This episode features interviews with experts Alizabeth Aramowicz Smith, Senior EHS Consultant at Antea Group USA; Bruno Zapata, Senior EHS Consultant at Tonkin + Taylor; and Sofiane Kessouar, Senior EHS Consultant at Baden Consulting. Together, they discuss the multifaceted landscape of occupational health, spanning regions and industries. They dive into global differences, the influence of local cultures on safety structures, and innovative solutions to mitigate workplace risks today. They emphasize the importance of fostering a strong safety culture, continuous learning, and proactive strategies to foster safer workplaces for all.
Workplace safety isn’t just a priority, it's a fundamental requirement. As occupational risks evolve, how can we ensure that our safety practices not only comply with regulatory requirements but also cultivate a safety culture across industries?
This episode features interviews with experts Alizabeth Aramowicz Smith, Senior EHS Consultant at Antea Group USA; Bruno Zapata, Senior EHS Consultant at Tonkin + Taylor; and Sofiane Kessouar, Senior EHS Consultant at Baden Consulting. Together, they discuss the multifaceted landscape of occupational health, spanning regions and industries. They dive into global differences, the influence of local cultures on safety structures, and innovative solutions to mitigate workplace risks today. They emphasize the importance of fostering a strong safety culture, continuous learning, and proactive strategies to foster safer workplaces for all.
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Guest Quotes
“Some companies want to quickly resolve a case, or they want to quickly close something, but you need to use that as an opportunity. You need to engage with the stakeholders and you need to try to understand, “Okay, what is actually the root cause of this event, so I can prevent this?” - Bruno Zapata
“I think we're in a continual state of learning, and humans and the workplace are constantly evolving. As we change and evolve, the risks are changing and evolving too.” - Alizabeth Aramowicz Smith
“So, the local perspective serves to underline the fact that the corporate culture does not automatically apply in a standard way in all locations. And that integration needs to be achieved by means of employees on the ground or local consultants who can analyze the specific needs on site and then remedy these problems in an appropriate way.” - Sofiane Kessouar
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Time Stamps
*(03:11) Defining occupational health: US vs. global perspectives
*(10:55) Impact of regulations
*(14:15) Workplace cultural influences on safety practices
*(17:59) Challenges of prescriptive regulations
*(27:12) Learning from near misses
*(31:02) How occupational health efforts differ across industries
*(46:22) Advice to occupational health leaders
*(49:31) Sofiane Kessouar on COVID-19’s impact on work habits
*(53:13) Phil’s takeaways
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il: [00:00:00] Whether for financial, legal, ethical, religious, or humanitarian reasons, it's critical for companies today to keep their employees safe. This is true across industries, but that responsibility is especially apparent in the manufacturing sector, where a large number of people are operating large and potentially dangerous machinery.
Let's say you're a global health and safety manager for a multinational automotive supplier. You're not just responsible for protecting your workers in only one factory or even multiple factories in one country. Rather, you're responsible for a vast number of different types of facilities across many countries and across many regions with different regulations, cultural norms, and risks.
Safety is not only a priority for you, but a fundamental requirement. You're acutely aware of the need to elevate your machine safety practices to meet rigorous [00:01:00] international standards. But how? While you know that you need to conduct a machine safety risk assessment to pinpoint safety gaps, how can you conduct the assessment across so many different countries?
And once you do, how can you make sure you're proposing bespoke, culturally relevant, and locally effective solutions for each location and industry? Not to mention solutions that meet all local and national requirements. This is one example from one industry that demonstrates the complexity and the need for local knowledge when addressing occupational health challenges.
Plus, the landscape and the risks continue to evolve. Today, we'll hear from EHS experts from Switzerland, New Zealand, and the U. S. who will share their perspectives on the challenges and trends regarding occupational health. Let's dive right into how we're rethinking occupational health. To build safer workplaces for all, I'm excited to be joined [00:02:00] by Elizabeth Aramowitz Smith, Senior EHS Consultant at Entea Group USA, and Bruno Zapata, Senior EHS Consultant at Tonkin Taylor.
Elizabeth has over 25 years experience and works primarily with global companies across various industries. She specializes in global EHS compliance management systems development, EHS policy analysis, international EHS inspections and trend analysis, EHS training development, and management of environmental compliant projects for corporate and regional leaders.
Bruno has over a decade of experience in identifying physical and psychological hazards. Implementing robust safety programs and evaluating safety performance to protect individuals and organizations alike. Towards the end of the episode, we'll hear comments from Sofian Kassauer, Senior EHS Consultant based in Switzerland and working at Baden [00:03:00] Consulting.
If there's anything in this episode you'd like to learn more about, head to the Inogen Alliance website linked in the show notes below. Now let's get into the conversation. So, you know, to get us started, can you just describe, I'll ask Elizabeth to go first, how do you define occupational health?
Alizabeth: Well, I think I'm going to talk to you from an American based practitioner and then maybe talk as a global strategist, and then Bruno probably could pick up from that really well.
I think here in the United States, we tend to use the term health and safety sort of cover a wide branch. of information from industrial hygiene to actual like machine guarding, that type of safety. And occupational health actually is a, is a very broad term, but in general, it really is that element of like medical surveillance, medical exams, um, your worker's compensation if they fall under there, short term and long term disability, your injury and illness rate, and that to me is much more of the [00:04:00] occupational health.
