Categorie: EN – newsitem

Conducting audits for the Safety Culture Ladder (SCL) is quite different from carrying out other audits. Better soft skills are required than when auditing system standards. ‘Engaging with people, that’s what it’s all about. Engaging with people allows auditors to find out much more and get a good impression of an organization,’ says auditor Hans Aarns.

As an auditor for Aboma Certification, Hans Aarns conducts all kinds of audits, including audits for the Safety Culture Ladder (SCL). ‘Although this standard hasn’t been around that long, it’s become quite a considerable scheme. It’s also a different kind of standard than the Dutch VCA or ISO 45001.’ An example of this is the fact that the approaches taken by the auditors to audit the different standards differ substantially. ‘Many standards are management system standards. The SCL is different in that it is a behavioural standard that assesses safety awareness and indirectly aims to improve it. It specifically focuses on people, their behaviour and the organization’s culture. Although it’s left up to the organization to set up and facilitate the SCL with an eye to health and safety, this doesn’t make it a management system. System standards address safety awareness, but not to anything like the same in-depth level. The SCL standard comprises a total of 233 questions (standard requirements) which are assessed depending on the step being audited.’ 

Interviewing and observing
When conducting SCL audits, Hans Aarns ‘engages with customers’, as he likes to call it. He does not do this on his own and instead always works with a fellow auditor. ‘When auditing system standards, you ask for specific documents, which you then examine and use as the basis of your interviews. When conducting SCL audits, it’s not uncommon for us to not open the documents at all. We talk about what’s in them, how an organization is pursuing its goals and whether this is actually effective in practice. It’s a completely different way of asking questions.’ In addition to conducting interviews, Hans Aarns and his colleague go into the workplace, which in Hans’ case is often a construction site. ‘After observing the work location and its dynamics, we talk to employees about their work. If what we’ve seen in the workplace gives cause for conducting further interviews, or if we suspect that the impression we gained from previous interviews doesn’t match what we see in the workplace, we conduct random interviews whilst continually verifying that our findings match the SCL step for which the organization is being audited. In respect of the relatively low SCL steps, safety is often arranged top-down. The higher up the ladder you go, the more things will have been arranged bottom-up, with both employees and contractors taking responsibility. We try to tune into this and match our interviews to the levels displayed by employees, their line managers and top management. This requires us being able to see everything from the organization’s perspective.’

Engaging
If Hans Aarns and his colleague see anything they think is wrong or might be improved, they will talk about it to people in the organization. ‘How you actually do this is crucial. You have to gain the trust of both the employees you’re talking to and their superiors. You can’t just tick off questions on your checklist and bluntly tell people what to do. You need to stay calm, give people enough time to tell their stories, empathise and make them feel that you understand what they do. If you can instil that trust in people and ask the right questions, you can have them come up with their own possible solutions to situations in which there’s room for improvement. It’s important to have people actually think about things themselves, as this will lead to longer-lasting solutions. That’s why we always emphasize that we haven’t to come to assess individual employees, but instead the organization as a whole. We look for opportunities that will allow the organization to reach higher steps on the ladder. That’s a very different approach. Engaging with people is an essential part of this. The soft skills described above are essential when it comes to an audit team conducting a good SCL audit.’ 

Self-control
The good thing about the SCL, according to Hans Aarns, is specifically that it is a standard that companies can largely structure as they see fit. ‘If you look at it from that perspective, it’s not a very strict standard. We identify whether the approach chosen is actually effective in practice and complies with the requirements of the standard. When doing so, we come across all kinds of things and that can be a positive experience. I love it when I come back a year later and see that previous areas for improvement have been acted on and that safety awareness, i.e. the culture within the organization, has improved. Because changing a culture can be quite difficult. It’s not something you just do over a Friday afternoon drink.’

