk assessments. But you know, having a risk register, which, you know, we all talk about legal registers, but the idea of having a total risk register that you really do sort of compile your risk assessments from across the globe and really look, use that as your basis and then adding columns.
00:04:40:21 - 00:04:59:22
Alizabeth Smith
Do you know what are the regulations in these five different countries? What is my control? Is my control in all the right languages. How often do I push that control. And so I think understanding your global risk and not just rely on individual documents, but compiling it together is a huge strength tool for a regional or a global manager.
00:04:59:22 - 00:05:22:15
Alizabeth Smith
And it gives you the position to not only deal with the risk that you need to control, but to give you position as to why it's important for funding, why it's important to do different things. So that's a structural issue. And then there's the social issue. We're just talking about most people. If you think about onboarding an employee 40 hours of training, how much of that do you really think that they got in that moment.
00:05:22:16 - 00:05:41:12
Alizabeth Smith
And so if I've got risks that are important that they need to make sure I hit that note, I need to really work with an adult educator and with my training coordinator and span some of that out so that people are given time to they just and process that. And that makes a difference in the culture. Because now then when you rush through that, you're assume that you're ready, fit for purpose.
00:05:41:16 - 00:06:09:00
Alizabeth Smith
Out you go. Maybe someone's going to tell you exactly how to work your particular machine. But there's a lot of things that need to questions that are going to percolate up that didn't get answered in that first week of training. And I think there's a lot of art out there right now and a lot of discussion about retraining, keeping things top of mind, you know, so micro training is a very trendy topic, even using AI avatars like bring things in, bringing wearables into the mix, right?
00:06:09:02 - 00:06:30:08
Alizabeth Smith
Which is giving some data. Sometimes it can be a little charge. Some of that data is very, you know, in Europe with the CCTV and they're watching, you know, what you're doing. Other other wearables are sort of really interesting. These baseball hats are tracking fatigue and heat of the employees. So they also in their hats gives a signal and their manager knows that they need to come off the line.
00:06:30:08 - 00:06:53:24
Alizabeth Smith
They're too hot. They're starting to get tired. They're seeing their respiration go up. But we're all that goes. Those are all the different ways that we can show we care to our employees by keeping things top of mind, by keeping messages. Visual safety is a great example to you. I'm going to make sure you know what you to do, not because I want to sort of push my responsibility off to you, but I want to make sure that you've got the cues.
00:06:53:24 - 00:07:11:18
Alizabeth Smith
When that moment of question comes up, something around you is going to help you make the right choice in the workplace. And I think that, to me is a sign of culture, is a sign of how much willing because they're expensive options. They're not just, you know, put a training package together, you know, put it out once a year.
00:07:11:19 - 00:07:27:14
Alizabeth Smith
These are things where we're going to repeat that training. We're going to have little nuggets come out because we're going to keep focusing about safety and keep our employees engaged. And our we want our leaders in there right there doing Jimbo walks and things of that nature. So all that takes time and resources.
00:07:27:19 - 00:07:51:00
Keith Knoke
Yeah I've got a I'm going to throw a loaded question at you if I, if I can. And I know you and I have dealt with this one in the past and it continues to pop its ugly head up every now and then. And it's really talking about what increases risk and what decreases risk. And, and we're seeing and I've seen recently almost an uptick in executive incentives for health and safety performance.
00:07:51:05 - 00:08:16:17
Alizabeth Smith
Financial. Right. So if you do well from a health and safety perspective that that has a that has a good effect, I guess you could say on your compensation package, right. Which tends to to what I would what we've seen and I would curious on your thoughts if you would agree with me on this underreporting some behavior that's not necessarily not necessarily a good thing.
00:08:16:17 - 00:08:36:00
Keith Knoke
So what are you seeing? I mean, because we're seeing more of it, I don't think I don't think we're it's because our, you know, some organizations they that's how they incentivize people to perform better. And and in this case health and safety is that perspective. But it also lends itself to trying to find quicker and easier ways. And sometimes it just doesn't.
00:08:36:01 - 00:08:52:15
Alizabeth Smith
That isn't the best way. So are you have you have a are you seeing a continue uptick in or a continual use of incentives, executive level incentives and be have you seen an instance where it actually works? And if so, how?
00:08:52:17 - 00:09:10:13
Alizabeth Smith
for the senior leadership. I mean I think that's just a growing trend that it's now being called out, you know, about health and safety. Seeing the trend where regain some funky math. We're and I think the thing that's interesting to me is that in many cases, the supply chain goes through Europe, and Europe does have ESG requirements.
00:09:10:13 - 00:09:39:08
Alizabeth Smith
And, you know, we talk about health and safety, but environmental requirements, also the health and safety in particular, I share those table stakes as clever as likes to say a lot for ESG. So that data that they are now generating is actually what the financial auditors are auditing. So to a certain extent, some of that behavior of sort of, you know, cooking the books, if you will, is diminishing over time and that people are having to be a little bit more, you know, robust and how their data is, and they're getting called for it.