Because we're talking about that, that public health component of being safe with our workers. But we don't necessarily here in the U. S. define it that way as much as they do abroad. And I don't know if you find that to be true or not.
Bruno: Yeah, I like to see this from a holistic point of view. Perspective, uh, I think for me, it's all about keeping people safe and healthy at work.
Um, it actually involves identifying and managing risks that could lead to accidents, illnesses. They can be physical, chemical, biological. Ultimately, the goal is to create a work environment where everyone can work without compromising their well being. And in essence, it's, it's about ensuring that the workplace.
Support the overall health and safety of the people.
Phil: Great. Okay. So we're talking about being safe at work. And if I'm thinking about this from a global [00:05:00] perspective, that's going to mean different things in different markets, different regions, whether you're a first world or a, you know, modern economic society and emerging.
Society, or, or, or something, place, I dunno, in, in between, I don't even know how you kind of categorize the different levels of that translation because I don't think people use first world, second world, third world in those terms anymore. So can you tell me in the regions in which you operate? Cause I know that you individually as experts might operate in multiple regions of the world.
How do they kind of differ? And how do you classify them and, and monitor any sort of trends that are moving?
Alizabeth: As I say, in the United States, we even have differences between our states. So for example, Cal OSHA has a much more stringent regulation on things like workplace violence. Whereas the Washington state in Oregon, there are more ergonomic [00:06:00] issues and there are ergonomic regulations there are in the Fed.
And so a lot of times when we're talking with clients, we're really looking at where they are in the world because the strategy does change. Risk assessment. We took, you know, Bruno was just talking about risk here in the United States. We do what's called job hazard analysis. Unless you're a global company and you're trying to balance your portfolio and that's when the risk assessment comes in.
But we actually, we have to. Train folks on that word and that term, because not all countries have the same version of what a risk assessment is and how risk are evaluated. Is this task? Is it the facility? And there's also the issue that, you know, in many cases, going back to occupational health, in many countries like Spain and Germany, Sweden, to name a few, where there's a mandatory occupational health function that you must hire a certified firm that's approved by the government to do certain occupational health.
Whereas here in the United States, it's really left up to the companies to sort of formulate their plan to protect and prevent injuries and illnesses in their, in their workplace. [00:07:00]
Phil: Well, I mean, that seems to capture a pretty good picture of what we look from a U. S. perspective. How do you look at that, Bruno?
Well, I would
Bruno: tell you about the regional perspective we got here in New Zealand. And to be honest, we've seen a significant evolution in occupation and fair land safety here, especially since the Fair Land Safety Act is pretty new here. It came into play in 2015. And this legislation has. Has been a game changer, honestly, because it puts more responsibility on employers to proactively identify and manage workplace risks.
Look, I moved into New Zealand in 2017. And, and since then I've noticed a growing recognition among companies that it's more effective and economical to, to prevent workplace accidents rather than dealing with the consequences. I think there's a clear trend towards investing [00:08:00] in preventative measures to create a safer work environment and you ask also about new trends and I was thinking that mental health has become a big focus now.
Issues like work related stress, anxiety, and depression are now seen as major factors that can affect Not only the well being of the person, but also the productivity. So I can see now more and more companies. Stepping up to offer support, counseling services, and even mental health training.
Alizabeth: I think it's an important trend that we're actually seeing codified interregulations.
You know, in Europe in particular, we're seeing that psychosocial element of a risk assessment must be completed. Here in the United States, Total worker health, which is a new construct is sort of one of the ways that many companies are sort of creating an arch over again, that idea of, I've got to [00:09:00] have a strategy that fits everyone in my company.
And that deals with both that wellness concept, but also like all the human resources and benefits, um, your communication and mentorship, diversity, equity, inclusion. It's a trend that's building and there's a number of schools of excellence here in the United States. And I think that's a really interesting trend to watch here.
Don't necessarily think here in the United States that wellness, well we talk a lot about it, has been put into the regulations as a mandatory item, but those companies that want to attract the best talent and keep the best talent, these are important elements that they need to incorporate and are incorporating in many of the tech clients, for example, Because they know it's important to their employees.
They know that it's an odd time to be an employee with a lot of tensions in the world that could be distractions from work, as well as work itself can be a very tense situation. And so having those services is becoming much more normal, which I think is going to be great for the workforce overall, at least in my mind, because it builds that communication.
You have that constant loop [00:10:00] of feedback. I think that's really important.
Phil: So if I'm hearing you guys, right. You're basically saying it's better to try and prevent the harm than to try and repair from it. Do you think about how to make work, workplaces safer, environments better, and that there are local trends that are driving these things, local awareness.
There are some local perspectives that are driving this about taking care of workers, but there are also some regulatory trends like EU regulatory trends that impact the ability to execute. Some of the things are mandatory. Some of the things are setting a framework around how you get into it. So, and
Alizabeth: we shouldn't necessarily just say EMEA just by the way, because they don't like Peru, for example, psychosocial requirements and Indonesia, you know, these in Singapore, those requirements have been there.
Some of them are becoming more mandatory. They were voluntary. So, I mean, I do think there's just a pivot in the world right now.
Phil: Do you see that certain regulatory structures [00:11:00] or guidelines are influencing different parts of the world?
Bruno: Yeah, I would say so. I mean, for example, here in this region, we mirror Australia, what their regulatory requirements are over there.
