Safety Culture Ladder explained: the steps, step 3 and how to start

What is the Safety Culture Ladder?

The SCL is an instrument to measure and improve how an organisation deals with safety, in attitude and behaviour. The model originated at ProRail for the rail sector and is now managed by NEN. It is based on a culture ladder by Parker, Lawrie and Hudson, among others, in which organisations develop in steps.

The current version is SCL 2.0, which has applied since 1 January 2024. It is more general than the first edition and fits every sector and size, from contractor to engineering firm. It puts more emphasis on attitude, behaviour and cooperation than on systems and documents. Organisations do not have to keep climbing: staying on the same step is a choice, depending on your ambition and your clients' requirements.

The SCL works alongside VCA and ISO 45001, not instead of them. Those two are mainly about the system, the SCL about behaviour, leadership and involvement. You do not need another certificate to obtain the SCL. The choice between VCA and ISO 45001 is covered in the guide on ISO 45001 or VCA. Besides VCA there is VCA-MAX, a VCA certificate with a behaviour module. Whether a client accepts it for its requirement, you ask that client.

The five steps of the safety culture ladder

NEN describes each step as a stage of development. An organisation sits on the highest step whose requirements it meets. The names largely follow the model of Hudson and colleagues, where the highest step is called generative; the SCL speaks of progressive. These are the steps in plain words:

• Step 1, pathological: safety barely plays a role and little or nothing is invested in safe behaviour.
• Step 2, reactive: there is attention for safety, but mainly after incidents, and that attention fades again over time.
• Step 3, calculating: the focus is on management systems, rules and oversight. On paper it is well organised, but not everything is reported.
• Step 4, proactive: attitude and behaviour are central. People remind each other, contribute ideas and use incidents to learn.
• Step 5, progressive: safety has the same place as money, time and quality. Learning and improving come naturally and supervisors and employees are aligned in this.

What does SCL step 3 mean?

Step 3 is the step that many clients steer on. The organisation has the basics in order: a safety policy with objectives, known tasks and responsibilities, risk analyses, inspections, agreements with subcontractors and a way to register and follow up incidents. Supervisors watch compliance with laws and regulations and with the company's own rules.

That is also the limit of step 3: the emphasis is on systems and compliance. For higher steps, attention shifts to attitude, behaviour and involvement in daily practice. The exact description per step and per subject is in the NEN scheme. Use that as your yardstick and not this summary.

Which organisations ask for the Safety Culture Ladder, and why?

The SCL is not a legal requirement. The demand comes from tenders and admission schemes. In construction, clients and contractors have made agreements in the Governance Code Safety in Construction under the name Safety in Tenders. According to the guidance in its January 2026 version, a minimum maturity level of 3 applies from 1 July 2026, in principle for contracts above a certain contract value, and contractors must pass that requirement on to their chain partners.

ProRail also includes the SCL in its recognition scheme for rail contractors, and other large clients in infrastructure and energy name a step in their requirements. The idea behind it: those who include safety culture as a quality criterion in procurement reward organisations that demonstrably work on behaviour. Which step, which proof and from when, you read in your client's documents. These requirements have been raised in recent years and may change again.

How does SCL certification work in broad terms?

You are assessed by a certification body. You usually start with a self-evaluation in the SCL web tool. Then two independent auditors visit your offices and projects, talk to employees and observe the work. So it is not about a pile of documents, but about what people say and do on the work floor and in management.

In SCL 2.0 auditors work with five themes: policy and leadership, knowledge and skills, primary and secondary processes, cooperation with external parties, and learning and improving. For each subject the organisation gets a green, orange or red assessment instead of points. You receive a report on what works well and what can be better. There are variants, from a self-evaluation and a light variant for smaller organisations to certificates with heavier audits; check the current product terms with NEN or a certification body.

What do you work on to reach a step?

Reaching a step means that behaviour and culture match what belongs to it, not that you tick off a list. Four subjects keep returning in the assessment and determine where your energy pays off most. They connect to the themes of policy and leadership and of learning and improving:

• Leadership: management and supervisors visibly show exemplary behaviour, free up time and resources, hold people to agreements and recognise good behaviour.
• Involvement: employees contribute to risks, work methods and measures and take responsibility themselves, including subcontractors and hired-in staff.
• Reporting and learning: near misses and unsafe situations are reported, analysed and visibly lead to improvement.
• Communication: safety is regularly on the agenda, in both directions, in work meetings, toolbox talks and conversations on the work floor.

Example questions for a conversation with employees (illustrative)

Conversations with employees are an important part of the assessment. You can prepare by asking the same kind of questions yourself to people at different levels, without steering them. These are example questions and not an official questionnaire of a certification body. Listen mainly to the examples people give and not just to the yes or no.

• What do you do when you see an unsafe situation and the work is behind schedule?
• When did you last report something, and what happened afterwards?
• How often does your supervisor talk to you about safety, and what is it about?
• Who may stop the work, and what happens afterwards?
• How do you know which risks belong to today's work?
• What happens when you speak to a colleague about unsafe behaviour, and when you are spoken to?
• What has improved over the past year following a report or incident?

Practical first steps towards a step

Start with what your clients ask for and with an honest look at yourself. More on measuring and improving culture is in the guide on improving safety culture, and the basics of reporting are in the guide on improving reporting culture. These steps form a logical order:

• Find out which step your clients require, from when, and which proof they accept.
• Do a self-evaluation and discuss the outcome with a group of employees, not only with management.
• Choose one or two improvements per theme and give each an owner and a deadline.
• Make reporting simple and always feed back what happens with a report.
• Train supervisors in speaking up, giving feedback and listening.
• Walk the work floor yourself and compare what you see with what the procedures say.
• Choose a certification body and plan the audit when you also see the behaviour, not just the paperwork.

Common mistakes with the Safety Culture Ladder

Most mistakes stem from the idea that the SCL is a paper exercise. Auditors talk to people and look at behaviour, so a neatly ordered folder is not enough. Things can also go wrong later, because a step you have reached must be maintained. Watch out for these points:

• Getting only the documents in order and not involving employees.
• Leaving the project with the QHSE coordinator, while management and supervisors determine behaviour.
• Telling employees what to say. Auditors ask for examples from the work.
• Chasing a higher step than needed or than your organisation can sustain.
• Stopping after the audit, so old habits return and the level drops.
• Steering on zero reports or reprimanding reporters, so that people stop reporting.

How BrydgeOne supports this

BrydgeOne has no separate SCL module and delivers no SCL assessment or certification. A certification body determines the step. BrydgeOne does support working on safety culture. In Incidents & reports, employees report via the app, a QR code or a public reporting point, anonymously if desired, and the reporter receives status updates. For a structural cause you run an investigation with 5× Why.

With Toolbox talks you share safety instruction with a team or project and record participation with signatures and knowledge questions. Actions bundles all follow-up in one list with an owner and a deadline, and closing an action requires an explanation. With Audits you plan internal audits, record findings and follow them up; you build the checklist from your standards or a template, so the content is up to you. Using these modules does not earn an SCL step. It does help to make reporting, instruction and follow-up demonstrable.