Hill Laboratories launches Parkable!

Founded in 1984 in the heart of New Zealand; Hill Laboratories has been at the forefront of the analytical testing laboratory sector for over three decades. Now, it has grown to become the largest privately owned analytical testing laboratory in the country. Today, we’re thrilled to announce that this cutting-edge, kiwi-native company has partnered with New Zealand’s favourite parking platform, Parkable.

From small-scale startups to tech conglomerates, every organisation around the world has had to reckon with the new work structures that have come with our post-COVID world. Hill Laboratories was no different.

After adapting its work policies for over 350 staff members during the pandemic, the company found itself with underutilised real estate outside its offices – the car parks.

The existing bays were reserved for management and longest serving staff, leading to the creation of a long waitlist for other team members who were also eager to utilise the unused car spots. These staff members had no effective way of reserving, and management had no way of sharing. This led to many resorting to parking on the streets, blocking other businesses in the area, despite around 40-50 bays sitting empty every week.

Aware that the organisation’s communication needed to move beyond the office walls and into the parking lot, Hill Laboratories implemented Parkable allowing more people to park in unused spaces when they were shared by car spot holders.

“It made coordinating spots between our teams so much easier,” explained Hill Laboratories.

But Hill Laboratories didn’t stop there.

“We know that change management and adopting new technologies can be difficult for teams, so we worked with Parkable to take it a step further. We also wanted to encourage staff to pursue more environmentally friendly commutes, by incentivising cycling, walking and using public transport.

To encourage consistent use of the platform among our team, the Parkable Customer Success team shared insights and examples that included ‘incentivising’ staff to help with this process.”

Specifically, every time a car park is released in the app, a dollar is donated to the company's social club. “What we can expect from here is that there will be many more BBQs and other social activities that everyone can partake in, something that will help improve culture and boost engagement, which has become a huge focus for us with our hybrid work policies. While we originally proposed to trial this with a small user group, our teams agreed to start all allocated parkers on the same journey together. It was an instant hit.”