00:09:39:09 - 00:09:58:05
Alizabeth Smith
Right. So I mean, I think that's that's the bigger thing. I think when we look at, you know, in particular, there's been a number of clients we looked at that really put time and effort to think about their culture. What data do they already have? They didn't want to be the wheel. They knew their systems they had. They were using that data.
00:09:58:06 - 00:10:14:12
Alizabeth Smith
They used that as part of their incentive. And they talked about what they wanted to see out of the data. It wasn't, oh, we want to see a 10% improvement year over year. They actually the first year, they're just like, we're going to collect this data. We're hoping to see a positive sign of growth. And they didn't define it intentionally next year.
00:10:14:13 - 00:10:23:17
Alizabeth Smith
Growth means we expect a year over year improvement. But they went after the leading indicators, not the lagging
00:10:23:19 - 00:10:49:10
Unknown
Okay.
00:10:49:12 - 00:11:18:02
Unknown
Yeah.
00:11:18:04 - 00:11:44:01
Alizabeth Smith
So they measure the leading indicators right. But not let the lagging indicator speak for themselves as the as the ROI on those leading indicators. Right. Yeah. They're not going to. That's interesting. That's really interesting. I'm kind of circle back to this concept of leadership again. And yeah, you have a case study that involves a large multi division glass manufacturer.
00:11:44:03 - 00:12:04:24
Alizabeth Smith
They had they had all the right things. Right. The strong programs they had the the procedures in place. Everything probably top notch for remember correctly right. They were they were world class in some of the programs and things that they had in place. They they did, they did. And yet they were still having significant injuries and incense. Right.
00:12:05:00 - 00:12:22:18
Keith Knoke
And so how did they do that? How did they shift from that compliance culture to more of a culture of of or how how did they turn that ship around? What what what did they do?
00:12:22:20 - 00:12:26:02
Alizabeth Smith
Right?
00:12:26:04 - 00:12:32:10
Alizabeth Smith
So when we looked at it, this was a a company that was in one country that started buying assets in other countries.
00:12:32:10 - 00:12:51:18
Alizabeth Smith
So each of these little companies they had bought had their own culture of their own, and they didn't really trust who bought them. So that's part of it. But then too, when we went to go look at how the reported themselves out to the world, the thing that was missing was health and safety. So they talked about how many widgets we made and how we downloaded this.
00:12:51:20 - 00:13:15:01
Alizabeth Smith
Or in this case is glass. You know how much our price was, how many new customers we had. They didn't talk about the people that actually were the engine by hand, which that all that was possible. And so they put the incentive on speed and reduction in cost. Speed and reduction cost doesn't necessarily mean health and safety or environmental parameters are being followed, even though they have it all in the books.
00:13:15:02 - 00:13:36:23
Alizabeth Smith
And I think that was a great example that we had to sit back and did that cultural survey and had two recommendations. One is you got to train your managers. They have to be walking, you know, that role. They need to have their PPE when they walk through by the furnace.
00:13:37:00 - 00:13:48:05
Unknown
Yeah.
00:13:48:07 - 00:14:46:24
Unknown
And.
00:14:47:00 - 00:14:49:06
Unknown
Yeah, it is.
00:14:49:08 - 00:15:04:17
Keith Knoke
So I think there was there were some realignments and there was some retraining. The thing that's interesting about that company is that after they work really hard on their culture and started to turn things around, they decided they didn't want to bring in outside new managers like some people had aged out, were retiring.
00:15:04:18 - 00:15:26:01
Alizabeth Smith
They actually set up an internal chess management program training program. So we actually helped them then train their next generation about what it was to be a good chess manager, because they felt that they, you know, they are a very specific industry. They had very specific risks. It's hard to bring someone out who like, maybe we're from well and gas had no understanding of what they were doing.
00:15:26:03 - 00:15:33:05
Unknown
And so this way they were guaranteed to then perpetuate a better leadership team as they went forward.
00:15:33:07 - 00:15:51:16
Alizabeth Smith
Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. That kind of that's university concept that we've seen some of our clients do in now a days. This is this has been great, Elizabeth. And I think you and I could probably go on for another couple hours on this one. We probably will, but so but thank you for, for, for spending some time with us today.
00:15:51:16 - 00:16:20:15
Keith Knoke
So I, I just want to say again, thank you for joining us for this bonus episode of season three, Rethinking Ace Global Goals local Delivery. As we celebrate 25 years of the Indian Alliance, this series is a reflection of what makes our network unique global collaboration, local expertise, and a shared commitment. Accelerating Resilient planet for all. If you found today's conversation valuable, be sure to follow the series and share it with colleagues across your organization and network.
00:16:20:18 - 00:16:41:19
Keith Knoke
Find us on our website and on LinkedIn. Follow us on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. Until next time, thank you for listening and for being part of the global community, working to turn knowledge into action.
00:16:41:21 - 00:16:42:05
Keith Knoke