And usually they are the first to make a change. And then we adopt that. But usually when we do that here in New Zealand, we also try to And be the regulation into how the local communities work here. We try to also include the Maori values into that. So it's, it's interesting to see how small countries see the biggest one, the big actors in the world.
And we also learn from the things that don't work in the other places as well.
Alizabeth: Well, I think one of the things I have always liked about Australia and their regulations, they put out very prolific guidance documents. So, and I think, [00:12:00] Phil, you know, I think we talked about this before that, you know, there are some countries that are very prescriptive.
Here's how we want you to do it. 6. And there are some countries that say, manage the risk. And they give you a bunch of different ways to do it. And it's really at the luxury of your company and your position to then work with your company to fit your culture. I do find that when you fit your culture to a strong safety program, so many things just fall in line then, right?
Versus now in some of the prescriptive, you've got some growing pains there. You've got some things that sort of fit you, but don't fit you. And I think a great example that we saw a trend probably about. Maybe a little over 10 years ago, that's still continuing is that most of the regulations are really based on manufacturing operations, but now we've got a lot of technology companies and call centers and banks and insurance companies where people are sitting at their desk and they're not necessarily laying a piece of wood or there's, they're stacking a crate.
And so we had to sort of rethink and [00:13:00] rescale what those regulations look like for those types of markets. And warehouses are different from manufacturing too. So. How does that all fit in together? And so when we think about risk assessment and occupational health and, and the needs in particular for each of those different types of facilities, it's very different.
But I think that the risk assessments that we saw out of Europe really started to influence, I think, some of the global companies to really start thinking about things from the standpoint of, I don't want to look at just this one task. I need to look at my entire operations of risk. And what are those engineering controls?
What can you do to eliminate the risk? First and foremost, and then go through this hierarchy, and the last part of the hierarchy is like PPE and administrative controls, but I think the risk assessor really drove people into that because they were looking at tasks instead of looking at the whole picture.
And so to me, that's been a big influence, I think, in the market and how we do our jobs.
Phil: So you mentioned something that really struck me, and it was about having a culture, a [00:14:00] strong culture of safety that can lead to a strong safety program. And then there was also what you said about certain local things, like the Maori cultures, feeding into the The practices of a company at a local level.
So can either of you share a story that showcases where a local practice fed into something that really helped a company to refine its culture in that area, or that spread across the company or where the company's culture made it easier for them to adopt safety practices in different parts of the world?
Bruno: Hey, let me show you a story from here, from New Zealand, actually. And probably this will answer your question. Here, the forestry industry is a big part of the economy, but it's also one of the most dangerous sectors. A few years ago, this industry was struggling with a high rate of [00:15:00] accidents and fatalities.
So, to tackle this, the government industry leaders, and also the local communities, they joined forces to create a more comprehensive safety program, specifically for this forestry sector. And this wasn't just about applying generic safety measures. It was about understanding the unique working conditions in New Zealand forests, like for example, the rough terrain we got here, the weather conditions, and also incorporating the local mori practices.
and the values related to the land and the resource uses. And I think one of the key changes was the introduction of more rigorous training programs. And these programs included not just safety protocols, but also cultural awareness, helping workers to [00:16:00] understand the importance of their roles within the industry and the local community.
And of course, They also develop better emergency responses, other strategies that suit these remote locations. And honestly, this localized approach led to a significant drop in accidents and fatalities. It really shows how important it is to conceal the local context in this situation. Global occupation and health programs, I think by, by addressing specific regional challenges and integrating local knowledge and practices, this kind of health and safety initiatives can be much more effective.
Phil: Sure. That makes a lot of sense to me. It's a great story about how you can bring in local practices and specific local insights to deliver results. I have a quick question before I flip back to Elizabeth. Can you tell me what the executives in the companies learned from this? How you, [00:17:00] and they, measured success in this regard?
Bruno: Well, I can't tell you exactly in the forestry sector because I never worked there. This story is from this sector specifically. But I think the, the executive and knowledge. That understanding your culture and your communities is the most important step towards creating safety practices because you cannot apply a tool that is working in U.
S. or Europe into your region If you don't put the lens of your local communities and your local culture, you need to understand how your company is operating, what you're doing effective, what is not working, and then apply these global
Phil: practices. I actually wanted to go back to something Elizabeth said beforehand, because it seems to highlight a challenge.[00:18:00]
You said that some governments. Are very prescriptive, they give a lot of guidance and some are very general and they say just meet this standard. If you're, if you're very prescriptive, it seems like it can make it difficult to be as creative as Bruno was talking about in terms of the forestry example.
I mean, can you comment on that challenge?
Alizabeth: Yeah, I mean, I think there's, there's another level to it. I think that when you get too prescriptive in regulations, What will end up happening, as you said, there's a loss of creativity, but sometimes people feel like I've done this thing, so I went through these steps, I wrote this document, I did this training, I'm out.
And the reality is, is that nothing is ever that clean or that simple. That it needs to have a little bit of an organic edge to it that fits your company really well, sort of back to what, what Bruno was saying. And, and I do think it, it also confuses people. So a lot of times in a manufacturing facility.
Here in the United States, you have a role that might be an environmental health and safety manager. [00:19:00] They are probably educated either as a environmental manager or health and safety manager. And so, but they've got the title of both. And so they're, they've got a strong side and they have their weak side.
