Safety Footwear: Keys to protect your Worker’s Feet

Wearing foot protection equipment at the workplace ensures maximum safety for your feet from different deliberating injuries that are likely to cause due to several hazards. With the right selection of footwear equipment, you can considerably minimize the occurrence of minor as well as major foot injuries.

A good industrial safety program wouldn’t only involve selecting the right pair of shoes but also addressing all working and walking surfaces that employees would get exposed to and this would ensure that they’re present in the best possible condition.

The personal protective equipment standards of OSHA would require that employers would have to “assess workplace for determining the presence or likeliness of hazards that necessitates personal protective equipment usage.” Experts also explain how the right safety footwear selection and assessment of hazard can help in avoiding foot injuries.

Getting comfortable fit

Chances are that workers would be having a tough time wearing such apparel if these result in sore and aching feet due to having a poor fit. Safety footwear with steel toes are uncomfortable is a common misconception, but these shoes are present with padding making these comfortable for obtaining a good fit. The right steel toe fitting is vital as when the shoe is narrow or short the cap would feel a little sung at beginning but after a short period of time wearing the ones with wrong fit would be almost impossible.

A few fitting tips would help workers achieve proper occupational foot safety:

• Both feet must be measured – Most people being right handed, have a slightly larger right foot. Measurements can be included from heel to toe, to get best possible information on sizes. The best thing would be to try these before buying.
• Try old and new footwear as well – It would be handy to have an additional pair much before the old pair completely worn out. Workers must be provided with another pair for rotating these in day to day shifts. Both pairs would last long with more comfort.
• Wear normal sock – Wearing too thin or too thick sock while selecting footwear might result in wrong shoe pair selection.

A few tips to keep in mind to get optimum protection for workers through the right set of safety footwear.

1. It’s much better to avoid shoes that don’t match the safety standards put up by ANSI
2. Cleat-designed soles must be selected for slippery environments. With soft soles you get better slippery indoor conditions with rugged and harder soles of cleat-type. These would be ideal for outdoor usage
3. Safety footwear with leather soles offer fine traction for wooden flooring, but won’t be a fine option for concrete or tiles.
4. Safety footwear must be bought from reputable dealers that provide finest quality footwear in the industry.
5. It should be ensured that the employees remain properly fitted for their footwear so their boots and shoes don’t slide or slip.  

Additionally, with these checks having a safety footwear program would simplify your foot protection requirements and further prevent injuries in the workplace. Instead of having off site fittings for safety shoes it would be better to have fitting stations at the site.