Welcome to the Safety Climate Tool

Supporting resources

We are pleased to provide a wealth of supporting resources to help you build a firm foundation for your first Safety Climate Tool. We include PowerPoint presentations, example correspondence and publicity materials. These will guide you in setting up a successful survey and help to increase engagement with employees. You may not need to use them all but this document will explain what the tools are and how to use them.

We have tried to make the documents customisable where possible, to allow you to tailor according to your organisation's details. To help with this, we've highlighted the text that will need changing - [example].

New Benchmarking Data

The Safety Climate Tool (SCT) measures the attitudes and perceptions of the workforce about health and safety against eight safety climate factors. The following benchmarking report and spreadsheet breaks down the minimum, maximum and average (mean) score for each of the eight factors by a range of industry sectors. The spreadsheet allows you to can enter your own results from the SCT report within the All-Industry tab which will carry across to each industry so you can accurately benchmark your results against the industry standard.

Watch the HSE SCT Benchmarking video (opens in new window).link opens in a new window

Achieving Safety Culture Excellence (ASCENT)

Running the HSE Safety Climate Tool is just one part of the wider process required if you are going to successfully and sustainably improve your organisations safety culture. The diagram highlights the essential components you need to include to successfully work towards safety culture excellence.

HSE Diagram for Safety Culture (opens in new window)link opens in a new window

How-to videos

To support administrators in planning, building, collecting, analysing and moving forwards with their survey, we have put together some helpful how-to videos. These how-to guides (opens in new)link opens in a new window window will give you a clearer understanding of the features and benefits of using the Safety Climate Tool in your organisation.

Watch how to benchmark your performance against industry standard (opens in new window).link opens in a new window

Setting up your demographics

Setting up your demographics correctly is a crucial element for getting your assessment to work for your organisation. This document will explain some of the common pitfalls when creating your tool demographics and includes a form to help you identify the appropriate demographics for your organisation.

Download the word file 'Demographics for HSE's Safety Climate (SCT)' '(.DOCX 29.9KB) (opens in new window)link opens in a new window

Making the case

This is a PowerPoint presentation to help you present some of the arguments you might need to get the commitment from your key stakeholders for using the Safety Climate Tool. You may decide to use some or all of the slides depending on the stage of your discussion with management. In the notes under each slide you will find:

Guidance notes Containing additional advice to help you deliver the briefing and answer any questions you might be asked.
Presentation notes Containing the content for the presentation which you can adapt to suit your own delivery style and the needs of your organisation.

Download the powerpoint file 'SCTSP Making the case' (.PPTX 2.8MB) (opens in new window)link opens in a new window

Stakeholder management

This outlines how to identify and manage your stakeholders (for the purposes of this publication a stakeholder is anyone with an interest in the survey). We provide practical advice on how to select and manage the stakeholder group to maximize your success.

SCT stakeholder management (PDF 219KB)link opens in a new window

Managing your Safety Climate Tool as a project

This provides suggestions about how to plan and manage your Safety Climate Tool. This will help you distinguish it from other business-as-usual activities and give it the focus it needs for success. Although not intended as an in-depth guide to project management, it provides useful hints and tips.

Managing your SCT survey as a project (.DOCX 35KB) (opens in new window)link opens in a new window

Managing your Safety Climate Tool schedule

An Excel spreadsheet is included containing an example of a survey plan. There is a list of activities you might expect to carry out with their start dates and durations. There is also a Gantt chart showing the activities against time. You will need Microsoft Excel to use the spreadsheet and knowledge of Excel charts is helpful.

SCTSP Example SCT schedule spreadsheet (.XLSX 15.4KB) (opens in new window)link opens in a new window

Example of SCT survey schedule (PDF 910KB) (opens in new window)link opens in a new window

Briefing your workforce - PowerPoint presentation

This is a PowerPoint presentation containing a suggested format for a briefing session. It is designed to provide basic information on why your organisation might want the workforce to complete the Safety Climate Tool. You can use this to brief your champions or your workforce at one of your regular safety briefings or toolbox talks. You can adapt the slides according to what's happening within your own organisation. In the notes under each slide you will find:

Guidance notes Containing additional advice to help you deliver the briefing and answer any questions you might be asked.
Presentation notes Containing the content for the presentation which you can adapt to suit your own delivery style and the needs of your organisation.

