Over the last 6 years, the whole concept of office storage has gone through a major revolution. There is a major current shift from centralised archive storage to personal possession storage - from bulk filing to lockers. So we are seeing a re-positioning of the location and importance of the locker, shifting from back of house right into the hub of the work area.

Form & Function

Size

Different companies, different workers and different departements all have different needs. One size does not fit all. Often there are specific requirements such as stowing a gym kit, a motorbike helmet or hanging coats, segregating smoker and non-smoker coats. We have seen lockers being used in a number of ways, from giving all staff the same size locker for equality reasons, to users having the option of what size locker they have access to.

Case study: Atlas Workbase >

Atlas Workbase are a premium coworking space based in Seattle. They decided on a web-based lock system linked to their own booking system to provide users a seamless booking and user experience. 

Visual Customization

The personality of an organization can be brought out on a locker bank. It’s a perfect blank canvas for brand extension, whether it’s colours, graphics, fonts or locker styles. With open plan offices not having as many walls to put things, lockers can be used instead to accentuate the feel of a space.

Locking Strategy

A central part of a locker is the lock. There are multiple variations of this, from the traditional key lock to battery operated or hard-wired agile options. The locking strategy can be selected according to the needs of the company and their style of working.
There are also a range of modes that can be selected within the high-tech solutions, from automatic assigning of lockers to auto-unlock functions for a specific amount of time.

Reporting & Management

Lockers take time to manage. With a traditional lock, there is a lot of manual work with locker key records and keeping track of keys when staff join and leave. In large organisations with thousands of lockers, management of this can almost be a full-time job for one person. When you go for a higher tech solution, you get a higher level of reporting and locker management included behind desktop software. Often a fully integrated locker management system is preferred, as it it gives you the data without the loss of privacy for the users.

We hosted a live webinar on this topic - watch below!