If you are aiming to improve the employee experience at your workplace, there is a good chance that parking is an afterthought at the moment. However, it should not be so. Remember, if your employees are coming into the office in the hybrid setup, they are doing it in exchange for the comfort of their homes, for the most part.
So it is best if you do not make it harder for them and provide a good parking experience from the get-go. However, that is easier said than done.
After all, along with ensuring the optimum utilization of the entire parking space, you also have to be hygiene-conscious and factor in employee convenience, all of which boil down to one thing- good. If not, your employees will spend far more time than required simply looking for an available spot. And that not only reduces their productivity but also lowers their job satisfaction.
How do you manage that? Ensure proper parking management and avoid all of these setbacks. Here are five best practices for parking management in the office.
Best Practices for Parking Management in the Office
1. Implement a Parking Policy
The first step to robust parking management is implementing a policy that includes all the information for your workplace parking. This not only lays down the ground rules employees need to follow, but also acts as a guidebook to manage the flow of vehicles and settle disputes.
Needless to say, it needs to be comprehensive. Here are a few points you must consider while drafting the policy-
- The nature of your business
- The location of your company
- Number of employees
- Your work culture
- The security risk profile of the company
- Company-owned vehicles
- Reserved parking spots
- Visitor access
- A booking system
Once you draft a policy, make sure you share it with all your employees over email. This way, everyone on the team is in the loop.
2. Adopt an Online Approach to Parking Management
Technology has progressed far beyond manual systems. So why should parking management stay manual? Set up digital parking processes instead. Better yet, install a parking management solution that has a mobile app.
This way, employees can book a parking spot in advance depending on their needs via the mobile parking management software. A digital parking management system will also give you insights into the current usage of the parking space.
This, in turn, can help you identify areas of improvement. These days, most parking management solutions also allow for customizations based on your budget and requirements.
3. Don’t Compromise on Safety and Convenience
Car parking facilities should be both efficient and safe. After all, this is the only reason why your employees are parking their vehicles at the office. Wondering how you ensure this? Here are some things you can do to improve parking safety right now.
If there is constant heavy vehicle movement in your office, you must keep the parking space for such vehicles separate from employee car parking. This ensures that the traffic flows smoothly and minimizes the risk of accidents.
If needed, you can also implement a speed limit or add speed bumps to eliminate unsafe driving. Additionally, you can install LPR cameras at the entry points and provide RFID tags to employees to verify their vehicles while entering the facility. This helps you prevent security threats too.
While employee safety is an important part of effective parking management, it should not be at the cost of employee convenience. Remember, no two employees are the same. And no two employees will have the same needs.
So float a survey to understand your employee’s parking requirements. And if they require extra parking support, make sure to provide it.
4. Visitor and Guest Verification
For effective parking management, you must automate the entry and exit of your facility to verify who is entering the property. And a parking management system can help with it. An automated parking management system will match the number plate details to your database to ensure no unauthorized vehicle enters your facility. This helps you keep track of visitors you’re expecting during the day.
You can also provide permits to your visitors and automatically grant access to them via a parking management system. This reduces paperwork, increases security, promotes effective management, boosts guest satisfaction, and gives you control over real-time visitor data. It helps you effectively automate the parking management of both vehicles and individuals.
The Bottom Line
Despite what you think, your office parking is equally important as any other facility in your office. And with employees becoming more conscious about safety and hygiene, managing your parking facility effectively has become more important than ever.
After all, good parking management gives your employees a better experience, improved safety, and also increases their productivity. You can also adopt an IoT-based parking solution, like ’s parking management solution to ensure the best utilization of your parking facility.
As your employees can easily operate these solutions from the web and mobile apps, they can book a parking space before arriving at the office, make payments online, quickly locate available parking spaces, etc. What’s more? You can easily access all this data in the form of daily, weekly, or monthly reports and take the required measures to improve your overall parking management.