How much lunch room space and storage does an office have to provide?

Seats at the table

The duty comes first, because the numbers hang off it. In New South Wales the regulation itself carries it, and the words are worth having whole: a business at a workplace "must ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the provision of adequate facilities for workers, including toilets, drinking water, washing facilities and eating facilities". The national model code states the principle the duty serves: risks from the work environment and facilities, physical and psychosocial alike, are to be eliminated, and where elimination is not reasonably practicable, minimised so far as is reasonably practicable.

The code's measure for the eating area is one square metre of clear floor for every person likely to be using it at the same time, and that space is counted without furniture, fittings or obstructions like pillars. The code shows how it reads: where 10 workers use the area, the arithmetic gives 10 square metres of clear space, with extra room for meal furniture, appliances and fittings like sinks on top.

Worked through on a larger table, the rule scales by the same step: an eating area that 20 people might use at once calls for at least 20 square metres of clear space, before any of the tables and chairs are counted. That is the calculation the code asks for, not a seating count on its own.

The code's own worked office furnishes it: the ground floor eating area is laid out with tables and enough seating for 20 people at once, alongside a kitchen. And it does not demand a full kitchen of every workplace: for some small workplaces, an area to make tea and coffee and to prepare and store food might be all that is needed.

The duty behind the numbers

Two duties sit behind the square metre. The facilities provided have to be maintained to be in good working order and clean, safe and accessible, so a lunch room's furniture is not a one-off purchase whose condition stops mattering. And what is adequate depends on every relevant matter, among them the kind of work done at the workplace, the hazards there, the workplace's size, location and nature, and how many workers there are and their composition.

The regulation attaches a maximum penalty to the duty: 73 penalty units for an individual, or 364 for a body corporate. The decision about how adequate the facilities are is also the kind of decision the duty to consult workers reaches.

A place to keep things

Personal storage is the other half of what the room owes the people in it. Accessible and secure storage should be provided for workers' personal items, such as handbags, jewellery, medication or hygiene supplies, and that storage should be kept separate from the storage provided for protective clothing and equipment where contamination is possible.

The worked office shows the two shapes that satisfy it: every worker gets somewhere lockable of their own, either a drawer at the workstation or a locker or cabinet for valuables on their own floor. On the code's own picture, the drawer at the desk and the locker or cabinet are alternatives, and both are on the worker's floor.

If the work needs a change room

Change rooms only enter the picture when the work puts them there: where the nature of the work has people changing in and out of their own clothing, the code asks for private changing areas, with secure storage for what they bring with them. Where male and female workers change at the same time, the code asks for separate changing rooms, both for privacy and to help control the risk of sexual and gender-based harassment.

The same clause gives locker spacing. A changing room should leave at least 0.5 square metres of clear space for each worker changing at the same time, and the code asks for at least 1800 mm of clear space between facing rows of lockers, and at least 900 mm from a locker to a seat or a wall.

Toppling furniture and the warning label

The tall storage an office buys is a different kind of question, and the national standard that answers part of it started on 4 May 2025, when the mandatory information standard for toppling furniture came into effect. The instrument is the Consumer Goods (Toppling Furniture) Information Standard 2024.

Suppliers must attach permanent warning labels to the furniture the standard covers, and include warnings at the point of sale, both in store and online, and in instruction manuals. The warnings have to be clear, graphic and in plain English, and include internationally recognised safety alert symbols and pictograms. The categories are set: a clothing storage unit or bookcase with a height of 686 mm or more, entertainment units of any height, and hall tables, display cabinets, buffets and sideboards with a height of 686 mm or greater.

An office that furnishes from the second-hand market meets the exclusions before it meets the categories. The standard does not apply to furniture that was bought by a consumer and is being resold, to second-hand furniture including furniture previously bought and used commercially, or to furniture designed to be fastened to a wall that cannot be used unless attached. A new bookcase or display cabinet 686 mm or taller does fit one of the standard's categories, though Product Safety Australia describes the furniture the standard applies to as freestanding household furniture.

Product Safety Australia's guide for the home is about anchoring: consider how the furniture can be anchored to the wall or floor, look for furniture that comes with the equipment to anchor it, and buy an anchoring kit where it does not. The regulator's own summary is that the best way to prevent furniture from tipping over is to secure it to the wall or floor.