And so now and then they'll use whatever, you know, prescriptive elements that Come out of OSHA, for example, or CalOSHA and sort of feel like they've done, they've done the thing and they're done, but they don't see the numbers backing up, um, the results that they're getting. And, and one thing I wanted to add to that, you know, there are still countries in the United States and we do still use, you know, developing countries or emerging economies a lot where they do not require mandatory reporting of incidents or injuries.
So here in the United States, if there's an amputation or a death, or you are away from the office, um, because you're going to get medical care, there are some reporting mechanisms that happen that are government mandated, as well as an annual report of, of your injuries and illnesses. There are still some countries where that's not required.
And, and I think [00:20:00] it's interesting to work with a number of clients who are very aware of that. And what they feel is they actually donate more budget into their, their portfolio management, because they know they're going to be working with people where it's never been an influence, never been an emphasis to come home every day for work, healthy and sound, you went to work.
And so I think one, well, prescriptive regulations can cause some of the problems that we see in the workplace, because people are not thinking about the culture, they're just filling the boxes. I've checked the box, we're done. There are some countries that are even that far. And the other thing I was going to say, I wanted to go back to the storytelling is that we did have a client who, and this happens to a lot of companies where they've, they've grown through acquisition.
So they bought a company in Poland. They bought a company in the U S they bought their headquartered in Mexico. They have all these different cultural country, specific issues that are going on and very different fields within those countries at different times, depending on what's going on around them.
And one of the things I really was [00:21:00] appreciative of a client recently is like, look, we're really struggling to. Get on the same page and get at the same place. And so they did what's called a cultural survey where they invested time and money and literally put out everyone from the doc manager to the C suite to get, I think it was only like 25, 35 questions, but it was about safety.
Like, what do you view it? Like, do you think that we, we talk, you know, do we walk the walk that we put on paper? What could we do better? How did your managers feel about safety? Are they talking to you positively? Is it, is it a punitive issue to bring up, you know, safety elements? And what came out of it was really interesting.
First of all, they had a really low response rate. And that was our first indicator that something was very wrong because they didn't have enough faith in the corporation to actually provide information that was really scrubbed so that nobody would know who was talking. And then we really looked at, you know, we, we, we broke it by gender, by age, tenure at the company, country, you know, different [00:22:00] language skills, where they were, type of certain types of positions within the company.
It really started to give us the feedback as to where people were not seeing the value of safety or didn't even think that the safety culture existed and which parts of the acquisition needed to have. A really different approach to bring them all to the same table. Cause if I, if I had one solution and I just mandated across the portfolio, we'd still have this gap between the companies and the people and people not feeling like safety was real.
It was just, yeah, you guys are just doing that to like, fill a checkbox. It's not about me. You don't care about me. You don't see me. And I think that was a really fantastic example of someone investing a lot of money to really go down that deep of a rabbit hole. To figure out what can we as a C suite do?
What can those regional leaders do? What can those facility managers do? And what's the message that we've got to get out and, and who do we get it out to first to start changing the dynamic and have people understand that this is important to us as a company value, it might be the number one most important thing, because without the people, [00:23:00] we can't produce our product and we can't, you know, meet all these production quotas and all this stuff.
So we've got to know that people, I know that. We are paying attention and we hear them and we're going to take action based on the survey results. It was a fantastic project. It took time, but I think they learned a lot. And I think it really sort of set them back when they read some of the responses because there's always a, like an open text element and we sort of scaled the open text.
But we also gave them some of the direct quotes out of the survey and they're like, Oh, we have a problem. You've got a problem, let's go fix it. And so, I thought that was a great way to really get at the culture and the multitude of cultures that you've got to work with when you're thinking about designing a global system.
Phil: I think there's a lot of gold in what you just said, and then there are a couple key points that came out, right? Nothing is ever that clean or simple. One mandated solution still leaves a gap. Coming home from work safe and sound actually sounds like a luxury in some parts of the world because it's not an expectation that you're going to come home [00:24:00] as healthy as when you went to work, which is probably a big cultural challenge.
It leads me to a question. As a result of those culture surveys, how does your expertise and engagement with the client help people either get out of trouble or create opportunity, whether it's internal or external or both? And by internal, I mean, like, inside of the corporation or external being, like, publicly to shareholders, to partners.
Can you comment on that?
Alizabeth: Well, I think, Phil, on your, your following question there, there's one thing they picked up really quickly is, is getting out of trouble. I think those companies who are thinking about this intentionally, who understand that safety Thank you. You know, right now, ESG is a big word, right?
About doing those sustainability reports. Frankly, you know, I really do fundamentally believe if you have a strong, solid safety program, if you keep your focus and your investment there, again, a lot of those other pieces will fall together because it is [00:25:00] core for what, what is going on for their business to make sure that they've got a safe, Protected process, because they don't want bad branding.
They don't want to be the ones in trouble. Because when you're in trouble, now and then you're reacting out of the place of, I'm trying to avoid a sign. I'm trying to avoid bad press. I've got to rush. And when you're rushing in that, there's some, there's, you lose some of that opportunity to be creative or to take the time and really look at the data.
And think strategically about how am I going to solve this problem in a way that's sustainable? You don't want to be like, everyone gets retrained tomorrow, bam, wrap. You know, that's, that's not going to solve, if you find yourself in the hole, you're missing the bigger opportunity. And there are some structures and there are some paradigms where You know, they, they don't, they try to intentionally slow down that process so that you can take that moment and really think about what does it mean to be a human in a workplace?
