Getting to Know the Safety Shoe Types and Finding the Right One for Your Job

What happens when you step on a nail at a construction site? If you’re wearing the right safety shoes, not all that much. When we’re working in hazardous conditions, we get the safety shoe mandate straight from OSHA, and that’s a good thing. But there are so many shoe types out there that it can be hard to know what you really need beyond the standard steel toe. Depending on the kind of work you do, there are several options you really ought to consider. They may not come with an OSHA requirement, but they will, without a doubt, help your team stay safer on the job and help you knock down those workers’ comp claims.

So you can make the best choice for your team, here’s everything you need to know about the most common safety shoe types on the market today.

Safety Toe

This is what most of our customers imagine when they think of safety shoes. They know that when there’s a risk of foot injury on the job (especially from compression caused by falling or rolling objects), proper safety toe shoes can be the difference between going home to relax at the end of the day and ending up in the ER. They’re the obvious first step toward protecting your team, but it’s also important to know which one is right for you: steel, composite alloy or nano toe. 

Steel toes are a solid choice that, according to the National Library of Medicine, can reduce your chances of a foot fracture by 67%. Composite toes offer you the same great benefits of steel-toed shoes, but they’re a bit lighter, they retain heat in cold weather, and they’re security friendly (no more setting off metal detectors). Alloy toes are made with materials like aluminum, making them equally effective but lighter weight than steel toe. Nano toes use high-tech nonmetallic materials like carbon fiber, making them roughly 50% lighter than steel toes and 40% thinner than conventional composite toes.

Metatarsal Guard

While your standard safety toe shoes are appropriate for lots of jobs, some sites require more protection. That’s where our met-guard selection comes in. And trust us, if you’re working around super heavy or sharp objects that have the potential to fall, you’ll want to go this route. This option not only protects your toes, but it also shields your forefoot. We’ve recently had a customer thank us for this recommendation after a marble slab fell onto his foot. He needed new shoes after the accident (which is normal), but his foot was spared. For this guy, that translated to no broken bones, no time out of work due to injury, no medical expenses, and no workers’ comp claim.

Slip-Resistant

Next in line come our slip-resistant styles. These are an absolute must whenever your work environment is anything but dry (and even then, they’re a good idea). We’ve got tons of slip-resistant styles available, and many of them come with our patented MaxTRAX^® slip-resistant outsole. Our MaxTRAX^® lineup goes way beyond ASTM requirements and performs phenomenally in dry, wet and oily/wet environments. It also excels in independent testing and is trusted by some of our favorite brands, like Timberland PRO^®, Wolverine^®, Florsheim, SKECHERS and more.

Puncture Resistant

What’s surprising to us, and a little bit scary, is that many employers only require the bare minimum, which is often only safety toe boots. These are an excellent choice, but that safety toe cap isn’t going to help your employees if they step on a nail. That’s when you really need to go the extra mile and consider puncture-resistant shoes. This option is made with metallic or nonmetalic (security friendly) puncture plates, which make it very difficult for sharp objects to penetrate. But because of all the extra cushioning these products have, you’d never know there’s a plate inside. 

Electrical Hazard

Working around live wires or electricity? Then you need Electrical Hazard (or EH) safety shoes. Shoes rated for EH protection obstruct the flow of electricity, helping significantly reduce the risk of electric shock for the wearer. Here’s how it works. We all know that when birds sit on power lines they don’t get electrocuted. That’s because they aren’t touching the ground, which is the direction electricity wants to flow. If those same power lines were low enough for us to touch them, the story would be entirely different. Without proper protection, electricity would flow through our bodies straight into the ground, potentially causing a tremendous amount of physical harm. The solution is EH footwear. Safety shoes with this designation completely isolate you from the ground and disrupt the flow of electricity. 

Static Dissipative

If you work with things like computer components, then you’ve got to wear static dissipative (or SD) shoes. The main reason is because the human body naturally builds up static electricity from just walking around. While it’s harmless to us, if there’s a buildup of static in your body and you touch delicate components like computer chips, you’re almost guaranteed to destroy them. This is when you need SD footwear. Unlike EH shoes, SD shoes conduct the flow of static electricity through your body and into the ground, protecting sensitive equipment and parts from harm. 

Conductive

Conductive safety shoes are similar to their SD counterparts. But they do the job much more quickly, which is important for people working around flammable or explosive materials. Since a tiny spark could be catastrophic in these instances, the low resistance and speed offered by conductive footwear is 100% necessary to help your team stay safe. The way conductive shoes work is much like SD shoes, but the floors in these work environments must also be grounded. This helps massively reduce the possibility of volatile materials igniting in your workspace. There’s one caveat, though: people working near open electrical circuits should never wear conductive shoes. 

Waterproof

There are lots of benefits to waterproof footwear, the most obvious of which is comfort. Nobody on the planet wants to work with wet feet, which can become a breeding ground for fungus. But there’s more to the story. Things become critical when you're working in extreme cold, around potentially harmful chemicals, or if there’s potential exposure to harmful bacteria. In these instances, you can level up your waterproof footwear with insulation or blood-borne pathogen resistant membranes. Bottom line, waterproofing is about much more than comfort; it’s about maintaining your health and wellbeing.

Choosing the right shoes for your unique work conditions should be a top priority. The great thing is that you can get various safety features from the most trusted brands, like Timberland PRO^®, Wolverine^®, SKECHERS Work, Hytest, Reebok Work, XENA, SR Max^®, Florsheim and more. To make things even easier, our custom safety shoe programs give you access to 70+ brands (including these), 1,275+ styles, a custom ordering website, subsidy/benefit tracking, 40+ retail locations, onsite fitting services and so much more. Why do we offer all of this? Because the key to boosting compliance and reducing avoidable workplace injuries is to make it as easy as possible to get your employees into the right safety shoes for their job. 

Want to learn how our straightforward, custom shoe programs can help you reduce employee risk?

Benefits of a Saf-Gard^® Shoe Program