The pandemic might not be over just yet, but most companies have already returned to their physical office spaces. Once again, they are facing the issues from before, trying to handle things like limited parking without compromising the comfort of their employees.
New businesses struggle with parking management, too. Nowadays, 1 in 10 people want to start a business, but most don’t even anticipate how this little thing can affect the productivity and happiness of their employees.
It sounds irrelevant compared to matters such as salaries, benefits programs, and equipping the office space. However, very soon, this becomes one of the largest problems for many businesses.
For a very long time, managing parking has been a problem for employers. What do you do when your team doesn’t have enough parking spaces? There are constant fights over what space belongs to who, people are late and frustrated, and everything seems to suffer as a result of this.
In this article, you’ll learn a few tips on how to manage and optimize the parking experience in your company.
1. Use software solutions for the lack of parking space
What used to be a grand problem in the past is automatically resolved today for companies that invest in parking management software. Solutions like Wayleadr recognized these common issues and developed world-class, smart solutions to lack of parking space in the form of software. This is a market leader in the field that can assist small to large-scale offices, and increase the number of parking spaces available by up to 40%.
This sounds like magic and unrealistic, but their reputation surely backs up the numbers. Employee parking management software monitors what employee is due to come to the office. Based on it, it allocates the parking spaces to people who will be needing them on a given day.
On top of this, software can be customized to prioritize staff on different criteria, making sure that the available parking is used by those that need it most, such as people with disabilities, the elderly, etc.
Long gone is the time when companies had large amounts of parking just laying empty because most people worked from home during the pandemic. Most of the employees return to the office at least a few times every week. Today, companies and employees are valuing remote work more than ever, so you’ll find more people choosing to work from home every now and then.
Thanks to such software, companies can easily allocate spaces of those that will be working from home on a given day.
2. Manage the parking manually with the help of your team
If you’re managing a small startup or have very small parking and a few employees, doing this on your own can work, too. However, you should be prepared to put in the work – even with a small parking space, things can get really hectic.
Say you have just enough spots for all your employees that come to work with their cars. What happens if someone buys a car that previously used the metro to get to work? What happens when a visitor comes to your company, parks their car, and there’s no space for an employee afterward?
There are many things to consider when you manually manage your parking, as well as different ways to do it. Let’s look through some of them.
For starters, you can create an online, accessible way for your team to share whether or not they’ll need a parking space on a given day. You can use communication platforms like Slack or even a simple Google Docs file to keep track of this all.
This will, of course, depend greatly on how much your team is willing to collaborate. Will they always write down the days when they don’t need parking – or when they need it? Will they forget and make a mess?
If you’re managing just a dozen employees with a few parking spaces, this can be a simple process. However, if your parking spots are very limited compared to the number of employees you have, this can become an admin nightmare. In that case, you’d be better off with software to handle this for you.
3. Opt for extra space when you lack other options
If your parking space is extremely limited and you have many employees that need a spot, no level of management can solve this for you. You will have more spots with proper management, but this is not a magical solution.
When your space is simply not enough, you need another option. That option is renting spaces. Yes, this will cost your company money, but it will keep your team happy and help them work more productively. One of the smartest moves for a company is to give people what they want. If you cannot do this with management only, you should rent some spaces.
Now, this is only an option if such space is available near you. Most urban areas don’t have free spaces to rent, so it depends on where your business is located. Look around you to find available parking and try to negotiate a good price for long-time renting.
4. Encourage employees to use other methods of transportation
Lastly, you can try and influence your employees to stop using their cars to get to work. There are many reasons why they can decide to switch to other forms of transportation such as cutting down on fuel costs, living a healthier lifestyle, etc.
Vehicle maintenance and fuel are very costly these days, so it’s definitely a reason to start using public transport or carpool with others. If your employees live nearby, carpooling would benefit them, as well as you since you’ll have more spaces, and they’ll save more money.
Another option that would encourage them not to use their car to get to work is the right set of benefits. They won’t need a car if you offer them public transportation benefits, or get some bikes they could use to commute to and from work.
Finally, you can invest in company transport that will pick up and drop off the workers. Most of them will like the option because it saves them money, and they also don’t have to drive on their own every day.
Some tips on creating your workplace parking policy
Whether you do this with the help of a software or manually, you still need to customize a workplace parking policy that works for your company. Let’s go through the things you should consider to do this right.
For starters, your policy will need to cover different types of users including:
- Employees that work in the office
- Staff that visits from other sites (if your business has different offices)
- Company or carpooling vehicles
- Customers and/or visitors
You should account for all these when planning your parking spots. If not, a single surprise can make a mess out of your strategy. Just a single visitor can cause havoc in your plan. An employee whose spot was taken will take the spot of another employee, and so on.
The next tip is to prioritize disabled parking, spots for car sharers, deliveries, and bicycles. You might also want to consider creating spots for short-term parking needs and motorbikes.
Lastly, it is important to manage nuisance or unwanted parking. No one wants this to happen, but it does – people often park in places where they have no right to do so. Some do this in spite of knowing they shouldn’t, and others do it because they are not aware of it.
This means that you should also consider options for preventing unwanted parking. These options can include:
- Displaying no parking signs in clear locations
- Using a physical barrier that restricts access and is only accessible for your employees
- Placing notes on vehicles that parked in spite of your signs
- Issuing parking charge notices to prevent people from parking in your spots
Unauthorized parking can be a nuisance and stress out everyone, but keep in mind that in most cases, this happens because people are unaware that they cannot park there. This can all be prevented if you have clear signage or warning methods for the drivers. Keep in mind that you cannot use barriers to restrict the movement of the vehicles that have already parked unless said barrier was already there before the vehicle arrived, and the purpose of the barrier was clear – to control access.
How will you manage your company’s parking space?
Now comes the main question – what will you be doing to improve this experience for your company’s employees? Your options are management software, which is the safest and most effective these days, as well as manual management. In terms of manual management, you’d have to do it all on your own: rent out spaces, manage your team’s arrivals and departures, etc.
Whichever option you choose, you are on the right track – keeping your team happy should be your priority. Poor parking management can cause many headaches, so it’s best to handle this as soon as possible.
Disclaimer: MoneyMagpie is not a licensed financial advisor and therefore information found here including opinions, commentary, suggestions or strategies are for informational, entertainment or educational purposes only. This should not be considered as financial advice. Anyone thinking of investing should conduct their own due diligence.
