6 administrative headaches that innovative facilities managers are no longer dealing with

The role of facilities managers is evolving, with increasing focus on sustainability, the relationship between space and human happiness, and digital technology. Yet all too often, facilities managers are still wasting their time on tedious administrative tasks - like outdated car park management practices.

For example, TAB New Zealand used to spend 15 hours a week (almost 700 hours a year!) managing their staff car park. With Parkable's software, those 15 hours were reduced to one hour, showing just how much of a difference smart tech can make.

Here’s our roundup of the six most painful car park administration tasks facing facilities managers, and what technology can do to eliminate the pain, return precious time, and make daily life easier for both FMs and parkers.

1. Managing a car park with more parkers than space

On-site parking spaces are in high demand, with more people wanting to park than there are parking spots available. Having your own parking spot has become a luxury, with many people needing to search off-site for parking when they go to work, visit a business, or even return home. Plus, more flexible working hours, high numbers of visitors, and frequent meetings away from the office means that people are coming and going from car parks more often.

For facilities managers, parking scarcity and frequent trips mean that trying to accommodate as many people as possible can be complex. This leads to either lengthy manual processes, as was the case for KPMG’s facilities coordinators, or car parks that are being underused or misused.

Luckily, platforms like Parkable can drastically reduce administration tasks while optimising the use of parking spaces. Parkable gives all parkers a transparent view of car park availability, directs people to free parking spots, and allows those with assigned car parks to share them when they aren’t needed.

2. Administrating key cards and remotes for car park access

For facilities managers who look after access-controlled car parks, distributing and tracking access cards and remote controls is often tiresome and time-consuming. Key cards and remotes get lost and need replacing, it’s difficult to accurately track how many are in circulation, and visitor access requires complicated processes.

Instead of dealing with these headaches, physical key cards and remote controls can be replaced by the Parkable app. Parkable makes car park access transparent, flexible, and simple by integrating the app with access gates and barriers, essentially turning peoples’ phones into their access remote. The Parkable platform also allows facilities managers to keep track of who has access to the car park, as well as removing and providing car park access with a few clicks.

3. Manually checking occupancy - or not knowing how the car park is used

The average commercial car park experiences 20-35% underutilisation every day, even when there are staff, tenants, and visitors desperate to park on-site. Without smart data or extensive manual checks, it’s hard for facilities managers to know exactly when and why these inefficiencies are occurring, or to form solutions.

One of the benefits of Parkable is that the platform automatically collects smart data on every aspect of your car park, including who is parking, where, when, and for how long. This allows facilities managers and businesses to compile complete usage reports and improve efficiency. Plus, for Australian businesses paying parking fringe benefits tax, automatic and accurate records of annual use can reduce liability by 20-35% (find out more here).

4. Transitioning to new policies or changes in the business

When your car park management is based on inflexible or manual processes, any new policies or changes that need to be implemented in the car park can become unnecessarily lengthy and painful.

A management decision to support electric vehicle drivers with EV chargers can cause administrative headaches if there is no way to manage charger use. Business growth or a transition from first-in-first-served to allocated parking can mean manual work, swapping access cards, reassigning parking spots, and managing incorrect car park use.

Using a digital platform to manage your car park, you can simply set new rules and user rights via an intuitive dashboard, avoiding the additional work that usually comes with implementing changes in policy. Even EV chargers can be managed with ease.

5. Solving minor parking disputes

When it’s difficult for people to know whether the car park is full or who is able to park where, it’s inevitable that minor disputes and misunderstandings will arise. Rather than spending your morning telling people to move their cars or helping visitors to access the car park, empower people to self-manage with Parkable’s automated problem resolution and visitor parking features.

If a dispute does arise, like someone parking in the wrong place, the Parkable app automatically notifies admin and assigns a new parking spot to the person whose park has been taken. That leaves facilities managers out of minor problems - and free to focus on more important aspects of the job.

6. Managing multiple car parks with inefficient tech

For FMs looking after multiple car parks, administration can be even more draining on time and resources - especially when each site has a different management system in place. And with too many tech solutions, the result is underwhelming, with unuser-friendly design and features that don’t meet facilities managers’ needs.

But just because different car parks have different requirements doesn’t mean that you need different management solutions. With Parkable, you can manage multiple car parks on the same central platform. That means a single dashboard and system without losing flexibility.

Take tedious car park management off your plate

With Parkable’s technology, facilities managers can reclaim their time and focus on other projects. Plus, businesses benefit from higher utilisation of their parking resources, and parkers improve their mornings with easy, stress-free parking. To find out more about how Parkable can help, click here!