Four of the five shoes on this page are running shoes. That is not a criticism - they are the best cushioned, best fitting footwear available at this price, and the demands of standing on a hard floor overlap substantially with the demands of running on one. But it does mean accepting two compromises that nobody selling them mentions.
Compromise one: no slip-resistance rating
Running shoe outsoles are designed for traction on dry pavement. They are not tested for wet or oily floors, and they carry no rating to that effect. A hospital corridor that has just been mopped, or a floor with fluid on it, is exactly the surface that testing exists to characterize.
If your employer specifies a named standard - ASTM F2913, ASTM F1677, EN ISO 20347 SRC - then four of these five are out before you consider comfort. Check the policy first. It is a frustrating constraint and it is not negotiable.
Compromise two: the upper absorbs
Knit and engineered mesh uppers breathe well and soak up anything spilled on them. A leather clog gets wiped; a mesh sneaker gets taken home, washed and dried for a day. If you only own one pair, a bad spill at hour three means nine hours in a wet shoe and no shoe for tomorrow.
Two mitigations: own two pairs so one can always be drying, or accept the compromise and keep a wipeable pair for the shifts you expect to be messy.
What a sneaker gives you in exchange
Cushioning no clog matches. The stack heights here run from 36.5 mm to 43 mm of midsole foam. A leather clog has a fraction of that, and on concrete you feel the difference.
Heel retention. This is the big one. Laces fasten the shoe to your foot, so you can move quickly, take stairs properly and respond to something urgent without your shoe coming off. For a lot of units this alone settles the clog question.
Weight. A cushioned sneaker is 8 to 10.5 oz. A leather clog is substantially more, and over 15,000 steps that compounds.
Width ranges that actually exist. Running brands build multiple widths as standard, which the clog market mostly does not.
Reading the two numbers that matter
Stack height is material between you and the floor. More is more cushioning. On a twelve-hour standing shift that is worth real money.
Drop is the heel-to-forefoot height difference, here from 5 mm to 10 mm. Higher drop takes load off the calf and Achilles; lower drop puts more there. If your calves are what tighten up rather than your feet, drop is the variable to change.
One honest warning visible in the specs on this page: manufacturer drop figures and independently measured ones sometimes disagree sharply. HOKA lists 5 mm for the Bondi 9 and RunRepeat measured 9.1 mm, which is not a rounding difference. If you chose a shoe for its drop, know which number you are trusting.
Replace them before they look worn
The failure mode for a sneaker is the midsole, not the tread. Foam compresses permanently under load, and a shoe can have plenty of outsole left while the cushioning you bought it for is gone. That is why the replacement guide tells you to press the midsole rather than look at the sole.
