Women in construction, heavy industries and utilities need to multi-task - doing their actual job whilst being aware of the dangers around them. If their main focus is discomfort due to their safety footwear, accidents can potentially follow and could have severe consequences, especially on busy sites.
Everyday Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), particularly safety footwear comes into question. Safety boots, safety trainers, wellingtons and safety shoes need to be comfortable, dependable, and durable, but most of all they do need to fit properly!
Regarding the fitting of women's safety footwear, research tells us, that organisations for the most part are converting men's size fittings, into what they believe is the equivalent re-size for the female foot, without properly checking measurements.
Rock Fall UK is at the forefront in the development of innovative, specialist protective safety footwear for everyone. Focusing on end-to-end supply chain process, from product design and procurement of raw materials to delivery of final product into the supply chain.
In the summer of 2023, the Rock Fall R&D department collaborated with Katherine Evans, founder of Bold as Brass, to produce a new range of safety footwear specifically developed for women. This came about after a survey reported that 80% of the women were provided with ill-fitting PPE and safety footwear in heavy industries, engineering, and utility environments1.
A focus group, including members from Bold as Brass, resulted that a product not only had to fit a woman's foot correctly but withstand their everyday working environments. The three main focus points were:
Consider the different shapes and sizes of women's feet - (sizes 2 - 9 whole UK sizes)
Eliminate or reduce possible risk of injury to the musculoskeletal system
Consider site hazards individuals could encounter
Following the feedback and extensive design consultation, the Rock Fall R&D team produced two safety boots using a female last fitting, which takes into consideration a slimmer foot, low instep/high instep arch and ankle bones to ensure a perfect shoe fit - the aim, to feel supported but not restricted!
Destined to improve women's health, safety and wellbeing, both the Hurricane BOA® and Carbon safety boots were brought to market.
As part of the project, Rock Fall UK won the "Best Health and Safety Project of the Year" in the Safety & Health Excellence Awards 2024, commented by the judges as "a well-deserved win for the safety footwear industry".
Watch the video that demonstrates the collaboration of the Rock Fall team and ladies over at Bold as Brass who lent their feet and voices to make this project an award-winning success.
Hurricane Safety Boot
The Hurricane safety boot is worksite inspired, fully tested in quarry environments, on construction sites, across heavy industry facilities, and engineering sectors, featuring a BOA® fit system making them an easy fit.
Watch the interview with Katherine Evans, founder of Bold as Brass, as she talks about Rock Fall's Hurricane BOA® safety boot.
Carbon Safety Boot
The Carbon safety boot is worksite inspired and developed for industries with large and heavy machinery, production processes, construction and infrastructure, machine tools and manufacturing environments.
