Is Your Safety Footwear Program Working?
A successful safety footwear program goes beyond compliance—it delivers visibility, selection, service, and employee-centered protection that reduces injuries and supports a strong safety culture.
- By Janelle Kinnaird
- Jul 07, 2025
The obvious key to a successful PPE program is that your employees are protected. Reduced workplace incidents, injuries, claims and related costs are key performance indicators. But there are other things you need to consider that facilitate that goal, lessen your burden of effectively managing the program and contribute to a positive safety work culture.
If you don’t currently have a managed program this is great criteria to use. If you do have one, let’s see how many of these apply to you.
- CONTROL & VISIBILITY
Most PPE Programs fail to be strong or effective because they don’t allow you to “see” your program to know how it is performing. Visibility is key to manage eligibility, track compliance, control your spend and control what your employees are wearing. A program should provide you a way to see in real-time which employees have ordered and which have not so that you can prove compliance (without checking everyone as they walk in the door each shift). A program should allow you to determine and restrict the product your employees have to order to ensure they are in proper safety for their specific environment(s). A few programs even allow you to manage product selection by department and location which can be critical if you are a large corporation where environment hazards vary and change. This is critical to ensuring compliance.
A major component of accurate visibility is that you only offer one vendor or channel from where your employees can order or purchase footwear. When you use multiple vendors, allowing your employees to order from wherever they choose in an attempt to provide them freedom and options (brick and mortar retail store, retail website, shoe truck, program website) they can’t all capture every single employee’s actions. You are then left to a manual tedious process of matching multiple spreadsheets and collecting receipts for reimbursements that is time-consuming, wasteful and prone to error. For accurate visibility, choose one exclusive vendor to work smarter, not harder.
- SELECTION
Employees are more likely to wear their safety footwear if it is a style they love and are comfortable in. This is one reason companies don’t want to restrict to a single vendor but there are some who offer a huge selection and go the extra step to ensure an accurate fit.
Data has proven that a 10-minute try-on in a store or on the back of a shoe truck is not the greatest way to prove that it fits. Advanced digital foot measuring is the best way to assess a perfect fit so look for programs that offer this benefit service with their quality selection of styles and safety features.
With the increase of women in the industrial workforce, your number of qualified hard-working female employees has probably increased as well. Find a program that offers a great amount of women’s-built footwear. Providing styles built specifically for women instead of restricting them to downsize to a men’s style will enable greater comfort and performance while acknowledging their valuable contribution to your company.
And of course, make sure all footwear offered is tested and certified to meet ASTM F2413 standards.
- EASE OF ORDERING
There are many ordering options that you can offer your employees - brick and mortar retail stores, retail websites, shoe trucks, program websites. The best option is a dedicated program website with an exclusive program for several reasons. 1. As mentioned above (and worth repeating) capturing order data digitally all in one system will ease the burden of manually collecting and reporting on it. 2. Online selection is far greater than any retail store shelf or shoe truck inventory limited in space. Online ensures extended sizes and more styles for both men and women. 3. Being able to conveniently order 24/7 on any device from a website catalog of only shoes that fit your safety requirements eliminates downtime from shoe truck lines, delayed fulfillment from service cancellations and employees wearing non-compliant options from a retail store shelf. 4. With digital foot measuring and size recommendation, the fear of not trying on before buying is gone.
- PROGRESSIVE PROTECTION
OSHA sets the standard of protection – the MINIMUM you need to provide. As a quality employer or a manager privileged with safeguarding your workers, you should always be looking for opportunities to exceed the minimum.
Safety Footwear provides protection from accidental incidents. To protect from everyday body stress and fatigue that can compromise alertness and contribute to accidents you need to go a couple steps further. Along with ensuring a proper fit, providing your employees with supplemental body-aligning orthotics or insoles and anti-fatigue compression garments will multiply their safety. Along with a performance and production increase, you’ll notice a more positive safety work culture as workers believe you care greatly for their well-being.
- QUALITY SERVICE
Choosing a company with the best quality service should go without saying. The hard part is how to determine this upfront.
One thing to look for is an established reputation and longevity in the industry. If they’ve been around a while they are either great at what they do or know how to evolve and adapt to the needs of the industry – or both. A company with vision on ways to provide higher standards of safety is a great indicator of exceptional service.
A second thing to look at is who they already provide their services for. Most companies will list accounts they are proud to work with and if you follow their social media, you will see honest reviews and comments that help back up those relationships, as well as learn the brand’s expertise and authenticity. If you happen to know someone who works at one of the companies they service, ask them for a referral.
A demo presentation will also help you evaluate their service. Direct answers to your questions on how to specifically resolve your pain points as well as on availability and resolution response times will give you a sense of transparency and clarity. The initial intro should be all about helping you, not about them. Make sure you understand all the process channels they offer from onboarding to driving compliance to communication updates to not only make sure they are a good fit for your company but that they are experts in providing what you need to lessen your management burden.
Working with your chosen program vendor is critical. Make sure to utilize their marketing assets and allow direct communication to your employees for program awareness and eligibility notifications. Stay in regular contact with your rep to assess program performance and learn about new services offered. You should also do regular site evaluations to determine any new hazards and provide training and education to ensure employees are informed about who their vendor is, know the dangers of boot breakdown and are encouraged to order when eligible.
So, I ask again… Is your Safety Footwear Program working for you? You know your current pain points and what your program is missing. Don’t keep living with them. Find a better solution.