Shared parking – how could your office benefit?

Ok so you’ve heard people bandying about the term shared parking. You’ve decided to figure out if your office needs to introduce it.

You’ve come to the right place, we are going to have a look at big trends around shared parking for employees. We’ll follow this up by digging a little deeper into the different types of shared parking.

Finally, we will take a quick look at how to bring pooled parking to life at your office.

Why is shared parking for offices growing?

Traditionally, companies have managed employee parking with one of two main parking policies.

First come, first served parking is what is says on the tin. Employees join a daily space race to get to the office early enough to guarantee a space. Learn more about the drawbacks of first come first served here.

While allocated parking sees certain staff given fixed usage of designated parking bays.

Even pre-COVID a lot of companies had started to realize that these parking policies were becoming obsolete.

First come, first served parking creates a negative employee experience and is very bad for the environment. While allocated parking results in a lot of space lying idle when employees are away from the office.

A third parking policy was becoming increasingly more common – shared parking. This approaches sees technology or staff identifying parking demand. Spaces are then allocated to the people who need them most.

This pooled parking approach is exploding in popularity as companies gear up to return to the office. Simply put, it is the only way to manage parking in the new office environment.

According to Forbes, 63% of companies have embraced hybrid working. The arrival of hybrid working as the new normal is having a drip down effect across businesses. Companies now have a much harder job figuring out who will be in and when. That is before they even factor in their parking needs.

Having designated parking spaces for staff who are only in 2 days a week makes no sense. Meanwhile, many staff are now living further from the office and required parking options. As a result employers are moving towards a more fluid approach to parking.

This all makes perfect sense right? So what are the main two types of parking pooling?

The types of shared parking

Employees sharing space

The most common types of space sharing is between employees. This approach sees companies work out who is in and when. Parking spaces are then shared between employees.

If demand outstrips supply companies often have complex prioritization systems. These would give staff preference based on seniority, distance to travel etc.

Companies sharing space

This is a new approach to the market but one which is sure to grow over the next few years. It sees companies sharing space.

This only really works in multi-tenant office blocks or business campuses. Think of it like a stock exchange for employee parking.

Companies figure out what their parking demand is for a given day. If demand outstrips supply they then check to see if any neighbouring tenants have spare space available.

The companies basically share and trade their spare space with each other. This can be done  quid pro quo or for a cost. This is a great way to unlock spare space on busy days and offset parking costs for underused space on quiet days.

How do I introduce shared parking?

So if you are looking to introduce the future of parking to your business, there are two main ways to do it.

The first, which I would strongly advise avoiding is manual management. Some companies think they can do all this used shared spreadsheets and WhatsApp groups. This was feasible for some smaller companies in the past.

However, that era is over now. The complexity and variability is too much for a person to manage in a time efficient manner.

The more pragmatic option is to source an employee parking management software. We might be biased in recommending Wayleadr.com.

Yet, there is a reason that Wayleadr.com has been selected by Capterra as the best value and easiest to use product on the market. It is the only product on the market which allows both employees and companies to share space.

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.