The Guide to Workplace Parking 

Did you know that 88%  of employees  believe that companies need to meet mobility needs in the parking lot?

Data shows that nearly 76% of the workers in the U.S. commuted to work alone (2019 Census). 

65% of Germany workers and 62% of China workers use their own car to commute. 

And when commuting to work accounts for 30% to 40% of daily weekday mobility on a working day, we can imagine how this is affecting the whole community, the faces of cities, and the environment. 

Employees are now also using eScooters or carpooling to get to work.  But, at the end of the day, personal cars are still the most important means of commuting to work. This is why workplace parking can affect productivity and morale in a company. Consumers have become more conscious of the problems around them, and even started changing behavior when it comes to mobility. 

This is why, in the current guide, we’ll be talking about how to create proper workplace parking strategies to help both the company, its employees, and the community. 

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How the Company Parking Problems Are Affecting Work Conditions and Employee Wellbeing 

The daily commute that ends in the parking lot is the starting point of the employee’s day in the workplace. If the parking space is intelligently managed and optimized, it might have the power to change habits! At least for some of the employees. Let’s not forget that usually companies allow 1/3 of employees to park in their parking lots. And very often, the allocation of places is done hierarchically, according to seniority, or by a the “first come, first served” model, which can get quite unequal. These allocation methods are frustrating and unsatisfactory for employees. 
 
Now, let’s look a bit at some numbers that show the correlation between parking and the work conditions and employee wellbeing: 

• In a report by United Heroes, it seems that parking is the 6^th factor in the order of importance when it comes to working conditions.  22% of the employees surveyed actually placed parking in their top 3 factors. 

• Another report shows that 88% of employees believe that it is the role of the company to meet the different mobility needs of employees through the company car park. 

This means that companies should be able to: 

• Provide charging options for electric vehicles, 

• Ensure bike racks, 

• Ensure spaces for personal items bike helmets, bags, etc.,  

• Guarantee places for carpoolers. 

• 25% less absenteeism is the expected reduction with the implementation of a quality of work approach in the company, and the good management of the company car park. 

22%  of employees  consider parking is affecting work conditions

88%  of employees  believe that companies need to meet mobility needs in the parking lot

25%  reduction in absenteeism can be result of good management of parking lots

Workplace Parking Strategy 

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A workplace parking strategy primarily involves assessing the parking requirements of both the organization and its employees in relation to the availability, suitability, and cost of the parking spaces it has. While many businesses consider fleet vehicles as valuable assets, progressive employers are recognizing the potential of their parking facilities as a valuable asset in itself, one that can be optimized for additional benefits. 

In a survey by ParkOffice 47% of respondents said they struggle managing their company parking lot. This number is quite striking. 

Now, here comes the question: why do you need to optimize the company parking lot?  

Well, there are several reasons why:  

• You might be losing money for spaces that are not fully utilized,  

• Employees might choose to work more from home (if a WFH policy is implemented) because of the lack of parking options,  

• Employees can get frustrated when there are insufficient parking spaces, and this might end up affecting their productivity and happiness at work. Just think about it: they enter the parking lot looking for an empty space. They don’t find one. Next, they try to park in a public space. It takes them 15 minutes to find one. It might be free, or a paid one. This means they might end up losing both time and money. And the day has barely started,  

• If your parking lot is optimized to accommodate bikes, scooters, or EVs you will have an impact on the community itself: less pollution and less traffic. 

Next, here are the steps for creating such a strategy: 

1. Analysis of current parking situation and analysis of needs 

2. Setting the goals of the parking strategy 

3. Creating the parking policy 

4. Communication and employee engagement 

5. Monitoring and feedback 

Let’s dive in! 

Analysis of Current Parking Situation and Analysis of Needs 

Start by evaluating the current status of your company car park. Identify the problems, as well as the opportunities. Consider the number of employees, visitors, and fleet vehicles that need parking spaces.   

