Gone are the days when office storage lockers or employee lockers were seen as an optional add-on to any workplace.
Today, office lockers tend to be a necessary and integral feature of modern, smart, and dynamic workplaces.
Thus, whether you are
- planning to upgrade a traditional workplace into something that is dynamically driven and equipped with innovation to combat modern-day challenges and needs of the employees; or
- are in the process of building a new office from the scratch,
one of the essential office areas that you couldn’t afford to ignore is to have a unique and customized office storage locker or employee locker facility.
However, before you begin finding office lockers to serve as storage for your office employees, know that not all employee lockers are the same.
Different employee levels and different departments in an office will require storage lockers to serve their unique needs. Therefore, it is important to understand the needs first and then begin searching for the best and the appropriate storage locker.
Fortunately for you, this article provides a guide to getting the best employee lockers for the office.
So, let’s begin.
What is an office locker?
Office storage lockers or employee lockers are designated areas in many corporate offices today.
Their simple purpose is to facilitate and provide employees with a safe and secure place to store their valuable items, whether personal or related to their job.
Preferably, each office storage locker facility comprises different size compartments to serve different types of things.
For example, an employee locker to store letters and documents only will usually be narrow. Contrary to this, an office storage locker for holding bigger items such as an employee’s backpack or a briefcase will be much bigger.
Furthermore, depending on the type of the office and employee needs, some employees might have designated lockers as well.
However, this does not mean that other employees do not have access to the storage lockers’ facility. Other employees can reserve any empty lockers whenever they need them and can return them later.
Common features of office storage lockers
While almost all locker manufacturers offer the option to customize office storage lockers, there are a few features that remain common in many. These are –
- Smart locking solutions such as keyless locks, biometric locks, app-enabled locking/unlocking
- Temperature control for storing perishable items
- Secure locking systems
- Strong steel doors, front panels, and body
- Better storage solutions such as shelves and drawers
- Modern interior and exterior finishing
- Easy to clean and sanitize
- Centralized controlling system
- Maintains usage log
Advantages of getting storage lockers for the office
When you install office storage lockers, you generally add the following advantages to your workplace environment.
1) Clutter free environment
Having a place to store the things that aren’t required now, can help your employees keep their desks clutter-free. Unnecessary stuff on office desks can be a reason for employees to lose focus on the main tasks at hand.
Therefore, employee lockers serve to maintain a clutter-free office environment by having an alternate place to store the unneeded items safely and securely.
2) Hot desking
Hot desking is a modern-day feature of many smart workplaces today. Its basic idea is to not assign employees with a permanent or same office desk every day.
Rather, employees have the freedom to choose and change their working spot depending on convenience, comfort, and for team working purposes, whether every day or even multiple times during a single day.
Office storage lockers help promote the offices with hot-desking initiatives. This means that employees can roam around easily with important stuff only.
3) Employees feel welcomed and valuable
With a personal place for safe and secure storage of their valuable items, employees feel welcomed and valued. They do not need to worry about their stuff being stolen or mixed up with others since they know where it is.
4) Improves employee productivity
Having a designated or even a temporarily reserved office storage locker for themselves gives employees a sense of belonging. This helps them focus more on their duties and tasks, thus overall helping them improve their productivity.
5) Centralized control and easy access
Office lockers, especially smart lockers, offer centralized controlling features, thus reducing the need to hire staff for maintaining usage logs or to accompany users on every visit. This also helps users to easily access the employee locker’s facility.
Disadvantages of office lockers
While there are unparalleled advantages to having employee lockers, there are a few disadvantages as well.
1) Keys lost, or PIN codes forgotten
Although office storage lockers are safe and secure places to store personal belongings and other office stuff without any kind of intrusion, they can be rendered useless if you lose your keys or forget the PIN code combination.
And while digital lockers may be safe in this manner that they operate in a keyless manner, their security can still be compromised.
2) Storage locker maintenance
For lockers that are temporarily assigned to employees based on a need basis, maintaining such lockers for regular cleanups and fixing any damages, etc. is easy.
However, this isn’t the case for permanently designated lockers. Unavailability of the locker user or a reluctance of any employee to allow access to scheduled maintenance procedures can create issues for the management.
Different types of lockers to get for the office
When looking for the most suitable, reliable, and appropriate office lockers, you will come across three main types of lockers to select from. These are –
- Wall mounted lockers (general purpose lockers with different size compartments to serve different needs)
- Individually mounted lockers (provides storage solutions for individual employees and can accommodate workstations or cubicles in an office)
- Armored lockers (provides excellent secure storage for offices where data security is of high concern)
Maintaining the lockers
Maintaining office lockers is simple and easy if your employees are well-aware of the protocols to follow for this purpose.
For example, not using adhesives or stickers on powdered coated locker surfaces or avoiding the use of metal or sharp objects to scratch its surface for any reason.
Remember that since all the lockers won’t be regularly operated, they are prone to accumulate dust and dirt over time. However, regular maintenance can help counter these issues and extend their useful life which can easily span over several years with proper care.