Safety Culture Ladder maps safety awareness

Even within the civil engineering sector, VCA has been the standard for safe, healthy and sustainable work for more than 25 years. With the Safety Culture Ladder (SCL), organizations can - literally - take the next step towards an even higher level of safety and safety awareness. Normec Certification, as part of the Normec Group and the largest SCL certifier in the Netherlands, is happy to help.

As an independent organization, the Normec Group is constantly working to achieve the highest quality of work and life. For everyone. With all expertise under one roof, the company relieves clients from a to z when it comes to testing, inspection, certification and compliance. "Among other things, we do this in the area of safety, an aspect that is also hot within ground, road and hydraulic engineering," says Arjen Werkmeester, who serves as commercial director within the Normec Group. "Especially now that, since the beginning of this year, most contractor companies are required to hold a Safety Ladder certificate. The Normec Certification business unit takes care of the testing and certification in that area."

Awareness

As a valuable supplement to SCC certification, the Safety Ladder focuses on awareness and safety consciousness. "Whereas SCC is a tool for complying with the minimum requirements of Dutch occupational health and safety legislation, the SCL focuses primarily on what is alive among employees and what drives them to work safely or not," explains Werkmeester. "To determine that, we conduct interviews with all the executive staff at our clients. This is always done with at least two auditors, so that we do not act on gut feelings, but rather the actual facts regarding safety come to the surface. This creates a complete cross-section of the organization and the common thread in terms of safety policy becomes clear." 

Review

Whereas the SCL standard prescribes what must be tested for, the client in principle determines which of the five ladder levels he wishes to achieve. The higher up the ladder, the more stringent the requirements to be met. "In order to clarify the safety risks and identify which safety aspects still need to be worked on, the client first makes a self-assessment," Werkmeester continues. "This self-assessment produces a ladder indicator. This gives the organization insight into which rung they are likely to end up on. At the same time, it becomes clear what can possibly be improved so that a higher ladder step can possibly be achieved. This is followed by certification." For this, Normec Certification employs as many as fourteen of its own auditors. A number that allows the company to call itself the largest certifying body in the Netherlands regarding SCL. "Recently we were able to issue the thousandth SCL certificate," Werkmeester says proudly. "A score that underlines our expertise once again."