Can I wear my flip-flops?
Some of your IT staff have started wearing open toed shoes and sandals to work. You’re concerned that they don’t offer any protection and leave you liable in the event of an accident. Where do you stand and what should you do?
A tricky issue
OK, so we all know that you won’t get onto a building site wearing flip-flops or sandals etc. Why? Because there will be a protective footwear policy that requires the wearing of safety shoes or boots with a protective steel toecap. The main reason is that the types of activity being undertaken present a high risk of foot injury, usually as a result of something being dropped on the foot. But what about the office situation? The guy from your IT department who comes to work in flip-flops, or your female secretary who wears open toed sandals or shoes in the summer?
Case law
Having done a trawl through over 300 different cases involving foot injuries we haven’t found any that relate to the wearing of flip-flops or sandals. However, there is every chance that people have made personal injury claims against a company’s insurers for foot injuries. To help mitigate against such claims your insurer would expect to see a copy of your risk assessment and details of your footwear policy.
Duty to protect from known risks
The Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992 (PPE Regs) have something to say about this. PPE is not necessary where the likelihood of a worker being injured by a work-based hazard is so low as to be insignificant. For example, in most workplaces there will be some risk of people dropping objects onto their feet, but it is only when there is manual handling of objects that are heavy enough to injure the feet that the risk will be high enough to require the provision of safety footwear. However, the duty to protect people from injury needs to be assessed.
Assessing the risk
It is here that our old friend the risk assessment raises its head. Continuing with the office situation, the people who perform clerical work are unlikely to be faced with situations that will cause serious injury to their feet. A risk assessment would probably show that the risks are minimal and the outcome of such an incident to be relatively minor. However, the man from your IT department is in a different situation. His risk assessment may well show that although he spends a lot of his time in the same office as the clerical worker, his range of duties include totally different tasks that present a far greater risk of foot injury. For example, if he is moving monitors or printers around, the injury caused by dropping such items onto his foot is likely to be severe.
Protective footwear
So, the risk assessment for your IT man is likely to show that you must provide him with foot protection and ensure that he wears it. But he’s not going to thank you if you just provide him with a pair of heavy industrial safety boots; there’s no need. Something that’s lightweight but offers protection on the top of the foot should be fine.
Tip. There are numerous options available but make sure the shoes selected conform to BS EN ISO 20347:2004, the European Standard for occupational footwear. There is no need to have shoes that offer protection at the sole or ankle.
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