SCTSP Improving the way we do things (.PPTX 1.2MB) (opens in new window)link opens in a new window

Steering group rules of engagement

This contains suggestions about how you can form and run an effective steering group. It includes the roles and responsibilities of the steering group and some ground rules. The process for improving the safety culture1 in your organisation begins when you can begin to build trust and gain the wider co-operation of your workforce for the future. If you decide to set up a steering group it is important that its members are drawn from across the workforce, not just management.

SCT steering rules of engagement (DOCX 21KB) (opens in new window)link opens in a new window

Selecting your Safety Climate Tool champions

Champions will support your organisation to promote and encourage others to participate in the survey. We give you practical tips on how to select your safety climate champions, together with their roles and responsibilities. The role should be voluntary and the idea is that they will help promote and encourage participation with the Safety Climate Tool, just through their normal day-to-day conversations with their co-workers. This is just one way to engage the wider workforce in the survey. Some organisations already have health and safety champions and may choose to extend their role to support the launch of the Safety Climate Tool.

Selecting your SCT survey champions (PDF 77KB) (opens in new window)link opens in a new window

Supervisor/line manager briefing messages

This provides you with the suggested content for an email or face-to-face briefing with your supervisors or line managers. These are the people who have more regular contact with the workforce. If they understand the rationale behind the survey and engage with what you are hoping to achieve, they can have a positive influence.

SCT supervisorline manager briefing messages (DOCX 18KB) (opens in new window)link opens in a new window

Workforce briefing messages

This contains four examples of the messages you should send to your workforce before, during and after the survey. You'll need to tailor the messages according to your needs. The messages are intended to be sent by email but they're still relevant if you want to deliver them by other means.

Message 1 Provides a brief introduction to the survey and why it's important. It also tells your workforce the date of the survey and how to complete it. This may be the first time that most of your workforce will have heard of a Safety Climate Tool. You should issue Message 1 shortly before you open the survey.
Message 2 Lets your workforce know that the survey is now live. It also assures them that the survey is anonymous, which is important. You should issue message 2 on the first day of the survey.
Message 3 Reminds your workforce about the survey, why it's important and how to access it. You should issue message 3 around halfway through the survey.
Message 4 Tells your workforce the survey has closed and thanks them for completing it. It also lets them know they'll be kept updated. You should issue message 4 just before you close the survey.

SCT workforce briefing messages (DOCX 23KB) (opens in new window)link opens in a new window

Intranet pages

We've included three examples of intranet pages for you to tailor to your own requirements. You'll need to discuss these with your intranet team to make them fit in with your organisation's intranet style. You'll see that they're quite informal; we find this is a good way to engage with your workforce. However, you may wish to change this to fit in with your corporate style. Also, if you plan to use paper surveys and/or parts of your workforce don't have access to your intranet you can edit the information to include information about how your paper survey will be delivered. You can also use the content of the messages and put them on your noticeboards:

Intranet page 1 - Survey open For use when you first launch the survey. It contains basic information about the survey together with a link to the FAQs. You'll need to edit it as appropriate to include your organisation's name, dates and links.
Intranet page 2 - Reminder To remind your workforce about the survey. It should encourage them to complete the survey if they haven't already done so. It should replace page 1 when you issue the reminder message (see 'Workforce messages' section).
Intranet page 3 - Survey closed To thank your workforce for completing the survey. It should replace page 2 when you issue the reminder message (see 'Workforce messages' section).

SCT intranet pages (DOCX 20KB) (opens in new window)link opens in a new window

After-action review

This introduces you to a straightforward exercise for capturing all the useful knowledge you've learnt from carrying out your first Safety Climate Tool so you're prepared for the next one. It isn't a prescriptive process and can be adapted to suit your needs.

SCT after-action review (PDF 169KB) (opens in new window)link opens in a new window

Posters

We've included two poster designs in the pack. You can print and use these around your workplace to promote the Safety Climate Tool.

There are both generic and customisable versions of each design.

Generic posters

You can use the generic versions 'as is' without any changes. They are in pdf format and you can print them in either A4 or A3 size depending on your requirements.

SCTSP Poster 1 Generic (PDF 309KB) (opens in new window)link opens in a new window

SCTSP Poster 2 Generic (PDF 1.12MB) (opens in new window)link opens in a new window

Custom posters

You can customise your posters by including your organisation's name. Due to issues with image scaling we've created both A4 and A3 versions for printing. You'll need Microsoft Word to edit the posters:

Open the poster using Microsoft Word. You have a choice of A3 or A4 and these are identified by the file name.
Towards the bottom of the poster there is a message: Help to make [company name] safer by completing the 'Safety Climate Tool'. You can change this according to your requirements, but we suggest you just replace '[organisation name]' with the name of your organisation. Note that the text is highlighted to indicate that the text can be changed; the highlighting won't be printed.
Save the document.
Print as required.
Close the document.

