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In essence, the framework measures the maturity of building safety leadership and culture, and tests that each aligns with the presence and practice of activities critical to building safety
Once your organisation has registered to participate in the benchmarking and verification framework, you can begin the self-assessment process to gain ‘Building a Safer Future Champion’ company status.
Self-assessment
Typically, the self-assessment process for your company will take 2–4 weeks to complete.
A statistically significant sample of respondents from across your organisation will be required to undertake an online survey which explores their perceptions of leadership commitment and culture in relation to building safety. The size of the sample will be determined by the size of your organisation, and the sample will cover different levels of seniority, across relevant departments so that we, and you, can achieve an holistic overview.
The leadership and culture surveys will take each individual responding about 30 minutes to complete.
The surveys for the six corroborating elements are then answered by technical or functional specialists best equipped to respond to these building safety critical elements. They can anticipate spending around 30–45 minutes completing their responses. Additional time required to upload evidence will, of course, depend on how readily available that evidence is to the individual.
Verification
Independent assessors can take 2–4 weeks to review responses, conduct interviews, collate data, visit projects (online and in person) and where necessary put together reports.
The entire process can take anywhere between 4–8 weeks to complete.
As you’ve just seen from ‘The Framework at a glance’, there are four stages to the ‘Building a Safer Future Champion’ process
| STAGE 1Assessing leadership and culture | STAGE 2Corroborating leadership and culture through organisational practice | STAGE 3Validation and verification | STAGE 4Project Assessment | STAGE 5Confirming the outcome |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Through structured online surveys, our primary focus is on assessing the culture and commitment of your organisation’s leadership in relation to building safety. | Applying an evidence-based approach, we then assess how your organisation’s culture and leadership in relation to building safety affects the rest of your company in terms of practice, policies and procedures. Typically, our assessment is corroborated through six critical elements of building safety
|
Independent verification is undertaken by an external BSF assessor who will review all the responses, data and evidence gathered during stages 1 and 2. From their analysis, they will select a number of respondents to validate the leadership and culture elements. Validation takes the form of short, structured interviews that usually last 45–60 minutes. The six corroborating elements from stage 2 are verified using an evidence-based approach and any concerns will be explored further with the relevant respondent. | Having completed a review of the leadership and culture responses and conducted a sample of one-to-one interviews, the assessor also reviews the corroborating element responses and evidence.
The assessor will then verify how that practice identified at an organisational level is then applied on a sample of 'live' projects and sites. This takes the form of online checks, and in some cases, checks and interviews with staff on those projects. This project verification is crucial to explore how culture and policies in relation to building safety is put into practice and how consistently organisational approaches are being applied. |
Assessors, having completed their analysis, interviews and reports will then make a recommendation to the Building a Safer Future Champion Confirmation Panel. Organisations achieving the minimum expected level across their assessment, and on the recommendation of the Confirmation Panel, will be awarded Building a Safer Future Champion Company Status. |
| STAGE 1Assessing leadership and culture |
|---|
| Through structured online surveys, our primary focus is on assessing the culture and commitment of your organisation’s leadership in relation to building safety. |
| STAGE 2Corroborating leadership and culture through organisational practice |
|---|
Applying an evidence-based approach, we then assess how your organisation’s culture and leadership in relation to building safety affects the rest of your company in terms of practice, policies and procedures. Typically, our assessment is corroborated through six critical elements of building safety
|
| STAGE 3Validation and verification |
|---|
| Independent verification is undertaken by an external BSF assessor who will review all the responses, data and evidence gathered during stages 1 and 2. From their analysis, they will select a number of respondents to validate the leadership and culture elements. Validation takes the form of short, structured interviews that usually last 45–60 minutes. The six corroborating elements from stage 2 are verified using an evidence-based approach and any concerns will be explored further with the relevant respondent. |
| STAGE 4Project Assessment |
|---|
| Having completed a review of the leadership and culture responses and conducted a sample of one-to-one interviews, the assessor also reviews the corroborating element responses and evidence.
The assessor will then verify how that practice identified at an organisational level is then applied on a sample of 'live' projects and sites. This takes the form of online checks, and in some cases, checks and interviews with staff on those projects. This project verification is crucial to explore how culture and policies in relation to building safety is put into practice and how consistently organisational approaches are being applied. |
| STAGE 5Confirming the outcome |
|---|
| Assessors, having completed their analysis, interviews and reports will then make a recommendation to the Charter Champion Confirmation Panel. Organisations achieving the minimum expected level across their assessment, and on the recommendation of the Confirmation Panel, will be awarded Charter Champion Company Status. |
Following the independent assessor’s review, you will be provided with actionable data and a summary narrative report identifying possible areas of weakness, blind spots and where you can make critical building safety improvements, be they to leadership, culture or processes.
These evidence-based outputs could prove invaluable. Saving you time and money by determining where your efforts need to be focused. More importantly – above all else – the ‘Building a Safer Future Champion’ process will create an organisational ethos of continuous improvement in relation to building safety.
You will be able to benchmark your organisation and its performance against the rest of the sector, and the Charter will publish industry-wide data on progress on leadership and culture change in relation to building safety. All such data will be anonymised and aggregated.
All information and data collected as part of the ‘Building a Safer Future Champion’ process will remain confidential to the organisation participating and will be subject to GDPR regulations.
Organisations and companies that achieve the minimum expected level will receive the ‘Building a Safer Future Champion’ certificate acknowledging their status. To ensure standards are maintained moving forward, this certificate is valid for two years from the date of issue and is subject to a ‘mid-term’ review process at the start of year two and full-scale re-assessment at the start of year three.
To promote their achievement, companies will be allowed to use a special date limited ‘Building a Safer Future Champion’ logo on their own website, and their company name and logo will also be displayed on the ‘Building a Safer Future Charter’ site. (This will be subject to rules of logo and BSF brand usage conditions).
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