And how, how could we have eliminated that risk? How can we [00:26:00] improve our culture, our communications, so that we really do have a solution that fits us? It's really addressing the problem and isn't just like quickly trying to get out of the problem because I've gotten in trouble. And so I think I really appreciated that project that I described because they were trying to get ahead of that before they had trouble because they just couldn't figure out how to communicate well.
And I think, you know, backstage is staying out of trouble. I would hope a company is never thinking of it that way. It's about investing in their people and their company and, and knowing that, you know, without those people, without, without the humans, we're not all AI yet. Without those humans, a lot of this, these businesses do not move.
And so we've got to be focused on that.
Phil: I think it, um, goes back to that earlier comment, though, that we made that it says, basically, it's better to prevent the harm than try to repair from it. We know it's better to eat a healthy diet and to exercise. But a lot of times we find ourselves taking [00:27:00] medication as opposed to taking care of ourselves.
So there's, there's this tension between doing what we know that we should and somewhat kind of what we're, what we're forced to do. But what I'm hearing is That's a great
Alizabeth: analogy, actually.
Bruno: But, but, but also feel, but also feel is not being afraid of making mistakes. It's, it's understanding that when we have in, well, in health and safety we call near Or incients, some companies, they freak out when there is an incient.
We don't want incients. And there's a lot of opportunities to learn from near misses, to learn from incients. So some companies, they want to quickly resolve a case or they want to quickly close something, but you need to use that as an opportunity. You need to engage. With the stakeholders and you, you need to try to understand, okay, what is actually the root cause of this event so I can [00:28:00] prevent this.
And then you can apply that in your life for everything, for eating habits, for sleeping habits, for whatever you want in life, just try to identify the root cause.
Alizabeth: Yeah, and I think, I think you hit on something there. So in the United States, the, the idea of near misses and how they're, they're utilized, there's multiple paradigms.
Two of the most common are behavior based safety, which is really looking at those near misses or, or sort of looking at how, you know, You have your managers every day sort of looking like your ladder is being used correctly. Are we working at heights correctly? And there's another paradigm and they're not isolated.
There's a lot of, there's a great thin diagram where they should overlap, which is called human and organizational performance or HOP. And what I like about HOP, and it gets to what Bruno was just saying, is that when there's an incident, rather than just running this investigation and there's formalic ways to do this, you know, the five whys, these different ways, like What is the root cause?
They have what's called learning teams and they sort of soak into the events. They take a beat and they really [00:29:00] sort of, it's not about what did the, you know, what did the employee do wrong? How is the system built wrong for the employee to interact with it? Like, what, what do we need to do here to like, make sure that we've got, you know, a safe environment?
And I think it's, it's a fascinating. Way for companies to look at that. And we have come, we have clients that are definitely in that space. And we, we try to support them. We have clients in behavior based safety who still do five Ys, totally support them too, but it is really interesting to see how these different ways to get at a root cause that helps a client, hopefully not just.
I found the root cause, I fixed it, I'm done. But to really embrace that and say, this is part of a continuous improvement. This has happened, we want to look at all of our facilities on this issue. Are we all, you know, are there some other good ideas we need to bring forward? You know, how do we take this moment and mature versus just, I've put a Band Aid on it, we're good, you know, and move on.
Bruno: And also, Elizabeth, how important is having a no blame culture? in the company. I mean, just [00:30:00] taking out, taking away the blame from the person. And that's the reason why we put so much effort in creating systems in health and safety, because we acknowledge that as human beings, we are going to make mistakes.
So that is part of who we are. So just, just take away the blame from the person and try to identify Okay, what can we improve here in the system, in the process, in the training? There's so much opportunities when you, when you just don't focus on on blaming someone when something happened.
Phil: I really, I really love that, right?
There's opportunity for leadership, there's opportunity for ownership, and there's opportunity, what I heard Bruno say, rethinking EHS means Health and safety and ESG through an opportunity lens, not just a risk lens. And that can really change the game. We started talking about this [00:31:00] in terms of regions and local issues.
Can you share a little bit about industry differences, right? There are differences in forestry and manufacturing versus office work, for example. Um, are there any lessons that you learned or insights you could share about How occupational health efforts differ across industries and how, and how that translates into culture or translates into some of the, the performance trends or, or challenge the performance trends or techniques that, that you were talking about.
Bruno: When I think about occupational health efforts. This can vary a lot from one industry to another. And I personally think this is mainly for two reasons. One is the unique risk that each industry has. And the other one is sometimes how obvious those [00:32:00] risks are. So let's take, for example, the asbestos removal industry in New Zealand.
Here, the danger is very clear and it's immediate. So exposure to asbestos can lead to respiratory illnesses and even cancer. And because of these high stakes, there's a massive effort to minimize exposure and to protect the workers. But on the other hand, in industries where asbestos. aren't so obvious like an office environment, the approach is quite different.
I think in these settings, employees might deal with issues like burnout, bullying, harassment, stress, but these problems that are very serious and can impact the mental, the physical health are not As immediate [00:33:00] or visible or life threatening as asbestos exposure, for example, and they often don't get the same level of attention from the regulators or from smaller companies.
