In a shift toward fostering workplace accessibility and encouraging in-person collaboration, Oppenheim, a leading Hungarian law firm, implemented an innovative parking management software that transformed how their team uses limited parking resources. By adopting Parkalot’s space-sharing technology, the firm successfully maximised parking efficiency while simultaneously strengthening company culture and boosting office attendance in the post-pandemic hybrid work era, making the return to office more accessible and appealing.
Table of Contents
Quick Overview
About Oppenheim
Challenge: Underutilised Parking in the Hybrid Work Era
The Strategic Solution: Parking Management Technology
Oppenheim’s Account Configuration
Operational Results: Enhanced Efficiency and Culture
Organisational Impact: A New Workplace Dynamic
Key Lessons Learned from Oppenheim: Encouraging Employees to Work On-Site
About Parkalot: The Effective Parking Management Software
Quick Overview
Challenge
Oppenheim discovered that their transition to hybrid working left several company parking spaces underutilised. The firm needed to implement a system that would enable employees without permanent parking assignments to access these available spaces, while also providing transparent usage tracking and cost recovery mechanisms.
Implementation
The Parkalot system was configured specifically for Oppenheim’s needs, offering convenient planning through a 7-day booking window, flexible morning and afternoon scheduling options, and fair allocation via waitlist functionality. Monthly usage reports became instrumental for monitoring space utilisation and implementing small, usage-based parking fees.
Results
Since implementation, 45 Oppenheim employees efficiently share 14 parking spaces through Parkalot’s parking management system. The expanded car park accessibility has encouraged more frequent office visits among remote employees, enhanced workplace convenience, and fostered a stronger company culture through increased face-to-face interaction among colleagues.
About Oppenheim
The Firm
Oppenheim is a distinguished Hungarian law firm established in Budapest in 2007. The firm’s primary practice areas encompass corporate and M&A transactions, dispute resolution, and intellectual property law. Recognised as an industry leader by prominent legal directories including Legal 500 and Chambers and Partners, Oppenheim delivers customised legal services to clients spanning diverse sectors throughout Hungary and internationally, supported by their Vienna branch office and specialised Korean Desk.
Oppenheim’s People
The firm comprises over 40 highly qualified lawyers and legal professionals who operate within a collaborative and supportive work environment characterised by mutual respect and deep professional relationships. Oppenheim’s organisational philosophy emphasises developing exceptional talent through individualised career progression pathways while cultivating a workplace culture defined by innovation, professionalism, and continuous professional development.
Challenge: Underutilised Parking in the Hybrid Work Era
Oppenheim’s adoption of hybrid working arrangements following the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in noticeable changes to parking space utilisation patterns. With some team members working remotely, previously occupied parking spaces frequently sat vacant. The firm’s central Budapest location presented a unique challenge – vacating these rented spaces would likely mean permanent loss of access in the space-constrained city centre.
Kinga Zsemlye, Office Manager, explained the situation:
The Need for Democratised Access
Management recognised that continuing to pay for underutilised parking spaces represented an operational inefficiency. Rather than maintaining parking as an exclusive benefit for partners and select team members, the firm saw an opportunity to expand access across the organisation, transforming parking from a fixed perk into a flexible shared resource that could benefit the entire workforce.
The Strategic Solution: Parking Management Technology
Implementation Objectives
Oppenheim required a parking management solution that would efficiently coordinate colleague access to available spaces while providing administrative visibility and control. The system needed to generate comprehensive periodic usage reports detailing who accessed the car park and when, enabling the firm to implement fair cost-recovery through modest usage fees. After evaluating available options, Parkalot was implemented at Oppenheim in June 2023.
Preventing Misuse Through Transparency
The usage tracking and fee structure served an important purpose beyond cost recovery, ensuring equitable access among all employees. Office Manager Kinga Zsemlye described the rationale:
This approach balanced accessibility with fairness, preventing any individual from monopolising shared resources while maintaining transparent accountability.
