Most offices have less parking spaces than employees, so the question of parking booking is quite an important one.
Let’s explore the various approaches to booking parking spaces at work, which ones work best and how you can easily get up and running. If you’re looking for a way to make parking management a smooth and painless process, this is the guide for you.
Book Parking in Advance vs On the Day
Office car parks don’t operate on an ad-hoc basis. Thanks to shifts or general business hours, you can generally predict when parking facilities are in demand. This means there is a general right and wrong way to go about parking management.
If employees book a space on the day, this generally leads to chaos. Staff need to wake up earlier to use the booking system and secure a spot, which only adds to the morning’s stress. It’s also possible that some staff don’t reserve spaces until they arrive, which can lead to frustration when the car park is already full.
An effective car park management system not only encourages, but restricts staff to securing parking spaces at least the day beforehand.
Different Ways to Manage Parking at Work
Not all office parking management systems are created equally. The approach your company chooses not only has direct impact on the utilisation of your parking spaces, but also on admin workload and overall employee satisfaction.
Fixed Parking Spaces
These are permanently allocated spaces given to specific individuals. This is commonly used, at least in some part, to reserve parking spaces for senior positions, or other roles that require frequent, immediate access.
Pros: Fixed parking spaces are easy to understand. Everyone except the assigned individual knows not to use them, eliminating the need for daily coordination or booking. For the employee in question, they benefit from guaranteed parking availability every day.
Cons: When the assigned driver isn’t on-site, these spaces can often sit empty, leading to inefficient use of the wider office parking lot. This approach can therefore feel unfair or outdated, especially in hybrid workplaces where daily attendance is less important.
First-Come Systems
Under a first-come, first-served approach, there is no booking system. Staff secure their own parking spaces by arriving before anyone else does.
Pros: From an admin perspective, this is the easiest approach, as there is no car park management system to operate. It can also, at least in theory, maximise parking availability, as spaces aren’t reserved and subsequently unused.
Cons: This approach creates a great deal of stress for employees. Nobody knows if office parking is available, encouraging many to arrive as early as possible. In time, it can lead to conflict amongst staff and greatly impact the employee experience at the company.
Manual Booking Systems
The first approach that many businesses turn to, manual booking systems often take the form of shared spreadsheets, emails or slack channels. Whilst staff are free to add requests, it typically requires an office admin to be accountable for the overall parking management system.
For very small car parks, this approach can prove useful. However, when scaling up, its drawbacks often become an increasingly difficult headache.
Pros: This approach is a little more structured than free-for-all office parking, and it does afford some degree of planning and visibility. It’s often cheap, if not entirely free, as it can be done with pre-existing office software or communication tools.
Cons: As a manual form of parking management, this approach is the most time-consuming and admin-heavy option. It’s also prone to human errors, such as double bookings or outdated information. If employees have access, it can also lead to manipulation and other issues. In such cases, it’s incredibly difficult to enforce fair parking rules.
Parking Booking System
The most advanced option is to use a digital parking management system that enables employees to reserve parking spaces in advance. An automated system can balance requests with available spaces, provide real-time visibility and directly notify staff about parking availability.
Pros: This approach maximises parking space utilization, even with assigned parking for key roles still in place. It also enforces company parking rules and gives employees a fast and direct way to secure parking space. This can create a greater sense of fairness, since nobody can cheat or game the system. For admins, this is a huge time saver, but it also offers real-time data insights.
Cons: Unlike the manual approach, digital office parking management requires some initial setup. It’s also not free, unlike spreadsheets.
The Key Factor? Company Booking Rules
In order to have a structured parking management system, you need some core rules. These are not just guidelines, but a clear parking policy that informs how all employees utilise the office parking lot.
- How often can employees make reservations?
- If there’s isn’t an upper limit, what’s to stop one employee booking everything?
- Likewise, how far in advance can staff book parking spaces?
- Are there still dedicated spots for certain employees or teams?
- Will there be a system to make those spots available when not in use?
- How are visitors managed?
- Will there be specific spots that always give priority to visitors, or is it simply part of the wider pool?
