Optimizing Work Shoe Performance with Dr. Geoffrey Gray
Part 1: Overview

If you want to understand your employees’ safety shoe needs on a deeper level, then you’ve got to rely on the gurus who live and breathe safety. For this four-part series on safety shoe performance, we turned to Dr. Geoffrey Gray. Dr. Gray is the founder of Heeluxe™, a state-of-the-art footwear testing company with a mission to make it easier to improve every type of shoe, “from high heels to hiking boots.” During his presentation at our CoLab conference, he offered insights into some of the most cutting-edge developments in the safety shoe world and highlighted areas of opportunity.

This stuff matters to us, and it should matter to you because it not only paves the way for better shoe performance and increased safety, but also more satisfied workers. In part 1, we’ll take a bird’s eye view of where the industry is now in terms of shoe performance. In parts 2-4, we’ll dive into some of the most important elements of performance: traction, cushioning and fit.

 

There’s More to the Story Than Accident Prevention

Dr. Gray suggests a broad perspective of the safety shoe category because many companies (not us, of course) fall into the “defensive mindset trap.” They emphasize protection to such a degree that they inadvertently limit their range of performance innovations. In other words, they put all their eggs in one basket. But if all you think about is protection, you’re positioning yourself to focus solely on accident prevention and overlook potential injuries that are not accident related. For example, it’s crucial for your kitchen staff to have the right amount of traction so they don’t slip and fall onto a blazing cooktop. It’s equally important that they have enough cushioning and support to help keep them feeling their best and prevent knee and lower back injuries after prolonged standing. Employers and shoe companies alike often miss that latter point.

While we in the industry usually use the term “safety shoes,” Dr. Gray prefers the term “occupational shoes.” For one thing, it helps put us into a more proactive state of mind. It makes it easier to focus on all the factors that employers and employees care about: all those safety features in addition to comfort, durability and so much more. Bonus: this broader focus on overall shoe performance trickles down to improved outcomes like better worker efficiency and happier employees.

That’s a goal we can really get behind. It’s integral to how we form brand partnerships and it drives our product development. It also leads us to continually consider bigger questions like, what’s working well in the safety shoe industry, and where is their room for improvement? 

What the Safety Shoe Industry Is Getting Right

What are occupational shoes already doing well? According to Dr. Gray, we’ve got protective spheres like steel toes, met-guards, puncture plates, waterproofing and more down to a science. We know how to keep feet insulated. We’ve got a lineup that’ll even keep workers warm in temperatures as low as -45℉. We can also offer a cooler, breathable shoe experience for users in warmer climates. That protective barrier from negative outside forces is already well researched, well designed and well executed.

What about slip protection? Dr. Gray notes that the industry has made great strides in the area of shoe traction, despite the fact that for years national standards only accounted for dry and wet surfaces and neglected to consider floor contaminants other than water. With our patented MaxTRAX^® slip-resistant outsole, we’re proud to have been the ones to raise the bar in slip resistance performance. MaxTRAX^® in particular can handle a whole host of slippery environments and nails independent testing on dry, wet and oily/wet surfaces. That accounts for most of your everyday slip hazards. 

 

Areas of Opportunity

Shoe traction has come a long way, but as employee needs evolve, so must the products and tools that serve them. We’re now seeing a greater need to account for more specific working conditions, including the addition of traction zones to help deal with both liquid and granular media (like mud, dirt, dust and cornmeal), gravel traction tread patterns and more. 

Another huge area of opportunity in the safety shoe world is comfort, which we can reduce to two factors: cushioning and fit. It’s no secret that occupational shoes have a bleak history in this category, but there are many bright lights nowadays. For example, during the product development process, we independently test every new shoe in the SR Max^® line with Heeluxe™ to ensure that each one has optimal fit. The name brands we carry have this same drive to provide better comfort. But there’s still room for improvement in the industry as a whole. Many brands out there still lack the necessary comfort and innovative design to really support workers who are on their feet up to 10 hours a day.

 

Where do we go from here?

It’s one thing to celebrate the wins and highlight the new opportunities. It’s another thing entirely to dig in and work toward solutions. In the next three articles of this series, we’ll let Dr. Gray guide us through the future of safety shoe traction, cushioning and fit.