Building a Safety Culture That Holds Up Under Pressure with Jeff Schmitt
August 20, 2026
"If the system really works, the employees are doing the right thing. Their leaders are doing the right thing and committed to health and safety as well." Words of wisdom from Jeff Schmitt, CSP, Director of Corporate Safety and Health at Kyndryl.
Scaling safety across 60 countries is not about adding more rules or hiring dozens of EHS professionals. It is about building structured playbooks that teams can actually execute when conditions change. In this episode of The Canary Report, host Michael Zalle sits down with Jeff Schmitt to explore how to build operational safety systems across a distributed global workforce.
With over 20 years of experience, Schmitt shares practical lessons on managing risk across employees, contractors, customer sites, and high-risk data centers. We discuss rebuilding safety systems after a corporate spinoff, aligning with ISO 45001 standards, and why true safety ownership belongs to the frontline.
"If the system really works, the employees are doing the right thing. Their leaders are doing the right thing and are committed to health and safety as well." - Jeff Schmitt, Director of Corporate Safety and Health at Kyndryl
Scaling safety across 60 countries is not about piling on bureaucracy or inflating central headcount. It is about creating operational systems that frontline workers can rely on when unexpected risks emerge. In this episode of The Canary Report, host Michael Zalle sits down with Jeff Schmitt, CSP, to examine what it takes to build a scalable EHS management system.
From his roots in a single-stoplight town in Fowler, Michigan, to overseeing global safety strategy, Schmitt brings a grounded perspective to enterprise risk. He shares hard-earned insights from leading EHS programs across semiconductor manufacturing, cleanrooms, and global IT infrastructure.
We explore why an EHS management system must serve as an active playbook rather than static compliance paperwork. Schmitt details how Kyndryl rebuilt its ISO 45001 safety framework from scratch following its spinoff from IBM, and why 100 EHS professionals can never protect 300,000 workers without enterprise-wide accountability.
Key discussion points include:
- How to transition safety management systems during major corporate spinoffs
- Why a 100-person EHS team cannot manage risk for 300,000 employees without frontline ownership
- Frameworks for managing occupational risk in remote work, client facilities, and high-consequence data centers
- Navigating data collection challenges across fragmented global contractor networks
- The playbook approach that turns an ISO framework into a tool for continuous improvement
- Applying management system principles to daily leadership and personal life
Episode Resources
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