But how can you do such an assessment? You will need to prepare a list of questions for your employees. They are the ones providing you with the insights. And we have created a list of such questions, to help you out. 

9 Questions to Be Asked When Optimizing the Company Parking Lot 

1. Which is the capacity of the company parking lot? 

When analyzing the parking lot, there are several things to think about: 

• How many parking spaces are there? 

• How many spots are already assigned? 

• Which are the conditions for occupying the non-assigned spots? 

• Is the parking lot ready to accommodate electric vehicles, bikes, escooters? How many spaces are available for such means of transportation? 

• Are there spaces in the parking lor that are not being used? 

• Are there reserved spaces for guests or people with disabilities? 

The moment you know the answers here, you can compare the data with the actual needs of employees and find optimization opportunities. 

2. Which is the occupancy rate of the parking lot? 

Data shows that 70% is the average occupancy rate for a company parking lot. 

Why is that? 

Well, this is happening mainly because many spaces are assigned to management. And when they’re sick, on vacation, working remotely, or traveling for business, these spaces stay empty.  

This is causing frustration among the other employees. Also, empty parking spaces are an unnecessary cost.  

What if companies could do something about this? 

What about sharing those spots when they are left empty? 

Certain parking spots booking tools have such options (e.g., Tidaro). 

3. Is the parking lot being used in a fair manner? 

Choosing the proper employee parking policy is a stressful thing for a company. Parking affects all employees that drive to work, from top to bottom. And let’s face it: things can get pretty emotional about parking spots.  

There are seven main parking lot policies out there. None of them is perfect. But some might work better for you than the other.  Each of them starts from the most common status quo: there are fewer parking spots than actual employees. 

Here they are: 

• “First come, first served” policy or “free for all”.   

This is the most common parking policy in which employees park in any available space on a first-come, first-served basis. At first glance, it seems like a fair policy, but it might end up excluding parents that drive their kids to school and arrive to work later than the others. 

• “Reserved” or “assigned parking spots policy”.  

Reserved parking policies allow certain employees to have designated parking spots marked with their name or number. This policy is often used for executives, managers, or employees with disabilities. This policy is quite unfair as you might have already noticed. 

• Mixed parking policy.  

This policy is a combination of the first two. It is one of the most popular approaches where a few key employees get assigned spots, while the other free spots are subject to the “first come, first serve” method.   

• Lottery based parking policy.  

Under this policy, employees enter a lottery to decide who gets a parking space for a certain period. It can be a month or a quarter. The winners are then allowed to park in a designated space for the period.   

• Parking cash-out schemes.  

In such cases employers might end up covering the full cost of an employee’s commute or pay them outright not to drive to work. This ways they will end up paying less for the parking spaces, while encouraging the use of alternative forms of transportation, and even improving traffic in cities, by having fewer cars out there.   

• Parking policy based on booking parking spots in spreadsheets.  

This means that employees can book a spot in a spreadsheet that is usually managed by the office admin. But such micro-management can lead to lots of frustrations. It might seem fairer, but errors can happen, such as double bookings. 

• Parking policy based on booking parking spots in apps.  

A parking spot booking app will give employees the autonomy to book a spot when they need one. It brings predictability in the parking lot. If there are assigned spots, they can be shared with employees.  

4. Which is the budget allocated for parking management? 

Most of the time the cost of the parking spaces is included in the lease for the workplace. 

Besides this cost there might be additional maintenance fees, or the cost of installing certain equipment (lighting, safety, sensors, etc.). 

If you add up the costs, you might see that a parking space might cost you between $1000-$2000 per year. 

Now, the costs above are visible, but there are some invisible ones as well: the costs of frustrated employees when the car park is 70% occupied, but they can’t park there. These costs might translate also in diminished productivity and work happiness. 

5. Which means of transportation are used by your employees to get to work? 

Are they driving alone or with someone else to work? 

Are they using public means of transportation? 

Do they use bikes or eScooters? 

What about electric vehicles parking access?  

Which are your employees struggles while they commute? 

