Not enough parking spaces at work? 5 easy solutions

Does your company struggle from not enough parking spaces at work? This can cause a lot of problems. How you manage parking impacts employee satisfaction, environmental footprint and real estate spend.

The good news is managing how your employees travel to and from work is now easier than ever. Stay reading to discover five key ways to tackle your lack of employee parking.

Parking management software to automate sharing

This is by far and a way the most efficient and cost-effective way to increase availability. Over the last few years the adoption of employee parking management software has ramped up.

“The first thing to understand is that even the busiest employee car parks have wasted space.”

Employees with designated parking spaces are on holidays, working from home etc. and there space lies empty. On top of this, first come, first serve spaces might be jammed at 9am but by 11am many staff have left for meeting etc.

Even in pre-COVID times the average employer with an over-demand for parking could have 40% of their space lying empty at any given time.

Basically market leading softwares like Wayleadr.com optimizes your employee car park to make empty space a thing of the past. In the process unlocking more value from your parking spaces than you thought possible. The best bit is that it is all automated.

So how does it work? I’ll take you through how Wayleadr.com helps companies as an example.

Employees are invited to join your office’s digital parking lot. Access and privileges can be tiered based on seniority, health grounds or a host of other factors. Although many companies like to have an even playing field.

Employees indicate their upcoming parking needs on a regular basis. Everyday the Wayleadr.com software monitors who needs parking and when. The software processes all requests and tiering. Employees are then notified whether parking is available for them or not.

Employing a good parking management software is proven to increase parking availability by up to 40%. It works out much cheaper and is much quicker to set-up and manage than the rest of the solutions.

Manually manage space sharing

Automated space sharing doesn’t work for everyone. Some companies particularly SMEs with 3 or 4 spaces and 5 or 6 staff looking for parking can manage things manually.

How does this look? It’s often a WhatsApp group, Slack channel or shared spreadsheet. Senior employees are able to let people know when they won’t be using their car parking space. This opens up the space to be used by other staff.

A word of warning, this approach can work with very small numbers. However, I meet companies all the time who started off with this “simple” approach to keep costs low. Fast forward a year and admin staff are spending massive amounts of time managing a mammoth parking spreadsheet.

“Ironically the cheap solution can cost companies a fortune in salaries to administer.”

If you have more than 5 parking spaces and 10 employees, this probably isn’t the solution for you.

Rent out extra parking spaces

Also known as contract parking, this approach sees companies source and lease extra space near the office.

I’ve previously written an in-depth guide on tackling this, check it out – How Business Can Find Parking Spaces For Rent.

The main takeaways are that space is becoming harder to find and more expensive to lease. However, if you really need space you should explore the following avenues:

• Local commercial real estate agencies
• Local car park operators
• Popular parking marketplaces in your area

Introduce employee parking charges

This might sound like something of a minefield but it is coming down the tracks for a lot of companies and fast.

Transport planners are starting to realize that the best way to reduce parking demand is to introduce charges. For many companies this seems counter-intuitive, employees will be up in arms.

“It comes down to weighing up employee satisfaction against your companies environmental commitment.”

At some stage a large portion of every companies parking lots are going to have be reimagined.

The majority of the world cannot continue to drive to work on a daily basis.

There are lots of clever ways to introduce parking charges to help reduce parking demand without an employee revolt.

Many companies offer staff a limited number of free days at the office to cover emergencies. If an employee would like additional days they pay. Other companies donate all the proceeds from car park to charity to show it’s not about revenue and it’s more about the environment.

Version 1 are a great example of a company who used Wayleadr to solve this exact problem. Check out their story.

Start to encourage other forms of travel

It sounds simple but the easiest way to reduce parking demand is to encourage staff to travel to work in other ways.

However, this is often easier said than done. Many employers are find it difficult to transition their employees away from single occupancy cars.

This is why there is a whole new industry sprouting up called Transport Demand Management. This looks at regulating and supporting employees to change their commuting patterns. Here’s a useful guide to explain more – The Ultimate Guide To Transportation Demand Management for Business.

Or if you already know how you plan on moving the dial on your commuter mix, check out these handy guides. Decrease your company’s dependency on cars with our guides growing running, walking, cycling and public transport at work.