Free interpretation
The SCL describes health and safety aspects that are subject to assessment, but it leaves ample room for interpretation, says Hans Aarns. ‘We look for any health and safety risks, in a broad sense, that might be relevant to an organization. This can easily lead to us assessing ‘soft safety’ issues such as work pressure, social safety or environmental safety, rather than just assessing ‘hard safety’. We focus on more than just health and safety and this is often reflected in the conversations we have. We adopt an open, interested attitude. Taking this approach creates trust and leads to many more matters being brought up than would be the case if a different interview technique were used. Some people even tell us about personal family matters. As these can also reflect on the organization and on dynamics within it, they can be instrumental in forming a good impression of an organization.’

Preparing
Companies should prepare for an audit, but it is not immediately necessary for employees to prepare for interviews, according to Hans Aarns. ‘Just be yourself and share your personal view of the organization with us. That’s what I tell people in the lead-up to the interview.’ Of course, companies do want to know where they stand before the audit. ‘They can use the NEN web tool to fill in a self-assessment to find this out.  This will give them an initial baseline measurement, which they can use to determine any actions they might want to initiate. Organizations benefit from formulating their safety awareness ambitions and it’s essential that they express these ambitions and put them into practice. Ensure that communication is clear and create buy-in and support. One way of doing this is to set up a working group that reflects the organization’s population. But the main thing to keep in mind is that everything should match the organization’s identity. Organizations often have more in-house expertise than they might think. It’s just a matter of striking the right chord.’    

Setting an example
Finally, Aarns points out that management should set an example when implementing a good health and safety policy. ‘If board members or managers don’t make themselves sufficiently visible or think that rules don’t apply to them, the safety culture won’t change the slightest bit. Employees have a keen sense for this! Leading by example is important if you want to get the entire organization on board. Each standard, and that includes the SCL standard, is a means to achieve a goal and not a goal in itself. If you embrace the SCL and draft a plan that includes your own ambitions, underlying goals and actions, and then implement and monitor this, the SCL will definitely add value.’

NEN is about to conduct an evaluation of the SCL products, i.e. the SCL Original, the SCL, the SCL Light and the Approved Self-Assessment (SCL ASA).  The evaluation will consist of a survey and interviews. The purpose of the evaluation is to ascertain whether all products actually contribute to the objectives of the SCL and whether measuring health and safety culture using the different products contributes to a healthier and safer working environment. It is also important to identify any shortcomings and assess the impact from the perspective of the different interests involved.

The evaluation may lead to the various SCL products being adapted or new products being developed. The survey for the evaluation of SCL is still being prepared. Its availability is expected to be announced through various channels within a few weeks.

ViA evaluation

In addition to the evaluation of the SCL products, an evaluation of ViA has been commissioned by the Dutch Governance Code Veiligheid in de Bouw (GCVB).

This evaluation will be conducted by Easylog BV and will also involve a survey and interviews. Because the ViA evaluation serves a different purpose to the SCL evaluation, the questions will also be different. Since ViA makes use of the SCL, it is inevitable that the two evaluations, and hence the surveys, will touch on each other. However, any overlap has been minimized and we therefore urge everyone to complete both surveys.

By Ron van der Aa and Kaat van der Haar

Introduction

The Netherlands has been familiar with the Safety Culture Ladder (SCL, then still known by the Dutch name of ‘Veiligheidsladder’) since 2012. Having initially started as ProRail product, it became a NEN-managed product in 2016.

Over the years, the SCL has grown to become a product which is used in an ever-increasing number of sectors. It is now well-known and is being used in more and more countries around the world.

But, just like any NEN product, there comes a time when an assessment is needed to see whether market developments make a revision desirable and/or necessary. That process has taken place in recent years and has led to the development of SCL 2.0.

Rationale

The scope of SCL has broadened significantly in the past few years. Where this started out as a product which was mainly used in the railway sector, its application has broadened to include many other sectors since 2016. Examples are the construction sector, grid operators and various service sectors.

This broadening of the application of the SCL also led to an increasing number of criticisms of the SCL, both in respect of the Manual and the Certification Scheme.

Examples include:

• The SCL has too many ‘railway-related terms’, making it hard to apply to other sectors;
• The SCL has too many descriptions which are system-oriented and are therefore not suitable within the context of measuring the safety culture;
• The SCL insufficiently addresses employees and their roles, although employees actually play a major role in an organization’s safety awareness;
• The SCL focuses too much on safe working, whereas safety culture is much broader;
• The current system of scores for business aspects/characteristics has undesirable effects (also expressed as ‘calculating behaviour’).