How much does the employee commute last? 

Knowing the answers to these questions will serve as a starting point in the workplace parking strategy. 

6. How is visitor parking being handled? 

Are there assigned spots for guests? 

Are they forced to look for a parking spot elsewhere? 

7. Which are the most frequent parking violations and how are they being handled? 

Does it happen to see cars blocking other cars? 

What about a person who takes the spot of another colleague? 

How are such cases handled by the parking manager or office administrator? 

8. Which access, security and safety measures are implemented in the parking lot? 

Is there a plate recognition system in place? 

Is there video surveillance? 

How are the entrances and exits managed? 

9. What are the needs of the employees when it comes to parking? 

Leave some space in your survey for other issues that your employees might be facing in the parking lot. 

Once you answer these questions, you’ll be able to identify the issues that can be optimized in the parking lot. 

Setting the Goals of the Parking Strategy 

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Based on the previously gathered insights you can define and prioritize clear goals for your parking strategy. These could include: 

• Optimizing space utilization, 

• Reducing parking-related costs,  

• Improving employee satisfaction,  

• Promoting sustainable commuting options. 

Here’s an example of such a goal: “The purpose of the parking policy is to maintain equitable and consistent access to car parking for both staff and contractors, considering the limited number of available parking facilities, as well as promote sustainable commuting”. 

Creating the Parking Policy 

Choosing the proper employee parking policy for a company can be stressful. Parking affects all employees that drive to work, from top to bottom. And things can easily go down the rabbit hole. 

But if you approach the topic starting with the needs assessment and goal setting, while also engaging the employees, things will seem clearer.   

 
But which are the chapters of a parking policy? 

• The scope of the parking policy. Here you communicate to your employees which is the purpose of the parking policy. 

• Employee parking allocation. Are there assigned parking spaces? How are the free spots being distributed? Is there an app being used? Are there any parking permits? When is access being withdrawed?  How are license plates being managed? How is the parking lot managed after hours? 

• Visitor parking. Do you have allocated places for guests? Or can the office manager book a spot on behalf of a guest? 

• Motorcycle parking and bicycle parking. Are there designated zones for bikes and motorcycles? 

• Sustainable commuting. Are there cash-out schemes? Are there any other incentives for greener transportation? 

• Safety measures in the parking lot. 

• Infringements, rules, and regulations. How are parking violations reported? How are they handled? What happens if someone takes the spot of somebody else? What happens if someone blocks another car?  

• Roles, responsibility and performance management. Who is in charge of the management of the car park? How is the parking policy enforced? Who will handle the policy implementation? Who will receive the requests, remarks, or complaints?   

Communication and Employee Engagement 

After writing the office parking policy, you will need to communicate it to the employees. Here are some way of doing it:  

Email announcement: Send an email to all employees, introducing the new or updated parking policy.  

Company intranet: Post the parking policy document on your company’s intranet so that it can be easily found.  

Internal newsletter: Use the internal newsletter to publish updates of the parking policy, and reminders of certain rules and regulations. 

Q&A meeting: organize a sessions to explain the policy to employees. This allows them to ask questions and seek clarifications directly from the management or HR representatives. 

Visual aids: Create posters or infographics that highlight the key points of the parking policy. Display these in common areas like break rooms or near parking lots for easy visibility. 

By following these steps, you can effectively communicate the parking policy to employees, ensuring clarity and understanding while promoting a cooperative workplace environment. 

Monitoring and Feedback 

No parking policy is cast in stone. Iterations will be needed. This is why it is important to set up a feedback mechanism for employees to provide input on the policy or report any issues they may encounter. This helps in continuous improvement and shows that their opinions are valued. 

Now, here are some actions that you can take in order to ensure a healthy monitoring and feedback loop: 

• Define key performance indicators (KPIs) that will help you measure the success of the parking policy. Such KPIs can be employee satisfaction scores, utilization rates, and compliance with the policy. 

