Choosing a proper business parking policy can bring significant benefits to your business during longer periods. It might seem to many managers that something such as a parking policy can be impactful to the business, yet its effect can help you protect your business and save money.
I am going to explain some of the largest benefits of a good parking policy and what are some of the important considerations before setting one into place.
Imagine that you are coming to work, yet there isn’t a single parking place in front of the company. You travel around the building and check out the parking spots in the streets, yet still nothing. This might take up to an hour, and in the end, you are late for your work and you’ve spent fuel, which can lead to even more problems.
According to some statistics, an average employee spends four days a year in the process of searching for a parking place. With the right parking policy, you can help your employees prevent the situation mentioned above and help them save both time and money.
Parking policy explained
Parking policy is used to regulate how the parking lot that’s owned by the organization in question. The main goal of the parking policy is to optimize the flow of vehicles in a manner that there are no traffic jams and that every employee can find it’s a parking place in a short amount of time.
Every organization has the freedom to customize its parking policy, but it must be in accordance with the traffic laws in the country and the global mobility management guidelines. The person responsible for creating the parking policy needs to be aware of the company’s requirements, shortcomings, and the company’s culture before creating the parking policy.
The important aspects that a parking policy should consider are the following:
- Amount of staff
- Potential guests
- Rate of attendance
This can be implemented by businesses of every type, no matter the field that they operate in. The only requirement is the possession of a parking lot. After taking everything into consideration, the person needs to decide on the most suitable access type for the company.
4 Tips For Choosing The Proper Business Parking Policy
Here are some key tips you need to know before deciding which parking policy is the most suitable for your business.
1. Considering guaranteed spots
Understanding what employees are required to be present in every situation in the company should help you decide whether there need to be guaranteed spots. Chiefs of various sections are required to be present for the majority of the time and to also arrive at the work undisturbed.
Guaranteed spots can be guaranteed at all times for specific employees. However, if you decide on preferential access for your company, certain staff members will have a timetable through which they will be able to get a guaranteed spot according to the timetable.
If a certain staff member doesn’t need to come to work, another person will be able to benefit from the open parking space.
2. Research the number of employees
Before you start creating the parking policy, you need to consider how many employees are going to use the parking lot. The simple number of people working at the company won’t provide you with enough data to help you decide which parking policy to choose.
You should gather data on the number of people that are using a car to get to work and how often that happen. Also, if you are sharing the parking lot with another company, you should conduct research on their workers as well.
3. Prioritize employees
Once you conduct in-depth research on the traveling habits of your employees, you will see whether a hierarchy and prioritization will be the most suitable choice for your company. A prioritization approach is helpful if the parking space doesn’t cover the requirements of all workers.
However, not every employee has the same importance for the processes of the company to function. Managers, Chiefs, and other important roles should have a higher chance of getting a reserved place.
On the other hand, there are employees who live close to the company, and they can switch to commuting by public transport or by bicycle. The employees that live the farthest from the company should have a priority as well, as the lack of parking space can present a serious problem for them.
A valid parking policy will allow you to retain employees by minimizing their worries about finding a parking space.
4. Decide what software you are going to use
During our times, it’s hard to manage parking space without the help of Internet-or-things and software. With car park booking software, you can create more functional business parking policies and organize parking spaces more efficiently.
Parking booking software will allow you to:
- Reserve parking for a specific time
- Check the availability of the spots
The benefit of utilizing such a system is that it’s completely remote, as many apps support an Android or an iOS version of their application. Companies can gather data through this software and then make changes to the parking policy accordingly.
Car park booking software will help you minimize the injustice that can occur at parking lots where the employees that arrive late can’t find a parking space. Each employee is eligible for a parking space as per the parking policy that’s been set by the company. With software, you can regulate this with ease.
Access types of parking policy
Below are some of the most popular parking policies that the company utilizes for its parking lots. If the parking policies mentioned on the list below don’t suit you completely, you are always free to do a custom policy that’s tailored according to your unique case.
1. Booking access
Booking access is self-explanatory. An employee is free to book their parking space remotely using an app or a text message. You can check the availability of the parking space through your mobile app.
The benefit of the booking access is that it functions in real-time, and the booking of the car space happens before the employee comes to the parking lot, saving them time in the process.
2. Preferential access
Preferential access is a simple timetable that allows the workers to reserve their parking space during a certain period of the day. If a certain employee doesn’t arrive during the time that they reserved the parking place, other employees are free to use their parking space.
A simple access type that can have a slight impact on preventing traffic jam and allowing everyone to find their parking space.
3. First-come-first-served access
If you haven’t been implementing any form of parking policy up until now, chances are that your parking lot is functioning based on this type of access. This type of parking access is useful for certain situations, such as when there are more parking spaces than employees.
On the other hand, it can bring injustice by giving benefits to the employees that arrive first. In situations where certain employees have important roles, this parking type can lead to setbacks in the company’s processes.
Shortcomings of first-come-first-served access are also that it can lead to traffic jams and increased fuel consumption.
4. Flexible approach
During the period of the Covid-19 pandemic, a flexible approach has been used by the largest amount of companies. Booking access is a remote way of manually reserving parking space when you have a need for it.
The flexible approach brings the benefits of software and remote access and automates it. This method automatically allocates parking space when you decide that you need it. It can incorporate designated parking spaces but also redistribute them accordingly.
Your company shouldn’t miss out on a proper business parking policy
Parking policy is something that can often be overlooked by companies that have parking lots under their ownership. However, there are many things that you can do, as a manager or an owner of a company to improve the functionality of the parking lot.
In the past few years, the term “park anxiety” started to get more popular. This only shows the importance that many people give to the process of finding a parking space. With a proper parking policy, you are saving the time and energy of your workers and allowing them to focus on the work itself.
There are many ways through which you can implement a parking policy. Different access types of parking places can also seem confusing. Hopefully, I’ve helped you decide how to decide which business parking policy is the most suitable for your company.
