HOW TO BUILD AN EFFECTIVE EMPLOYEE PARKING MANAGEMENT STRATEGY

By Daithi de Buitleir

When correctly done a parking management strategy has many benefits. These include increased efficiency, cost savings, maximized resource utilization, improved staff morale, and greater environmental impact. It is your master plan and should result in the more efficient use of available parking resources by:

• Controlling, monitoring and pricing of parking facilities

• Gathering better user information

• Improving allocation and optimizing space usage

Benefits of a parking management strategy

Efficiency: the parking facility operates like a ‘smart machine’ and basically runs itself.

Cost savings: the company enjoys savings on real estate expenses and saves on parking fees.

Maximum resource utilization: full occupancy for company parking slots during normal office days

Higher morale: employees spend less time looking for a parking slot, parking-related squabbles between staff are eliminated, and people feel that the parking allocation policies are clear and fair.

Reduced negative impact to the environment: less congestion on the parking lot leads to reduced air and water pollution and reduced carbon footprint.

With these advantages, it’s no wonder that many enterprises are realizing the need to invest time and effort to address employee parking issues and building a strategy to solve the challenge.

How to create a parking management strategy

Summarize employees’ commuting profiles

Build a database of your employees with their commuting and parking needs, including:

• Who travels by personal car or company car?

• Are there employees who share rides with others?

• Are there employees who live close to each other?

Other information that you might want to consider includes location (distance from the office), job level or tenure.

If your company is still adapting to the hybrid work setup, the schedule on when employees will be reporting to the office or working off-site should also be included. Unpredictability of employees’ in-office schedule can lead to empty parking slots. If that is the case, design a strategy that ensures empty parking spaces will be reallocated and put to good use.

Conduct a SWOT of the current parking situation A summary of employees’ needs can be compared to the current parking situation when conducting a SWOT analysis. Factors to consider include:

• What is the disparity between demand and available slots?

• What are the strengths and weaknesses of your current setup?

• Are certain spaces more accessible than others?

What are the opportunities for improvement? Something as simple as installing brighter lights and removing clutter might do wonders in making your parking space friendlier and safer to all. Do you have parking spaces for different kinds of vehicles, from scooters and bikes to bigger vehicles?

This might be a good time to decide if there are certain behaviors that your company would like to promote. Are you looking into reducing your organization’s carbon footprint? If yes, you might want to incentivize ridesharing or bringing a bike to the office.

Do you want to improve the accessibility of your parking lot for employees with disabilities or physical challenges? You can allocate preferred slots for them.

The younger workforce is more open to flexible, shared approaches and it might be a good idea to promote teamwork and camaraderie with your parking arrangements.

Overall, your employee parking management strategy should be aligned with your organizational goals and values.

Monitor the results and make improvements

The final step is to monitor results and review the reports provided by your parking management software and see if you need to make further changes. Remember to evaluate your strategy every few months or whenever there are applicable changes in your company or overall working landscape.

Your parking management strategy should lead to your desired results: optimal utilization of your parking spaces, cost savings for the company, reduced carbon footprint for the whole organization, happier employees, and increased efficiency for everyone concerned