we have an office supervisor who walks around the office in stocking feet. What are the problems?

Smelly feet?

You may need to ask the question as to why the person walks around in stockinged (sp?) feet. You may find there is a perfectly logical explanation (or not, as the case may be). I for one would like to wander without shoes at work but I am sensitive to other people's thoughts on the subject so don't. I often wander around my home in bare feet because I like to wiggle my toes with no constraints around them!! I buy comfortable shoes for work so that my feet feel ok. Apart from the obvious problems of staples lying around and slipping on non-carpeted surfaces, there shouldn't be a problem.

My biggest questions would be... What would the individuals response be to a fire alarm? What affect does a manager doing this have on Safety Culture? As mentioned above - anything around the floor that could cause unprotected feet harm? If your answers to these are acceptable - then ok.

farrell What is your concern about this other than perhaps wanting to appoint yourself as the arbiter of matters sartorial? Will you prohibit blue trousers with brown shoes? OK, that's possibly quite fair but do you want to issue a written warning about flowery neckties, denim or hoodies, perhaps to ban long skirts, or even short ones? And don't get the girls, or the boys, started on stilettos! It sounds like you're stuck in the bad old days!

Sorry, didn't realise that only one point of view was aloud. you can attack my point of view all you want but try looking at the bigger picture and stop hiding behind the fact that people often see our role as annoying and meddling. If we continue to continually worry about what people think we will end up at the beginning. Remember if someone gets hurt it will be due to the lack of safety and procedures. We will always get slagged off, as people will always argue that it was better in the good old days, before safety. I was more interested in the culture, it's possible that if you allow people to walk around without shoes then it would be equally allowed for other employees to wear trainers instead of safety shoes. If you take into account what is expected from safety i.e. a person burns themselves on a urn with boiling water, they where making a cup of hot tea or coffee. The first question a solicitor will ask is did it have a sign warning of hot water. The answer no, does not go down well. It makes no difference that you need boiling water to make the drink. If you then drop this on your foot and don't have shoes on then you will in all possibilty lose the case because the culture was not to wear shoes. If a person hurts their feet because they have not got shoes on, the first thing they will say is the safety officer or manager saw me and said nothing. I am not saying shoes or lack of them should be allowed, I don't care one way or the other, what I was saying was for the person just to cover themselves. If you read any of my postings you will see that I do not agree with a lot of things that in my view are holding health and safety back. i.e. R/A's for making cups of tea, carrying trays with tea on, opening and closing doors.

Ensure the person is away from desk with no shoes on, then set fire alarm off for a drill and see what they do. Do they go out as they are OR more than likely they will walk all the way back to where the shoes are and put them on (whilst burning to death...) We have the occasional person who doesn't sign in, we plan our fire drills around them to see if they pipe up "i'm here" to which we respond not according to the sign in board / clock machine etc etc

So, if we must at all times be dressed for comfort in an evacuation, does that mean we all need to keep our winter coats on all day?

I've no problem with staff having shoes off where they sit. I've had to do the same in the last couple of days due to having a swollen big toe (always got my safety boots on) but with the type of work we do, i'd be silly to walk around the office building in bare feet as such as we have mud / dust in office brough in by yard / factory staff at all sites espeically in the current weather. I'm more intrigued if there was an emergency and they were 50 yards away and had to go outside in bare feet, what they would do. I'd say 99% of the time they'd rush back to get shoes etc before going out so there feet wouldn't get hurt or dirty...

Work backwards: you try and make them wear shoes for H&S purposes. They refuse. You sack them. They go for wrongful dismissal. Now persuade a tribunal that in not wearing shoes they were in breach of H&S law, John

You fail - they get the payout

Would you catch the man on the clapham omnibus wearing shoes - i think you would... Is it custom and practice....? This is HR more than HS and I think it is reasonable to ask someone to wear shoes whilst walking around... under a desk i don't have a problem.