Defining these rules enables you to better plan the booking system and configure your parking booking app to work for you.
How a Company Car Park Management System Works
If you’re looking for an effective parking booking system, let’s explore how such software works in practice.
Here’s how a typical day works when you provide employees with an automated parking reservation system.
1. Employees Choose a Date and Location
Staff use the office parking management app to secure a parking space. They choose which day(s) and location they require, and quickly submit their request. At this point, they will already know if the car park is fully booked on any of these days, so they’ll be able to make other arrangements.
2. The Booking System Confirms the Reservation
The system automatically assigns spaces, following company parking rules and real-time availability.
This depends highly on your company’s parking rules. For example, if staff are limited to a number of reservations in a given period, drivers that are over their limit can still make requests, but they may be put on the waitlist. This gives those that are still within their limit to reserve spaces.
3. Confirming the Evening Before
Effective parking management apps ask staff to confirm their arrival the day before each reservation. This way, if a driver’s plans change, they can release their parking space. The app will then reassign this to someone on the waiting list, who then gets notified.
This also applies to assigned parking spaces. Staff with their own spots can release them when not on-site, enabling more employees to use the car park.
4. Drive to Work
On the day itself, staff are free to drive to work. They not only know office parking is available, but which spot to use. Meanwhile, nobody is going to the company car park hoping to secure an available spot: they can see in the app that parking spaces are all fully utilized.
The end result is an approach that greatly reduces stress, fits seamlessly into work life, and ensures office parking is being used to its fullest extent.
Key Features to Look for in a Parking Booking System
Not all parking management software is created equally. Office managers should take the time to find the solution that best fits their needs in the long run.
Here are the most essential factors that you need to consider.
Real-Time Availability
Staff need to make data-driven decisions. When it comes to parking space booking, this means a real-time overview of current availability. If parking isn’t available, they can still put themselves on the waitlist, but they already know to not come to the office or consider alternative travel or parking arrangements.
Flexible Booking Rules
We mentioned earlier that your office parking management system should revolve around unique rules. Naturally, you need a parking management system that can reflect these rules. This includes how often staff can make reservations, or even who has a dedicated spot.
Integrations
Whilst parking management software is already highly effective, connecting with common business software and tools can only make parking management more accessible. Look for a solution that integrates with your most common tools.
Data Insights
For admins, getting immediate data from your parking booking system can help you further plan ahead. Want to see which days are in the most demand or where the most parking requests come from? A good parking booking system will easily make this information available, helping you to make more informed decisions when planning the future of the office.
How Parking Reservations Connect with Desk Booking
There’s an obvious connection between parking spaces and desks. You need both to have a productive day in the office.
This is especially important in hybrid offices or workplaces that use a hot desking system. In these cases, desks are not always a guarantee. You should implement a desk booking system, similar to parking management, to help staff ensure they have a place to work.
How Parkalot Can Help
Managing workplace parking doesn’t have to be complex, time-consuming, or frustrating. With the right tools in place, it becomes a seamless part of your overall workplace experience.
Parkalot is designed to help businesses take control of their office parking operations, alongside wider business functionality.
Our parking management software simplifies parking for everyone involved:
- Staff can use our app, or our integrations with Slack and Microsoft Teams, to view available parking spaces and reserve spots.
- Admins can set up custom rules, including for different groups of users, to better reflect internal policy.
- Employees confirm their reserved parking spaces the evening before. Unused spaces go back to the waitlist, ensuring maximum use of office parking space.
However, Parkalot is more than just a parking space booking solution. All plans include the ability to reserve desks, meeting rooms and other vital business resources. With the ability to create maps for both the office and the associated car park, and to book on behalf of visitors, Parkalot removes the manual hassle of daily office organization.
A Better Booking Process
Whether you’re trying to make the most of limited parking spaces or just want to streamline space allocation, there are many reasons to implement a booking system for your workplace.
Whilst you can use manual approaches, there are still many parking problems that can occur due to a lack of automation or real-time updates.
The good news is that your business doesn’t need to invest in innovative technologies. You just need an app built from the ground-up to effortlessly solve the challenge of space allocation and parking reservations.
