Marco Vonk has been municipal secretary at the municipality of De Ronde Venen for a year and a half. However, his safety thinking stems from his time at large industrial companies. 'We can still learn a lot from that as municipalities. But with the SCL, we have an effective tool in our hands as a municipality to improve safety thinking.' De Ronde Venen decided [...]
De Ronde Venen decided in early 2024 to start working with the Safety Culture Ladder with the ambition to reach Step 3. This makes the municipality a frontrunner. 'I saw around me that some safety issues were simply insufficient. The SCL can be a useful tool to improve those, also for other municipalities.'
SCL
The Safety Culture Ladder (SCL) is a safety and health certification scheme and focuses mainly on attitude and behaviour. By influencing mainly these components, the scheme aims to increase safety. Because you can agree on all kinds of rules together, but ultimately the attitude and behaviour of those who have to work with them are decisive. The system works with different steps, each representing a safety level at which an organisation can find itself. The SCL represents not only physical safety but safety in all areas, including psychosocial safety and health. In his municipality, Vonk sees risks in both areas, he explains. 'Take safety clothing of field staff or attention to, for example, lifting work, the importance of a tidy workplace where there are no cords lying around, or simply holding yourself to the banister when walking downstairs. We use the SCL mainly to ensure that physical part of safety, but we also want to improve safety more broadly, on a social level.'
Entire organisation
As a reason for working with the SCL, Vonk cites two things. 'First, we need a tool to be able to do what we do outside, also inside. For example, for outside, there is a VCA certificate, but that does not lend itself as well to inside the organisation. For example, I don't want heavy furniture being lugged around inside or loose cords lying everywhere. This safety thinking is largely due to my previous work at large industrial companies. Within those kinds of organisations, safety thinking is at a higher level than in municipalities. For example, at a well-known large oil producer, it is quite normal that if someone walks without a hand on the handrail of the stairs, that person is called to account. Or if you call someone who turns out to be in the car, you end the call. And then it doesn't matter whether the other person works at the company or not. Another example is the director of a paper factory who always wears safety shoes at work. Very clear simple rules that are increasingly taken for granted by staff because the whole company at all levels propagates them. In a uniform manner. And that is where we as a municipality also want to go. Among other things, we give courses to this end and hold various toolbox meetings. These are short meetings of a few minutes about a particular subject, for example sawing with a particular blade. And, of course, we also have audits carried out to test the safety awareness of our people. Ultimately, we want everyone to actively call each other to account if things are not going well. That doesn't have to be personal at all, but it is about concrete safety issues. By disconnecting that, people feel freer to approach each other.'
Partners
Moreover, with the implementation of the SCL in two years' time, Vonk wants to get to the point where the municipality's major suppliers will also work with the SCL. 'We are just one link in the whole chain but we want to spread the safety thinking more widely. Hence we also want to involve our partners in order to take steps. So we want to use our purchasing power to make a small contribution, chain-wide, to improve safety culture. We will soon tell you about this at our Day of the Entrepreneur in November. That is not to say, by the way, that it is so black and white that we say that from 1 January 2025 no company will work with us that has not already reached level two. It's about sowing a seed of awareness that should then slowly mature. But at the end of the day, it will be convenient if our partners use the same safety system as we do and that they are as serious about safety as we are.' The introduction of the SCL is therefore about instilling safety thinking in staff and cooperation partners, says Vonk. 'Much more than adding yet another requirement to our tenders, for example. It is not a checklist but a way of thinking and doing.'
'I'm sure nothing will happen to me'
The SCL can address certain concrete hazards within the municipality, Vonk believes. 'Some of the work a municipality does is naturally dangerous. Think of rubbish collection or other field service issues such as road works. For example, we work with trucks with a grab arm on them. Of course, you don't want anyone to have an accident with that because we want all our people to get home safely at the end of the day. Or take putting on long safety clothing when it's hot. You can get arguments about that, because often people think 'nothing will happen to me'. Our employees already work as safely as possible. But just in case something does happen. We want to be ahead of exactly that kind of scenario, which is why there should be as little room for discussion as possible. If everyone sticks to the same rules, safety improves, and over time it will feel more and more natural throughout the organisation'.
Take the step
Finally, Vonk has some advice for other municipalities that want to start working with the SCL. 'Of course, we have only just started, but what I can already say is that you have to take realistic steps. The SCL lends itself perfectly to this because there are several steps. For each step, there are clear tools to increase safety awareness. Using the handles of the SCL, you can effectively increase safety as a municipality. So don't just talk about it, get to work, because it is not as difficult as people might think!'