5 Reasons for You to Wear Shoe Covers at Work
Wearing a shoe cover may not be a welcome treat to everyone especially since it looks awkward and funny. You might think that it would be redundant to the very purpose of shoes. But if you work for a company that requires their employees to wear shoe covers, for sure, you know its value – that it’s not an absurd policy, rather, an important necessity.
To help you understand further the importance of wearing shoe covers at work, we gathered 5 reasons commonly given by those who are faithful users of shoe covers.
- Keep your shoes clean and protect them from damage.
Some people would definitely say that shoes are meant to be dirty since you walk around in them and expose them to all the natural elements. And, it wouldn’t be able to serve its very purpose if you layer it on with a covering.
But if you are working in an industry such as hospital, biochemical, manufacturing, food processing, and other similar industries, you would find shoe covers an essential work wear. It is worthy to note that these industries deal with fluids, specimens, chemicals and other substances that can stain or damage your shoes. In this case, unless you are fine with wearing stained or damaged shoes or buying a new pair every now and then, then shoe covers can do the job.
2.Keep a controlled working environment clean and sterile.
A controlled working environment has stringent requirements for every employee working in the area, to follow. Certain parameters must be maintained to ensure that the area is sterile. Temperature, pressure and autonomy from other departments are just some of those that are being monitored in a controlled environment.
Before you get in that kind of working environment, you have to remember that your shoes could be bringing in dirt that can compromise the controls being undertaken in that area. You can avoid doing so by wearing shoe covers. In that way, any dirt, mud or sludge from your shoes can be contained.
3.Prevent cross-contamination between areas
To better illustrate this, let’s take the food processing industry as an example. The processing plant of course is not only composed of one department. There’s the receiving area where the raw materials are dropped, checked and assessed if they are quality enough to be processed. There are cleaning areas where the raw materials are being prepared for processing. The main processing area would be implementing strict controls to ensure that the food processed would be safe for consumption. There’s also the packaging area that will lead to the logistics area for shipment.
Every area of the processing line runs the risk of being contaminated with bacteria or parasites. It is for this reason that some manufacturing plants do not allow workers to hop from one area to another for fear of cross-contamination. There are also some plants that have a conveyor running through each area of the whole line just to keep workers from crossing.
Cross-contamination is a serious risk that must be mitigated especially if we are dealing with food. Aside from a gown, a head cap and gloves, shoe covers are being required to be worn when going in a sterile working area and to be removed or disposed when going out to another area.
4.Protect the floors of the workplace
Like in the story of how Tiger Effects came to be, our floors can get damaged with all the dirt, mud, sludge or even tiny rocks that slipped in the grooves of the soles of your shoes. A case in point would be having service contractors in to your home to do repairs or to deliver furniture. If they came from muddy construction sites then certainly, they would be bringing all the mud from there and into your home. It could be worse if you have carpet or vinyl floors that can make all the cleaning a tedious process. It can cause scratches to your tiles or hardwood floors.
The more responsible contractors would treat with due care, the homes, offices or other areas that they will be working on. Thus, they use shoe covers and they even have them specially designed to fully support them in their contracting work. Other shoe covers are designed to have rubber, water-resistant, anti-slip soles that helps maintain traction.
If they do not have their own shoe covers, you as the home or office owner can keep a supply and let these contractors use them especially if they would be making your home or office their work place for a given time.
5.Save time and cost in changing your shoes
When you are required to change your shoes at work and every time you are to enter a controlled area, changing into boots and removing them after can take much time. When you instead use shoe covers, you can easily slip them on and you’ll be ready in no time. It will not even take you a minute to put on shoe covers unlike putting on boots where you have to remove the shoes you’re wearing before you can put on the boots.
Also, if you are the business owner and you have several people in your workforce that would need to wear safe and sanitized shoes in their work areas, providing boots or safety shoes to them can be too capital-intensive. You still need to replace them every now and then. Then, there are reusable shoe covers that will not cost as much as boots or safety shoes.
Get your own now
We hope that in reading through you can now see the value of wearing shoe covers. Wearing them should not just be a mere compliance to your workplace’s policies but an intentional practice aimed to protect you, your business and your family.
You can head on over to Tiger Effects’ catalogue of shoe covers so you can get your own. And, if you’re an avid user of shoe covers and feel the need to add more to the list, feel free to let us and the whole world know.