These signals were the rationale for a full revision of the SCL, resulting in a new version of the SCL called SCL 2.0.

SCL 2.0

Besides the above signals which prompted a revision of the SCL, there are some topics which should clearly be maintained, such as the recognisability of the SCL and its potential for being applied to all sectors.

SCL 2.0 has been developed over the past few years. The typical differences with respect to the current SCL are:

1. The six company aspects have been replaced by five themes;
2. The assessment method by means of scores has been replaced by an assessment which is no longer based on numeral scores, but rather relies on the auditor’s observations as regards attitude, behaviour and culture.

Sub 1);

SCL 2.0 replaces the current six company aspects by the following five themes:

Theme 1;             policy & leadership;

Theme 2;             knowledge & skills;

Theme 3:             primary & secondary processes;

Theme 4:             collaboration;

Theme 5;             learning & improvement.

Each theme is subdivided into an ‘organization’ part and a ‘behaviour’ part,

and each theme has some sub-themes, corresponding to the main theme.

The description of the themes reflects a complete change. SCL 2.0 uses storytelling to convey these descriptions. Through stories, these descriptions become things that should be recognisable/observed in an organization in terms of the particular theme, sub-theme or step.

Sub 2);

SCL 2.0 no longer uses numerical scores for the assessment.

The assessment uses three colours. Possible scores are green, red and orange. ‘Organization’ (O) and ‘Behaviour’ (B) are assessed separately. Since the assessment of the culture mainly concerns the effectiveness of the efforts and tools implemented, the score for ‘B’ is assigned the most importance.

A green score visually indicates that a theme has been rated as sufficient. A theme is rated as sufficient (green) if the auditors are of the opinion that the characteristics of that theme are largely complied with.

A red score visually shows that a theme has been rated as insufficient.

And finally, an orange score is a visual indication that the organization partly complies with the descriptions that go with a theme andthat the organization is making efforts to become fully compliant.

Assessment requirements:

The assessment for O requires at least four of the five themes to be rated as ‘sufficient’ (green). The theme not rated as green must have an orange score for the organization to get a positive rating. A red score means that the step has not been passed.

The assessment for B requires all themes to be rated as ‘sufficient’ (green).

Reporting

Since a numerical score is no longer awarded under the new method of assessment, organizations may perceive the outcomes of the assessment as being less useful as aids or reference points. To avoid this potentially undesirable effect and, since there has long been a need for reporting requirements to be specified, new reporting criteria have been prepared. These new criteria provide proper justification and substantiation of the findings.

The five themes and their underlying topics are assessed during the audit. Based on this, the audit team finds strengths and areas for improvement.

In their report, the auditors identify and expand on the strengths in each theme and individual topic and on areas for improvement found during the audit to give the organization an idea of its position within a step, and thus of its potential for growth within each theme.

The audit report also contains a substantiation which should enable readers to trace back why a specific score was given to a specific theme. The audit team thus takes responsibility for the proper performance of the audit and the audit team’s findings can also directly help the organization further develop to a higher step.

These are the criteria for reporting:

• A report on what is good and what can be improved is written for the individual topics for each theme. An assessment is also given (for O and B): green, orange, red? The basic principle is that the listing for each theme must focus on culture. O and B are assessed in conjunction with each other. The assessment of ‘organization’ identifies the relationship to the culture and the consequences for the culture. Here, the overall image regarding the theme is the guiding principle. A substantiation of the score is included here as well.
• If the auditor has noticed something out of the ordinary, they must identify it and add a description of what they think its implications for the culture are. If the auditor then notices aspects which have a direct bearing on elements described for ‘Organization’, these must be identified as well
• The report must describe what the findings are: what does the snapshot look like? It is not a recommendation, but merely a representation of the findings.
• It must not be possible to trace the report back to a single person. The report must be free from personal matters.