Phil: This is a great example, right? But because it's more visible. And it has a longer history of the science proving out the impacts of asbestos linked to cancer, respiratory illness. It doesn't necessarily mean that it's less damaging to the company or to the culture or to the ability to execute or the ability to Come home safely, come home healthy at the end of the day.
Are you going to comment on that a little bit? Yeah. I
Alizabeth: mean, I think, you know, I think, you know, Bruno was thinking of a specific example of this hazard. I think now and then the workplace type has some lack of acknowledgement of some of the risks, if that makes sense. Like think about, you know, heat and cold.
We're in a world where the climate's [00:34:00] changing and we have a lot of manufacturing and warehousing that we don't. air conditioning or heat the entire space. It really has only been probably in the past five years, we're really paying a lot more attention to heat risks and both hot and cold in those spaces because they do have long term effects of, you know, that Some of them can be very immediate, right?
And some of them can be a long term impact to the physiological health of an individual that's working in those spaces. It's so different from ergonomics can be more and more important when we work like we are working right now, or electromagnetic field sampling to understand how much exposure we're getting.
Some of this is coming out of maybe one region of the world and it starts to impact the rest of the world. A lot of times we'll see that companies are like, well, why are the folks in Germany getting an occupational doctor and they're getting occupational training and they have to, well, it's mandatory, mandated by law.
Well, why can't we have that here too? And so some of that also, there's a way that to a [00:35:00] certain extent. There is a spread of some of these, these considerations through different types of workplaces, warehouses, manufacturing offices, data centers, very, very, you know, a lot of focus on that in the news in the past couple of years, there have been deaths at data centers.
And so people that are like, Oh, wait, there's more risk here than we thought. And then just getting into that and really spending more time with that. So I think. We're in a continual state of learning and humans and the workplace are constantly evolving. I mean, I, people find it funny when they come to my house.
Remember how we used to have one little computer and one, you know, now it's a laptop. We curate everyone. But when we're at home, we're at a docking station. There's like 5, 000 screens. We've got mouses. We're talking in headsets. I mean, it's just gotten a lot different as we Is we change and evolve, the risks are changing and evolving too.
And some of them, we don't know what the impact will be until we soak in it, for lack of a better word, until we sit there for a minute and go, huh, [00:36:00] maybe using headphones all the time, though, might be, not be a good thing. Like, is it having the hearing impact, you know, and that's where some of the basic cores of occupational health and your risk assessment.
Can still help identify those risks when we're creative, because sometimes we need someone creative to go, huh, I never thought about that, that that person is listening, you know, is maybe editing sound and they have to turn the sound up really high to make sure they don't hear any granulation. So are we, are we going into a, an area that we might have long term hearing impacts?
It takes someone to start to think about the risks. It might take a country to start regulating that risk. And then again, as people like learn more about that, they see a positive impact in the workforce, more and more people embrace that concept and bring it into their own culture. And I think that's, again, that's why, you know, that organic ness.
That, or Gancro, isn't just in that, in that industry or in that facility type, it's in the whole complex of those who are [00:37:00] building these systems that we're managing these risks.
Bruno: And Alyssa, what you say about the country becoming the main actor here is crucial because usually large companies, they have the resources to investigate these new trends and, and put efforts into what you mentioned, for example, ergonomics.
But you have then small companies. That if they don't have all these regulations around to push them towards investing into better economics, unfortunately, they won't do it. And we are going to have a lot of people suffering from, from this risk.
Phil: And, and why is it you think they, they don't do it? Like my hypothesis is something, something eludes to something you said.
If I haven't looked at it closely, and I don't know that it's an actual rule. Hidden cost. Maybe it's a hidden cost that's increasing over time as stress builds or as repetitive stress [00:38:00] injuries occur or as the place gets riskier and riskier and riskier until someone gets hurt. If I'm not looking at it closely, then I, because I have a weak safety culture, then maybe I miss it.
So, can you share an example, something you've been involved with personally, where you felt like you've made a difference? And implementing a healthier and safer environment with a client, or it could be internal to your organization.
Alizabeth: Well, one of the best stories I have that I think, you know, it was just so much fun at the time and, and hopefully this client's out there and will recognize themselves when I say this is that we had a company that was in technology that recognized that there were some things that they needed to do for emergency response.
And they understood their workforce really well that they were young, they were, you know, they were, they were not going to sit there and read a thousand page, you know, employee manual, and they weren't going to sit through hours and hours of training and really, you know, take back for what they, what [00:39:00] we wanted them to keep top of mind.
And so they made a choice to do a graphic novel for their emergency response and health and safety program versus a standard written document, welcome to the works. And so personas are created for the global, you know, EHS manager, for the regional manager, the consultants. We got our own superhero in the deal and they walk through all these different elements and everything from like, you know, have a reported injury to what to do when it's flooding and severe weather.
And it was, it was just a fun project. You know, they had a graphic artist and my job as a consultant was just there and say, well, can we say this? Is it like sort of in the tone that OSHA wants for us and whatnot? And so it got, it got to be fun because they wanted to have dialogue between the superheroes within the company.
And so the project was over and I think probably, gosh, I don't know if it was a month, six months later, we get a beautiful email. That was from our client that someone had just gone through the graphic novel and there was some training that went with it [00:40:00] and wanted to thank us all because he had gone home that day and I can't remember exactly what happened.
