As an employer, you want to make it as easy as possible for your employees to come and go from work. That’s why many businesses choose to give the employees parking spaces on site. However, having these spots is one thing but making sure they stay unoccupied during business hours is another.
As much as we love our staff members, they are human after all. There will be times when they have to leave the office at a different time than usual or have some errands that need running before coming back in again.
Unfortunately as it might be, not all staff members can walk back and forth every day, especially if their commute isn’t exactly walking distance away. Infact, employees lose about five working days yearly looking for parking space. This article will provide you with helpful tips on how to deal with your employee parking issues so that your organization doesn’t have to face any problems later on.
Establish clear company parking policies
You know your company policies better than anyone, so make sure to use that knowledge to establish clear company parking policies for your employees. The more specific you are about where people are allowed to park their vehicles, the more effective these policies will be.
For example, there are many different reasons your employees might have to park their vehicle on company property. Letting them know upfront what these reasons are will help your employees park their vehicle properly.
Install a license plate recognition system
A license plate recognition system is a camera that will automatically scan the license plates of the cars parked in the lot. It will then log the vehicles’ information onto a computer database.
The system monitors who comes and goes as well as how long a vehicle has been parked in the specified area. This greatly helps you manage your parking lot and make sure that specific employees have designated parking spots.
It also notifies you when someone has parked in an area where they shouldn’t. This system helps you enforce the parking rules and regulations that you have in place for your employees. It also helps you track down a specific vehicle if someone has broken a rule or committed a crime. You either use this information to charge a parking fee or to take further action against the individual.
Use parking tickets to manage spots
Another way to manage your parking spots is to use parking tickets. This can be used alongside your license plate recognition system or by itself. You can either put up signage in the lot where you want people to park or you can use a ticketing system.
Your parking ticket system can be as simple as having a person write down a ticket every time they see someone who shouldn’t be parked in a particular spot. You can leave a ticket on the car’s windshield with a note explaining why you wrote it and where an individual can pay the fine.
Utilize employee escalation rooms
When you start to get more serious about managing your employee parking, you can move on to a more extreme method like employee escalation rooms. This is when you have one or more parking spots that are only used when an employee has broken a rule or regulation in the lot.
In these specific spots, you have a sign that states what the employee did that warrants this consequence. You can have the rule listed on a computer screen that is visible to the employee when they are leaving the company and the employee parking lot. The computer login screen can also have instructions on how they can fix the situation and come back to a normal parking spot.
Establish a drop-off and pick-up zone
To prevent your main parking lot from becoming too crowded, you need to establish a drop-off and pick-up zone. This is when you designate a specific area on the side of your building as a place where people should be dropping off passengers and picking up company guests.
Ideally, this area should be near your building but away from the main parking lot area. Once you have this in place, you can start to enforce the rule more strictly and make sure that visitors know where to go.
You can also put up signage in the area that indicates where people should be dropping off and picking up. This will help improve the flow of traffic and help prevent your main parking lot from becoming too congested.
Offer shuttle services for employees
If you find that your employee parking lot is still too crowded even after implementing all of the above methods, you can offer shuttle services for your employees. This is when you have a person or group of people driving a car to pick up employees who live nearby and bring them to the company building.
You offer shuttle services for people who live further away and want to park in a remote parking lot. This is a beneficial solution for many people. It also relieves some of the stress off of your main parking lot and helps make sure that no one is breaking any rules or regulations in the process. This is also a good way to keep track of who comes in and out of the company building.
Lay out designated parking spots for employees only
If you aren’t keen on implementing any of the above methods, you can always try laying out designated parking spots for your employees only. This is when you have certain spots in the parking lot that the company uses for their employees only.
You make sure that these spots are far away from the main entrance and other areas where non-employees should be parking their vehicles. This helps to clear up your parking lot and make it less crowded.
However, it might not be the best solution for every situation. For example, if you have a lot of employees who live close to the office, this might cause them frustration and inconvenience because they would have to walk farther to get to their car.
Add more employee parking spaces
If you think that you need even more space for employee parking, there are a lot of ways that you can go about doing that. For example, you can build an entirely new parking lot that is further away from your company building.
Another option is to expand an existing parking lot by adding more spaces. You create a temporary parking lot that is built just for employees. This helps alleviate some of the parking issues that you might be facing.
You can also take advantage of some of the other methods listed above while you are building or expanding your parking lot. For example, you can implement a drop-off and pick-up zone while you are building the parking lot and shuttle services while you are expanding your parking lot.
Encourage carpooling
Carpooling helps to reduce the amount of time it takes to get to and from work by allowing people who work in the same industry to work together. Some businesses use this type of business as a way to reduce their payroll costs.
The cost savings that carpooling can provide are substantial because it reduces the amount of time workers have to travel in order to get where they need to be. It is also easier for employees than having a car because they can just drive themselves to work in one car rather than coming to work with individual cars.
Use a one-way traffic system
A one-way traffic system is whereby cars flow in one direction of traffic while they flow in the other direction of traffic. It is a type of traffic control system where vehicles are allowed to move in one direction of their own accord but it must be done so that they keep their speed to a minimum.
This type of system works well for parking lots because it does not allow drivers to get too much behind each other. The problem with this type of traffic control system is that it also can cause problems for parking lots that are already being built because the cars will slow down and cause congestion on the roads.
However, if you use this type of system, you may not need to do any additional construction or maintenance on your parking lot since you will only be doing one thing: moving cars from one direction to another.
Summing up
Finding the right parking solution for your employees can help improve their morale and keep them happy and productive at work. Choosing a parking solution that works best for your employees also has a positive impact on your company’s overall operations and profitability.
Parking solutions for your employees can include reserved spaces close to the building, reserved covered parking for higher-level employees, a shuttle service to and from the parking lot, or a valet service for employees who are likely to spend a significant amount of time in the parking lot.
Author bio: Cosmas Mwirigi
Cosmas alias Cosii-Riggz is a technology enthusiast and SAAS writer who helps clients understand products by explaining services for businesses.
He has been featured in websites such as PV Magazine and Bitcoin Kenya. During his free time, he likes traveling to new places and exploring what’s new on the internet. Contact him on his LinkedIn page or email.
