Safety Culture Ladder

Conscious safe behaviour

The Safety Culture Ladder

The Safety Culture Ladder encourages safety awareness and conscious safe and healthy behaviour. The goal is to reduce the number of unsafe and unhealthy situations with fewer incidents (absenteeism, damage) as a result.

A key factor is awareness at all levels of the organization’s own contribution to safety and health. This has everything to do with attitude, behaviour and culture. Has there been created a setting in which people dare to express themselves if there is an unsafe or unhealthy situation? Is safety and health often talked about and are employees being heard on safetyand health issues?

Use of the Safety Culture Ladder has a broader function, however. It offers a framework for safe working to all parties active in the various sectors, whereby no distinction is made between clients, contractors or suppliers. Safety is something we achieve together, throughout the chain.

The Safety Culture Ladder has been developed in such a manner that the core concept can be generically applied. Additionally, the Safety Culture Ladder offers plenty of room for ‘customisation’ per sector by interpreting requirements and criteria in a manner appropriate to the specific industry or type of company.

The Safety Culture Ladder also consists of 5 steps. The assessment criteria of each step originate from 6 company aspects, subdivided into 18 company characteristics, each with an own weighting factor.

Safety Culture Ladder products

Since March 1, 2020, several SCL variants are available. The only products for which a certificate is issued are the SCL Original product (annual full audits) and the SCL product (full audit only in year 1). An organization or its client (if required) determines which SCL product applies.

certificateyear 1year 2year 3SCL Questionnaire to use
SCL Original certificate100% audit100% audit100% auditfree choice
SCL certificate100% auditfollow-up audit 40%follow-up audit 40%free choice
non-certificate
SCL Light statement40% auditcheck on action plancheck on action planUse SAQ Compact or SAQ Extended (choice)
Approved Self Assessmentself assessmentcheck on action plancheck on action planSAQ Compact obligated

Which product should you choose? Read more about the products here.