I don't know if it was a stroke or someone was having a massive heart attack, but he remembered the steps that we had sort of outlined for what to do, when to trigger the CPR, and like, and he had gone through CPR, so like CPR was part of this, you know. He just wrote a beautiful thing, like you guys, Saved a life.
Phil: can only imagine that's gotta be some great validation. Tough act to follow Bruno, but do you have a, um, do you have a story that you could share?
Bruno: Yeah, I would try to make this brief, but I was working for the international freight company in New Zealand during the COVID pandemic.
And we were an essential business and COVID was new for everyone. We had to learn on the go. Uh, we have to adapt on the go and we had to make people feel safe. Because the industry had to continue going to deliver vaccines, to deliver tests, to deliver a lot of [00:41:00] essentials for, for medicals and how you keep people safe during a pandemic when everyone is panicked.
So we work day and night with the health and safety team in the APAC region. Uh, and the global region as well, uh, to deliver different messages to the people and, and engaging with them and also listening to them because it's super important to have the feedback of the people and this consultation piece to understand, okay, what is your fear of being out there, how we as a company can support you to do your job in a safe manner.
So it was. a big lesson and people felt very grateful at the end of that. And, and that was for me personally, that was an amazing experience, even though it was stressful, but amazing.
Alizabeth: Well, and I do think COVID gave a lot of folks who were in health and [00:42:00] safety, their first voice in the C suite on a consistent basis, right?
We've got to keep our facility open. We need someone to help us understand how do we manage this risk. Um, and they had a voice. And I think, you know, sometimes people think of health and safety measures and this training is all cost collection. And in reality, I would say to any company, be it a five person company to a five million person company, health and safety is a great investment.
Um, primarily, you'll see the return on investment. And the reduction of turnover and the reductions of injuries and illnesses and the reduction of worker comp claims. And in COVID, all of a sudden, all those messages, now that we're fighting to make sure everyone hears the top level, they had a seat at the table.
And I will say a lot of companies took advantage, a lot of the health and safety managers in particular took advantage of that. And my hope is coming out of COVID that we don't lose that dialogue. We don't lose that communication funnel because they think. A lot of people who were in [00:43:00] operations for the first time really understood the true impact of what a health and safety risk could be in a way that we could never have imagined, mind you.
But it became real and the steps that we took to keep things moving really was on the backs of some very creative collaboration between health and safety and operations. And, and I'm, I'm hopeful that that collaboration. Was this the start of a new way of approaching or embracing health and safety into just general business operations?
Phil: I totally love that. So what I'm hearing you say is that another way of rethinking EHS is for leaders who are trying to differentiate or drive change, engagement, or communications, this is a real opportunity to do something different. Is that fair?
Alizabeth: And I don't know, Bruno, if you've seen, you know, that in, in New Zealand, which by the way, very successfully from a global perspective handles COVID and if that, [00:44:00] that dialogue and that collaboration is still continuing today.
Bruno: Yeah, it does. It does. It was a, it was a big challenge, but I think, again, you're always going to have two versions of the same story, but internally we thought was successful and we managed it well. Yeah. And we were living here and we were feeling safe. And at the end of the day is what you feel at that moment that matters as well.
And the community felt safe during COVID and that was super important.
Phil: And I can imagine if those people felt safe during a really trying time. Because their company went out of their way to make sure that they were safe and secure, they feel more committed and more loyal to their company, which is probably a, an unexpected benefit of doing the right thing.
Alizabeth: Oh, we, we have some hard data that shows some really interesting things, actually. The folks that were furloughed, To a certain extent, you know, I [00:45:00] think they lost a little faith in the company. There were some companies who just laid off people. They obviously lost a lot of support from that community. And then there was an interesting dynamic between a company that had to go and say, okay, we're going to keep running, but we're going to run only one third of our personnel because that's the goal.
Because we have all these spacing issues now, so only every third, you know, sorting station is going to be open. Every third desk is going to be open. So now we're going to work different schedules and the people that were selected to work versus the people that stayed home. There was some tension, I think, when we came back amongst all those organizations, because, but while all this tension and all that data was coming along, um, and there was the great shift, you know, the great resignation, the great rehire, the great, you know, the, the We have a lot of greats going on right now.
I think what really came down to how you approach safety and how you communicate what you're doing affected that retention rate and affected the companies that people migrated to [00:46:00] after it was all, well, it's actually, we have to be very aware it's not over, right? COVID is still impacting a number of countries, even here in the United States, so to understand that it impacted the brand or impacted the, the The attraction of some companies based on how they, how they looked at that response in particular.
Phil: Absolutely. So we're just about out of time. Given what we talked about, do you have any handy tips or rules of thumb that you would give to a leader in occupational health today?
Bruno: Yes, there is. No one size fits all approach when it comes to health and safety. I say this before, and every company has its unique culture, but it's about investing the time and effort to understand that culture and figuring out what each company really needs.
And then it's about collaborating with the right people to create tailored [00:47:00] solutions that genuinely helps people. I will say. To other professionals, be open to feedback consultation, always ask questions and don't make assumptions, avoid pointing fingers, and always listening and talking to the people, because they will let you know if you're The fancy health and safety system you set up, which you think is perfect, is actually working on the ground.
And if I can say one more thing as a final message, I want to leave a reminder for my future self when I listen to this podcast again in 5 or 10 years. And I want to remember why I choose to become a health and safety professional. And if my answer is still, I'm here for the people, then I know I'm still on the right path.
