Rooms should be made available so parents and those who fall ill while at work have a private and accessible area to take care of their needs.
Parenting and health rooms support different needs. Ideally, these should be separate rooms. Agency or workspace size might mean this isn't practical, in which case a combined space might be appropriate.
Dedicated parenting and health rooms (also known as wellness or sick rooms) provide benefits for the agency and employees:
There is a legislative obligation under the Employment Relations (Breaks, Infant Feeding, and Other Matters) Amendment Act 2008 to provide appropriate facilities and breaks.
For headcounts under 70, agencies can use a combined parenting and health room if it is not practical to separate them. For headcounts over 70 and under 1,000, agencies should consider providing at least one separate parenting room and one separate health room. For 1,000 and over, agencies should provide two separate parenting rooms and one separate health room.
Agencies should aim to meet these requirements within their net lettable areas (NLA).
In cases where agencies co-locate or their workplaces are near each other, for example regional offices, they should consider how to provide a shared space. Use the combined headcount for co-tenanted and co-located buildings. Facilities should remain accessible to all agencies.
Consider these guidelines in conjunction with the government standard building performance specifications. You can request a copy of the specifications by emailing the Government Property Group team.
You need to provide appropriate facilities and breaks for employees who wish to breastfeed or express milk during work. This is required by legislation, where reasonable and practical.
Employment Relations (Breaks, Infant Feeding, and Other Matters) Amendment Act 2008 No 58 – New Zealand Legislation
Agencies need to follow the below standards, at a minimum.
The Building Code states a dedicated feeding room should be provided for breastfeeding and expressing milk. It should consider the needs of all building users.
Baby change and feeding rooms – Building Performance
In 2020 MBIE upgraded their Wāhi Whaioranga Wellness Suite following cross-government Parenting Room Report recommendations. The report and improvements to these facilities were driven by committee members of the MBIE Arahanga Wāhine Women’s Network.
MBIE’s Parent’s Room Report 2020 [PDF 565KB] – Te Aka Wāhine o Aotearoa Government Women’s Network
Arahanga Wāhine celebrate new parenting rooms in MBIE’s Stout Street office – Te Aka Wāhine o Aotearoa Government Women’s Network
There are important considerations when it comes to applying tikanga Māori in these spaces:
Use signage to remind users of the importance of applying tikanga and respecting cultural practices.
These rooms should have an occupancy indicator, lockable from the inside, and the ability for users to know when the room will be next available.
Parenting rooms should have:
Health rooms should have:
Agencies should follow GPG’s branding, wayfinding and signage guidelines.
Appropriate and clear signage should be provided. We recommended a relaxing colour palette for these rooms, with a theme matching the overall workplace design.
Consider how the rooms will be used and how users will gain access, to make sure they’re available for regular or as-needed use. Allow access by building swipe cards where practical. A booking system may not be appropriate due to the nature of both rooms.
For health and safety reasons, it may be appropriate to maintain a register of users of these rooms. Consider how it’s managed to ensure user privacy. Staff training may be required to make sure you protect individuals’ privacy.
Think about your evacuation procedures to make sure the rooms are checked when evacuating the building.
Providing a way of indicating when the parenting room will next be available can be useful. This could be as simple a whiteboard for users to write the time they expect to vacate the room. Names should not be required.