Employee Lockers & Steel Lockers

Employee lockers give every worker one secure place for a coat, a phone, a lunch, a change of clothes or a set of work boots. Done right, they keep personal items off the production floor, out of break-room chairs and away from the stockroom, and they make shift change faster because everyone knows exactly where their things go.

This page covers traditional steel lockers — the powder-coated metal lockers with padlock hasps or built-in locks that you see in plant break rooms, warehouse change areas, retail back rooms, hospital staff areas and fire stations. We explain the locker types by tier, the sizes and construction details that matter, and how to plan how many lockers you need and where they go.

Looking for something else? Our lockers directory covers every locker category and brand we work with, including plastic, wood, evidence, weapon and wire lockers.

The fastest way to pick the right locker is to ask what a typical employee will put in it on an ordinary day, and what they will put in it on the worst day of the year — a winter coat, wet rain gear, a hard hat, a gym bag.

If clothing must hang full length — uniforms, lab coats, coveralls, high-visibility outerwear — go single-tier. If people bring a jacket, a bag and a lunch, double-tier usually covers it at half the wall space per person. If it is a backpack, gym bag or lunch, triple-tier fits three people per column. If the locker only needs to hold a phone, keys and a wallet while staff are on the floor, box lockers put five or six doors in one column.

Many facilities mix types: single-tier for the maintenance crew, double-tier for production, and a bank of box lockers by the entrance for visitors, contractors or phone-free work areas.

A good locker plan starts with the room, not the catalog. Measure the wall runs you can use, note doors, windows, outlets, fire extinguishers and floor drains, and check the ceiling height and any soffits. Then work out the peak number of people who need their lockers at the same time.

From there, choose the locker type for each group, set the aisle in front of the lockers, and place benches where they do not narrow the route to the door. If you are building or remodeling a full locker room, our locker room design guide walks through layout and accessible-locker planning in detail.

Accessibility and fire-egress requirements depend on your jurisdiction and building; we lay out lockers to the criteria your architect, facility team or code official provides.

Project example: a modular change room in Salt Lake City. For a maintenance operation whose technicians arrive in street clothes and leave in work clothing, we delivered a modular change room fitted with rows of full-height employee lockers along the walls and a clear aisle between them, with storage on the deck above.

Read the full modular change room project to see how the locker plan drove the room size, and why the lockers were chosen before the building was sized.