Do these shoes need to work with skirts/dresses? How formal is your workplace?
I mostly wear men's shoes for a number of reasons, and they work well with pants, but not skirts. I also have a friend who only wears dresses and wears Sperry's boat shoes pretty much exclusively, but the dress code is pretty casual.
There are a number of brands that have die-hard fans, but I think the best thing is to try a large number of brands to see what works for you. I can't listen to my mom's shoe brand recommendations, for example, since invariably whatever works well for her will never fit me right (and vice versa). You might try Zappos - free shipping and returns, and the reviews are pretty specific (like smaller than expected or wider, etc.)