SCTSP Poster 1 Custom A3 (DOCX 677KB) (opens in new window)link opens in a new window

SCTSP Poster 1 Custom A4 (DOCX 416KB) (opens in new window)link opens in a new window

SCTSP Poster 2 Custom A3 (DOCX 1.01MB) (opens in new window)link opens in a new window

SCTSP Poster 2 Custom A4 (DOCX 613KB) (opens in new window)link opens in a new window

Flyers

We've included two flyer designs in the pack. Again, there is a generic and customisable version of each one. The flyers are intended to be printed on double-sided A5 paper. You can print and leave them in strategic locations around your workplace (noticeboards, canteen, tea room, communal mail etc).

Generic flyers

You can use the generic versions without any changes. They are in pdf format and should be printed on A5 paper. Before you print please set your printer properties to double-sided.

SCTSP Flyer 1 Generic A5 (PDF 211KB) (opens in new window)link opens in a new window

SCTSP Flyer 1 Generic A5 000 (PDF 85KB) (opens in new window)link opens in a new window

SCTSP Flyer 2 Generic A5 (PDF 288KB) (opens in new window)link opens in a new window

SCTSP Flyer 2 Generic A5 000 (PDF 128KB) (opens in new window)link opens in a new window

Custom flyers

As with the posters, you can tailor your flyers to include your organisation's name. You can also include a management statement on the back if you want. You customise the flyers as follows:

Open the flyer using Microsoft Word.
Towards the bottom of page 1 of the flyer there is a message: Help to make [company name] safer by completing the 'Safety Climate Tool'. You can change this according to your requirements, but we suggest you just replace '[organisation name]' with the name of your organisation. Note that the text is highlighted to indicate that the text can be changed; the highlighting won't be printed.
On page 2 (back) there is a standard message with some space to add a supporting message from your CEO or other senior manager. You can change this in line with your requirements. Again, the highlighting won't be printed.
Save the document.
Print as required.
Close the document.

SCTSP Flyer 1 Custom A5 (DOCX 259KB) (opens in new window)link opens in a new window

SCTSP Flyer 1 Generic A5 (DOCX 292KB) (opens in new window)link opens in a new window

SCTSP Flyer 2 Custom A5 (DOCX 380MB) (opens in new window)link opens in a new window

SCTSP Flyer 2 Generic A5 (DOCX 417KB) (opens in new window)link opens in a new window

White Papers

The following five white papers provide context into how and why the Safety Climate Tool was developed.

Consultancy

HSE have one of the largest dedicated Human Factors teams in Europe, including occupational and health psychologists. These specialists have used insights gleaned from many years' working with industry to identify the essential steps to improve safety culture.

HSE specialists are available every step of the way to guide your progress to safety culture improvement, ensuring greater efficiency, effectiveness, staff engagement, senior management buy in and, ultimately, a more successful programme of improvement.

Click here to find out about our consultancy offerings (opens in new window).link opens in a new window

Printed publications, posters and healthy deal playing cards

We offer a range of printed guidance and publications that can be purchased from our online shop (opens in new window).link opens in a new window

Frequently asked questions for administrators and users

The frequently asked questions (FAQs) (opens in new window)link opens in a new window are questions and answers that respondents and administrators most often ask about the Safety Climate Tool.

The administrator FAQs are for those actively running the survey and provides additional information about the system and the service provision and support.

The user FAQs (opens in new window) link opens in a new windoware for participants of the survey and provides additional clarity as to how and why the survey is being run.

For the user FAQs, you may want to add, change or delete your own information. For example, the FAQs refer to both paper-based and online responses, but your organisation may only be running one method of survey. You'll need to tailor the FAQs where appropriate (dates, organisation's name etc). The FAQS are categorised into Getting started, Completing the survey and After the survey.

If you're going to include the FAQs on your intranet you'll need to agree the best way of presenting them with your intranet team. For example, HSE lists the questions with hyperlinks and displays the answer underneath when clicked. Clicking on the FAQ displays the answer underneath.

Feedback on the Safety Climate Tool

We value your opinion and we would appreciate your feedback and ideas for the ongoing development and improvements of the online Safety Climate Tool.

Online: feedback survey (opens in new window)link opens in a new window

Email: hseorders@tso.co.uk

Tel: +44 (0)333 202 5070