Phil: Well, thanks, Bruno. Now you created a tough act to follow.
Alizabeth: I know, like, I don't think I want to say anything now, [00:48:00] Bruno, so that I'll, I think I think the one thing I would say is that, especially if you're a new manager, is you've got, you gotta leave your ego at the door, you gotta empower your people to be able to talk to you and communicate about their concerns.
And some of those concerns may not be work related. It might be the culture they're sitting in, the times that we're in, and find a way to embrace that and, and to use it to the advantage of building that community. I do think fundamentally, we are all humans riding on the same rock. So, you know. For us to be really successful regardless of what country we're in or what status we're in within the business, we have to feel, feel heard.
And so once we feel heard and know that the systems that we're operating in place are real, I think people get really engaged. And when you have an engaged workforce, some real magic can happen for sure.
Phil: That's really amazing. It's really amazing. You guys got me thinking hard about like. All sorts of things that, all sorts of things that we can do, that I can do in the things that I do, but [00:49:00] also better ways to kind of tease out some of the dimensions of this.
It's super great. You guys really, really great.
Alizabeth: Thank you, Phil. Well, I really enjoyed this conversation. You make it easy for us to talk.
Phil: Well, thank you very much for your time. I found your, your comments to be really insightful and helpful. And showcasing the benefit and opportunity of rethinking EHS in this very specific case of occupational health.
Thank you, Phil.
Alizabeth: Well, it's a pleasure to sit with both of you.
Phil: Before we wrap today's discussion, it's time to hear from Sofiane Kisauer, Senior EHS Consultant with Botton Consulting. Based in Switzerland, Sofian has over 15 years experience in ergonomics, global EHS, and lean manufacturing. He joins the discussion to share his perspective and experience based on his work in occupational health.
Sofianne: For the biggest changes in Europe to the cultural approach to work, the [00:50:00] relationships between employers and employees, the principle of the inverted pyramid is necessary to ensure that employees give the best of themselves. We see great efforts being made by employees to ensure employees well being at work.
For example, legislation on the rights and restrictions of pregnant or breastfeeding women. For There has also been a considerable increase in paternity leave over the last 10 years. Private companies have recognized the need to take into account the balance between work and family life. Some private companies have not yet taken this cultural step of providing their employees with the basic benefits.
For example, a kitchenette with all the basic necessities such as meals, drinks, and snacks that make them feel At home, this should not be seen as a burden, a major cost, but rather as a necessary [00:51:00] investment in their employees well being.
Phil: As you may recall, Elizabeth and Bruno stressed the need to ensure that employees return home from work as healthy as they were when they left.
Here, Sofyan elaborates on the most common hazards he sees.
Sofianne: The main occupational hazard I have encountered on my client's sites are the risks of falls or accident in the event of fire. Due to a lack of emergency preparedness teams, the situation is often linked to high staff turnover or long, uh, absence of a team or safety manager.
The absence of safety managers opened the door to a lack of safety constraint, putting employees at risk.
Phil: Like Elizabeth and Bruno, Sofyan also emphasized the importance of both understanding the nuances of different workplaces and acting on feedback from your employees. [00:52:00]
Sofianne: I had the opportunity to experience the launch of satisfaction surveys among employees to find out whether they felt good at work.
Unfortunately, the responses were negative. Even through well being programs were supposed to be rolled out on site, listening to employees and understanding their needs were key stages in the company's development. And these were fundamentally neglected. The subsequent development results could not be realized.
It is essential to be present in order to understand the issue of well being in the workplace. Very often, working environments or moral pressure problems can only be detected by spending time in the workplace. Local perspective serves to underline the fact that the corporate culture does not automatically apply in a standard way in all locations.
And that integration needs to be [00:53:00] To be achieved by means of employees on the ground or local consultants who can analyze the specific needs on site and then remedy these problems in an appropriate way.
Phil: Hearing Elizabeth, Bruno, and Sofyan discuss the evolving landscape of occupational health was enlightening.
There are a lot of great insights that I took away from this episode, and I want to share my top three key takeaways with you. First, the importance of tailoring your health and safety programs to local context. As Bruno emphasized, occupational health cannot be one size fits all. It must be adapted to reflect local practices, conditions, and cultural values.
We heard this both in our kickoff, And in Episode 2, where we discuss the broad impact of flooding on global communities. Second, the power of listening to your team to understand and enhance safety culture. [00:54:00] Conducting cultural surveys and gathering feedback from all levels of an organization is crucial.
These engaging actions provide valuable insights into how safety is perceived and implemented, helping to build more unified safety programs. Third, be proactive, not reactive. Adopting a holistic approach to health and safety involves learning from experiences to implement practices that help avoid and mitigate future health hazards.
You'll hear a whole lot more about this in future episodes already in the works. We learned today about focusing on local adaptation. Team collaboration and proactive strategies. We can work together to create safer, healthier workplaces for all. For more tools and tips on how to work globally with the local lens, check out the global resources page on the Inogen Alliance website to access webinars, downloads, eBooks, and more.
[00:55:00] Find the link in the show notes or visit www. inogenalliance. com forward slash inogenalliance. Resources. Follow Integent Alliance on LinkedIn for the latest updates. And until next time, let's innovate, inspire, and rethink EHS together.