Oppenheim’s Account Configuration
Oppenheim’s Parkalot account incorporated several key features tailored to the firm’s operational requirements:
Space Allocation Structure
Eight parking spaces remained permanently allocated to specific team members, three spaces were designated for reception use, and the remaining three spaces were configured as shared resources available to all other employees.
Flexible Booking Options
Employees gained the ability to reserve spaces for either morning or afternoon periods, enabling two different users to utilise the same space on a single day and maximising overall utilisation efficiency.
Seven-Day Booking Window
A week-long advance booking capability enabled team members to conveniently plan their upcoming commutes and coordinate office visits with confidence.
Intelligent Waitlist Functionality
During high-demand periods when available spaces were fully booked, the waitlist system fairly allocated parking to users based on booking history, prioritising those with the fewest previous reservations.
Comprehensive Usage Reporting
Monthly usage reports became a cornerstone of Oppenheim’s car park optimisation strategy, providing the firm with detailed insights into space utilisation patterns and facilitating the collection of small per-booking fees.
Operational Results: Enhanced Efficiency and Culture
The parking management system implementation generated substantial benefits across multiple dimensions of organisational operations.
Enhanced Cost Efficiency
By implementing modest usage fees for shared parking spaces, the firm optimised operating costs while reinforcing principles of fair and efficient resource utilisation throughout the organisation.
Maximised Space Accessibility
Previously vacant parking spaces became regularly available for Oppenheim employees to reserve and use, dramatically improving overall space utilisation and enhancing workplace convenience for the entire team.
Cultural Transformation
Expanding car park access beyond senior partners to all Oppenheim employees represented a meaningful step toward creating a more equitable and inclusive organisational culture, demonstrating the firm’s commitment to providing equal workplace amenities regardless of position.
Increased Office Attendance
Making parking readily accessible encouraged remote employees to visit the office more frequently, yielding significant benefits for company culture, spontaneous collaboration, and professional relationship building among colleagues. The simplified parking access became a key enabler of a successful return to office strategy.
Organisational Impact: A New Workplace Dynamic
With Parkalot enabling straightforward planning and guaranteed parking availability, Oppenheim employees gained confidence in their ability to commute to the office without the stress of searching for scarce parking in Budapest’s congested city centre. Office Manager Kinga Zsemlye noted the practical advantages:
Advancing Workplace Equity
By providing all employees with fair access to parking resources, Oppenheim took an important step toward ensuring equal access to office amenities. The space-sharing solution eliminated parking as an exception to the firm’s broader commitment to equitable treatment of all team members, regardless of seniority or position.
Strengthening Professional Connections
An unexpected but highly valued outcome emerged from the implementation: a significant increase in in-person interaction and collaboration. While not the primary implementation objective, expanding parking access created an effective incentive for employees to work on-site more regularly. This shift supported spontaneous collaboration and reinforced a company culture that prioritises personal professional relationships, making the return to office a positive experience rather than a mandate.
Key Lessons Learned from Oppenheim: Encouraging Employees to Work On-Site
By introducing Parkalot, Oppenheim created an effective incentive for employees to work on-site more regularly, even though that wasn’t the implementation’s primary goal. Expanding access to the car park simplified commuting and made office visits more appealing. This not only supports in-person collaboration but also strengthens a company culture that values personal connections, demonstrating that supporting the return to office with practical solutions yields better results than mandates alone. Office Manager Kinga Zsemlye reflected on the cultural shift:
About Parkalot: The Effective Parking Management Software
Parkalot is a comprehensive and user-friendly parking management software that streamlines the booking process for various workplace resources. It facilitates effective parking space management, desk booking and meeting room reservations within a unified workspace management system. With intuitive mobile and web applications, Parkalot allows employees to easily reserve and manage their bookings, ensuring fair access and maximised utilisation.
Schedule a 30-minute demo with our parking management expert to discover how Parkalot can enhance your organisation’s parking and workspace reservation processes, support your return to office strategy, and create a welcoming environment that encourages employees to work on-site more frequently.
Download the case study in a pdf version here: Making Office Returns Easier: Oppenheim’s Car Park Sharing Solution