• Track trends over time. Most of the parking spot booking apps out there generate reports to help you understand the employee behavior in the parking lot (e.g., Tidaro).  

• Keep track of the number of parking permits issued and the parking spaces used by employees and contractors. This data can supply insights into the policy’s effectiveness and use. 

• Conduct regular surveys. Once every 6 or 12 months you can run anonymous surveys among employees to see how satisfied they are with the parking policy. Ask for feedback on aspects such as availability, fairness, convenience, infringements, mobility opportunities, and any suggestions for improvement. 

• Create a framework for incident reporting. Set up a mechanism for employees to report any parking-related incidents or issues they meet. This could be through an online form, email, or a dedicated feedback box. 

• Analyze complaints and suggestions. Regularly review and analyze the feedback received from surveys, feedback sessions, and incident reports. Find recurring issues and trends to pinpoint areas that require improvement. 

Use the feedback and data collected to make informed decisions and implement necessary updates to the parking policy. Regularly review and update the policy as needed to ensure it is still relevant and effective. 

By actively monitoring the parking policy and seeking feedback from employees, you can continuously improve the policy to better meet the needs of your workforce and ensure a fair and efficient parking system within your company. 

Now, we have a good example of such a policy, from Massachusetts Information Technology Center (MITC). Here it is. 

Next, let’s take a step back. 

Parking lies at the end of the commute.  

So, let’s look at the bigger picture for a bit. 

How Commuting to Work Affects Communities 

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Commuting to work, particularly in European urban areas, presents some drawbacks in the three areas of sustainable mobility: social, environmental and economic.  

Some of these drawbacks are hard to quantify, and they are not easily reflected in the economic balance. They are the costs that nobody assumes, but that end up having an impact on health, the quality of life and collective well-being: polluting emissions, greenhouse gases, greenhouse effect, pollution acoustics, traffic accidents, loss of time in congestion, physical inactivity, labor exclusion for transportation reasons. 

The report “Health costs of air pollution in European cities and the linkage with transport” states that in 2018, on average every inhabitant of a European city suffered a welfare loss of over € 1,250 a year because of poor air quality. This is equivalent to 3.9% of income earned in cities.  

Furthermore, air pollution kills 300,000 Europeans each year.   

Air pollution has several sources: transport activities, household heating, as well as industrial and agricultural activities. 

Now, actual measurements are hard to do. But, data shows that a 1% increase in the average journey time to work increases the social costs of PM₁₀ emissions by 0.29% and those of NO₂ emissions even by 0.54%. A 1% increase in the number of cars in a city increases overall social costs by almost 0.5%.  

PM₁₀  emissions are correlated with infant mortality, chronic bronchitis, and cardiovascular problems.  

NO₂ emissions are correlated with bronchitis in asthmatic children and other respiratory issues. 

This confirms that reduced commuting and car ownership has a positive impact on air quality, thus reducing the social costs of poor city air quality. 

Moving on to accidents, for example, in Spain, in 2017, traffic accidents on the road to work accounted for 11.6% of all labor accidents.  This is something that can be measured. 

There are also individual budget costs that can be measured as well: fuel, car maintenance, car insurance, etc. And I know what you are thinking – if we give up on cars, oil producers and car companies will suffer. And you would be right. But a pivoting needs to happen to balance the pollution as well. 

So, is there a way to take our cities back and have greener commutes? 

Let’s see. 

Parking and Business Mobility: How to Pave the Way to Sustainability 

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Did you know that the European Union is committed to the ambitious target of climate neutrality by 2050? The idea is to fight global warming and pollution. As mentioned earlier, air pollution kills 300,000 Europeans each year. 

Now, we’re in this together. This is not something that only governments or local councils should care about.  Private companies, and individuals, should all play a role in making this place better.  

Cities and businesses urgently need to address the issue of air pollution and carbon emissions from road transport, as we strive to reach our commitments for a healthy climate, welfare, and wellbeing. 

Now, what can businesses do to support greener mobility? 

