Parking space management – 7 lessons from the world’s biggest employers

When it comes to parking space management, most organisations take a reactive approach, fixing problems that arise, rather than pre-empting them. 

There is another more proactive way to do it though: by taking a look at big companies and how they manage their parking needs. 

Afterall, these organisations have a huge number of cars coming in and out of their facilities every day. 

Smaller companies can examine what problems these bigger firms encounter and how they fix these issues. They say that ‘every mistake is a chance to learn’, but it doesn’t have to be your mistake you’re learning from. 

Without further ado, here are seven things that can be learned from how bigger companies take on parking space management. 

The Pandemic Has Changed the Workplace and Parking

With about 470,000 staff members, employers don’t get much bigger than Sodexo. They are market leaders in catering, employee benefits and facilities management. 

As you can imagine, with such a large grouping of employees, managing parking can be a complex task. This became especially true during the pandemic. 

During that time, Sodexo Czech Republic realised that it no longer made sense to indefinitely assign car parking spaces to staff members. With workplaces becoming more flexible, parking space management had to do the same. 

They rolled out a flexible parking management system, based on allocation and availability. Senior staff members still got priority, but their system is now more responsive to flexible working patterns and all employees’ needs.

There are also less parking spaces being left vacant.  

Simplicity is Key 

There is no point in introducing an excellent new system if that system is impossible, or off-putting, for users. 

Thankfully, this was not the case for the system rolled out by Wayleadr for Sodexo. 

It successfully broadened the number of people with access to car park facilities, maximised assets and increased happiness among staff. 

It did all of this, but most importantly, it was easy for staff members to use. 

Pavel Vavrinek, Head of Key Accounts at Sodexo discussed this benefit. He said: “The most important thing for Sodexo was that the system needed to be very simple for the end users. We had a strong preference for Wayleadr based on its superior mobile app offering.”

Organised Allocation

After reading this article, you will be able to cite potential problems that you can avoid. Mobility solution company Alstom faced the problem of not getting the most out of their on-site car park. 

Employing approximately 75,000 people, Alstom has its ANZ headquarters in Sydney. 

There they had a parking system where some of the spaces were assigned based on seniority. 

However, the nature of Alstom’s work meant that these members of staff were regularly out of the office and their spaces were left unused, despite demand for spaces being high.

The office manager was left with the unenviable task of contacting senior members of staff to find out whether or not their spaces were going to be left empty on any given day. 

As well as this being a nuisance, it was a complete waste of resources. 

Julie Winter, the Office Manager in question, said: “I would spend hours every day helping people find somewhere to park. I was pretty much becoming a parking attendant. It was incredibly time consuming and incredibly inefficient”

By rolling out an availability and allocation system, Alstom stopped this problem. 

Management were still assigned spaces, but they were able to use an app to indicate whether or not they would be present on any given day. 

This provided extra spots for other members of staff. 

First Come, First Served May Not Work 

Outside of these senior management spots, Alstom had a ‘first come, first served’ system for other members of staff. 

This caused employees to arrive at the office earlier and earlier and presented serious issues for staff members with young families who couldn’t manage to be there before their peers. 

They solved this problem by introducing a booking system, with parking requests submitted a week in advance, with some room reserved for emergency use. 

Multiple Sites Managed in One Place

Sanofi is one of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies, with more than 100,000 employees across the world. Prior to working with Wayleadr, their three facilities in Madrid and Barcelona saw them run into regular problems with staff parking. 

By employing a new system where staff have been grouped based on their parking privileges, they now have a multi-site solution which is great for their employees. 

Once again, ease-of-use has been key, with Eric van Hout, Head of Facility & Record Management, putting a special emphasis on this. 

He said: “Due to the ease of use, employees have adopted the app quickly and they really like using Wayleadr. Feedback has shown staff are really honest that we have a fair and transparent parking management solution.”

Make Availability Predictable 

It sounds obvious, but staff should know whether or not they’ll be able to park their vehicle in their employer’s car park before they go to work. This was a problem for The Interiors Group, one of New Zealand’s most respected retailers. 

Their staff had no idea whether or not they’d have a space to park in before they left their house for work on any day. However, by implementing an automated booking system with Wayleadr, staff were able to ensure they’d have somewhere to place their car while conducting their work. 

Understandably, this increased employee satisfaction and removed a serious amount of stress from their daily lives. 

Reduce Carbon Footprint 

With clients like J.P. Morgan and Citibank, software delivery firm Version 1 is a business that’s on the rise. 

Recently, they moved locations, with their new offices having limited car park space. 

However, with excellent transport links in the area and at least 50 percent of staff working offsite at any given time, this didn’t have to be an issue. 

Neuda worked with Wayleadr.com to allocate parking only to the staff members who needed it most, with this changing depending on the day. 

This also allowed Neuda to reduce their employees’ carbon footprint, a cause which is very important to the company. 

Whether your organisation has 20 employees, or 20,000, Wayleadr.com can help you make the most of your parking facilities. 

Join industry leaders from companies like Sanofi, Indeed.com & CBRE, schedule a demo with Wayleadr.com today and solve your parking problems in the click of a button.