Whatever you happen to be doing with your working day, it’s essential that you’re wearing the right shoes. Arguably more than any other item of clothing, the shoes we wear play a critical role in protecting us from the world and safeguarding our general well-being. After all, your shoes are there to not only cover your feet but support your entire body.
The type of work you’re doing, and the environment in which you’re doing it, should both inform the type of footwear you wear. Here, we’re going to look at exactly how.
Safety Footwear
Wherever there’s a risk of injury to your feet, you should be wearing protective footwear. Shoes of this sort might incorporate metal caps around the toes, or the soles.
If you injure your feet, then your ability to work will be severely impacted – especially if you’re doing an active job. Potential sources of injury might include slipping, standing on something sharp, or being splashed by chemical spillages. Research your options and invest in something that will provide the appropriate level of protection. It’s usually better to spend more if it means avoiding pain and a lengthy spell in recovery.
Electrical Hazards
Particularly worthy of consideration in some professions is the danger posed by electricity. If you’re dealing with high-voltage machinery, then you need to ensure that the shoes you’re wearing are non-conductive and resistant to electrical shock. This will help reduce the likelihood of you inadvertently completing a circuit and channelling thousands of volts into the Earth. While safety footwear won’t guarantee that you don’t get a shock, it can reduce both the likelihood and the impact of an injury. This is especially important if you’re working at a height, or in an environment where a shock might be compounded by other hazards.
Explosives
On the other hand, you might also wish to avoid building a static charge yourself. If you’re working with explosives, then you might inadvertently generate a spark, which might ignite the fuel source. This means conductive shoes with socks that don’t generate static electricity. While the risk of this kind of scenario unfolding is very small, the potential costs can be catastrophic. It’s therefore worth doing everything you possibly can to reduce the risk.
Blades
If you’re handling sharp objects, then there’s always the possibility that they’ll slip from your grasp and land on your toes. If you don’t have the right shoes on, then you might suffer a serious injury. This is where robust, steel-capped boots of the sort we’ve already talked about come in handy. In certain cases, you might look for boots that are specially designed to deal with special kinds of hazards, like chainsaws.