We’ve created a short checklist for you: 

• Install chargers for electric vehicles in the parking lots. There’s growing demand for EVs, the market is booming, and you parking lot needs to adapt to the trend. Else, your employees will be more and more frustrated. 

• Create bike purchase support schemes.  

• Create the proper infrastructure in the parking lot to support bikes and electric scooters (eg: bike racks, showers, etc.). It’s not enough to encourage employees to bike to work, you also need to create a space to support their needs when they bike. 

• Introduce parking fees. I know this might seem counterintuitive but studies have been done showing that the frustration and reluctance going with such a measure are surpassed by positive effects.  

• Own bus shuttles to support the commute of employees (if the size of the company affords it). 

• Create a carpooling program. Businesses can encourage employees to carpool or use ride-sharing services, but also to create their own internal carpooling program (if they are sizeable companies). This way they reduce the number of vehicles on the road, put less pressure on the parking lot, and minimize the environmental impact. 

• Provide subsidies to their employees who use public transportation. Such measures can encourage employees to ditch their personal cars and use public transportation to get to work. 

• Adopt green fleet management practices. If your business has a fleet of vehicles, it can transition to electric or hybrid vehicles. 

• Encourage employees to work from home.  

Some of the perks above can be included in a commuter benefits program. Such programs can even have financial benefits for employers, because employers save by reducing their payroll taxes. Also, employers can attract and retain talent by offering transportation benefits. 

Workplace Parking Success Stories 

Now, let’s get even more practical, and see how some of the advice above was tested in real life.  

The Nottingham example 

Since April 2012, Nottingham has charged a fee for used parking spaces for business and professional purposes in private city land. This is Europe’s first Workplace Parking Levy (WPL).  

This applies to parking spaces for vehicles of employees, regular customers or pupils/students (parking spaces in the workplace). A parking fee in the workplace is possible in England and Wales thanks to the Transport Act 2000 and the proceeds must be used to meet the goals and measures of the Local Transport Plan. The rate has a regulatory effect and generates funds for the expansion of the light rail system (Nottingham Express Transit, NET), to increase the station’s attractiveness and improve the bus service. 

This project brought Nottingham the ‘Parking for a Better World’ award. 

The Devon City Council example 

County Hall in Exeter employs over 2,000 people. In 2010, the staff parking situation reached its maximum capacity, resulting in employees waiting for up to an hour to secure a parking spot. To address the issue of overcrowding and promote eco-friendly transportation options, the council implemented a car park management system at the site. Under this system, employees can park for a maximum of three days per week, and parking fees are based on their pay grade. 

The system is designed to integrate car park barriers, employees’ electronic identity cards, and the council’s payroll process. This integration enables smooth access to workplace parking and automatic deduction of payments. The revenue generated from the parking fees is specifically set aside to support a park and ride scheme and provide bus ticket subsidies for employees. This move aims to encourage sustainable commuting options and ease the parking situation at County Hall. 

Conclusions 

In conclusion, workplace parking management and sustainable business mobility stand at the forefront of an urgent mission – the transformation of our world towards a future that thrives on environmental consciousness and collective well-being.  

As businesses seize the opportunity to implement forward-thinking solutions, they wield the power to rewrite the narrative of transportation, turning it into a tale of eco-responsibility and societal progress. 

By embracing technology and investing in sustainable transportation options, businesses can drastically reduce their ecological impact. By fostering a culture of active commuting, promoting public transit, and advocating for greener policies, they can reshape the urban landscape into a hub of sustainability and accessibility. 

By exemplifying eco-friendly workplace parking practices, they inspire others to follow suit, creating a ripple effect that spreads across cities, nations, and the globe. 

As mentioned earlier, we’re in this together. We paved paradise and put up parking lots and asphalt (yeah, we’re fans of Counting Crows). Now, it’s our collective effort that will bring change. Businesses, governments, and individuals need to redefine prosperity by harmonizing economic progress with environmental preservation and social equity. 

Summary