Validation

We are currently doing some tests in the Netherlands and Germany to establish whether the new version of the SCL (SCL 2.0) is clear and works well for organizations and auditors in practice. We call this process the validation of SCL 2.0.

All CIs in the Netherlands and Germany are involved in this process. In this context, each of them will use one audit for this validation process. However, since the views and opinions of the rest of the market are also very important, a public comment round is planned in the months of September and October 2022, to supplement the validation.

Based on the validation results and the comments collected through the public comment round, SCL 2.0 will be adjusted so that it will eventually be published in mid-2023 (as scheduled).

The SCL 2.0 Expert Team

The revision of the SCL, which has resulted in SCL 2.0, has been a lengthy process. Revising both the description of the SCL and the assessment method has been quite an ambitious undertaking.

It would not have been possible without the efforts and contributions of several experts who therefore deserve to be explicitly mentioned here.

Thank you, Marina van Beekveld, Arno de Graaff, Frank Thoonen, Gerd-Jan Frijters, Hans Aarns, Robert Taen and Taco Buissant des Amorie!

Via the SCL Webtool, NEN offers several instruments that support certification on the SCL.

In the webtool you will find, for example, the questionnaires to be used for certain SCL products as a first self assessment: the SAQ Compact and the SAQ Extended.

The Online File is also part of the SCL Webtool. This allows an organization to upload documents and provide others (including, for example, certification bodies) access to the SAQ results.

To make the SCL Webtool more user-friendly, it has recently been adjusted on a number of points:

• SAQ Compact
  • Questionnaire has been rewritten to simpler language, to make it even more suitable for all types of employees in an organization. Various statements have been shortened and simplified.
  • Explanation has been added for non-executive organizations. This is intended to help architectural, engineering and consultancy firms translate the questions into their own situation.
  • Some questions have been given a general explanation to make the question easier to interpret.
• Various web pages have been renewed and made clearer. A.o. tips for administrators are included on how to properly use the questionnaires within the company.
• Free PDFs of the questionnaires are available to organizations that have a subscription (not a trial subscription), intended for internal use and consultation.

For more information about the web tool, go to https://webtoolscl.nl/en

In March 2020, NEN communicated additional exception measures on how to deal with delays and obstacles in audits due to COVID-19 measures. The COVID-19 situation is now taking longer than hoped for and it is good to clarify how NEN deals with this with regard to the validity of certificates and statements. The COVID-19 exception measures will remain in force for the time being until the social situation has changed and NEN communicates cancellation of the exception measures.

The complete description of measures has been translated from the policy of IAF. Additional measures, specific for SCL, are included in the document. To help interpret these measures, here are some examples when COVID-19 measures are obstructing completion of the audit:

• If a follow-up audit must now take place, but the on-site audit cannot take place, the completion of the follow-up audit may be postponed once for a period up to a maximum of 6 months. Please note: if this follow-up audit has already been postponed for 6 months, no additional postponement will be granted.
• If a follow-up audit has been postponed for 6 months, the next follow-up audit must take place within one year from that changed date.
• If a recertification audit takes place now (i.e. the 3 year cycle is coming to an end), the recertification must be completed within up to 12 months after the expiration date, but once the COVID-19 measures obstructing an on-site audit are lifted, the audit must be completed within 3 months of that removal (all this within 12 months).
• If the audit is not possible in both situations (follow-up or recertification audit), the certificate will be withdrawn or the scope will be adjusted (only state those aspects in the scope which have been fully audited). After this, an initial audit must take place if you want to adjust the scope.
• Remote audits are allowed during follow-up audits and recertification, but now alsoallowed for step increases and scope extensions. This only concerns the interviewing of “office functions” such as management, HR, calculation, etc. Remote audits are under no circumstances allowed during initial audits and site visits.
• With remote audits, the 2 auditors must be able to communicate with each other during the audit. If they cannot physically sit together in one room due to COVID-19 measures, a videocall is allowed as an alternative.

For a complete overview of measures, we refer to the amended policy document. This is available in Dutch, German, English and French. Do you have questions? Then contact us at info@safetycultureladder.com