If you have workplace parking spots and want to...

Align your parking with a flexible working culture

One of Countryside Partnerships offices is located in Ealing, West London, in a multi-tenant building leased from JLL. It’s a beautifully refurbished building, providing dynamic working environments for creative professionals in this popular and busy part of the city. Countryside currently has 14 parking bays which is used by more than 40 members of staff at different times.

Having previously used a manual system Countryside’s challenge was making sure that the parking spaces were used by multiple people with a simple but effective management system. “The adhoc approach had become difficult and time-consuming to manage. We thought that there must be a more efficient way so we decided to give Parkable a call.”

Countryside’s project team came to us looking for a Parkable solution that would simplify admin, give visibility of occupancy and availability in advance and have the ability to be able to manage the parking allocation.

We created separate user groups to give them flexibility to share spaces with staff. Using Future Booking on the Parkable app, Countryside employees can request a parking spot on days that they are driving into the office, with the system allowing them one day of priority access each week.

We worked with Countryside to develop a painless change management program. EA Saroj received personalized admin training, and together we created internal comms elements – including a customized webinar for staff. We kept in close contact with Saroj to quickly answer any questions, and had our people on the ground at Countryside for launch day. This combination of training and hands-on support ensured everyone was on boarded and happy about it.

Parkable is helping Countryside Partnerships eliminate parking friction and simplify admin at their multi-tenant building in Ealing, West London.

Countryside Staff 

Countryside launches Parkable in London to simplify admin and relieve parking friction.

 is vital to an effective facility management program, but it's also a complicated proposition. Managing parking lots at scale will quickly become more complex than you may have bargained for.

Juggling 200 plus spaces, from assigning to re-assigning, is a full-time job without considering payment schedules, infringement issues, and integrating sustainability policies into parking lot management.

Thankfully, there are solutions that help to streamline the complicated parking management process. Parking lots or garages exceeding as little as 50 spaces need parking lot management software to handle the complexities of people coming and going, parking in the wrong space, and a thousand other things that will pop up unannounced.

 must be designed with the intricate details of managing parking lots or garages on a grand scale in mind so that you don't need to waste precious time and resources on administration.

Multiple occupiers and changing employee needs

In large parking lots where more than a few businesses are sharing a space, the allocation of slots can quickly get complicated. Ensuring there are enough spaces for all employees of all companies is an ongoing challenge as occupiers come and go. For example, before Parkable, chasing down infringers at 

 wasted an average of 20 hours every week. With parking management software, infringement management is no longer a manual process.

Hybrid working has become more accepted in industries, leading to changing parking needs. For example, whereas employees may have driven to work daily, the spaces they habitually used are no longer occupied by their vehicles. As a result, these spaces might sit unused, costing money twice over. Or, too many employees come to the office at the same time, overwhelming the parking lots. Parking lot management software can effectively plan and schedule parking needs according to changing employee habits.

Two massive revenue holes exist in a poorly managed parking lot; empty space and revenue collection. An open parking space is simply a piece of ground you have spent money to lease that is now wasting your money.

Empty parking spaces happen for various reasons, including having spaces allocated to specific staff members or clients that aren't around to use them. This open space wastes money twice: the money you've spent and the money you could earn from someone using it.

Parking lot management software adequately disseminates empty parking spaces, eliminating this waste.

The other revenue hole is in the finance department, which manually has to figure out parking payments. Chasing down employees to confirm the use of spaces, requesting payment, or calculating the appropriate way to deduct parking costs from paychecks is a draw on resources that can be better allocated elsewhere.

Your finance department can leverage parking lot management software to take this job off their to-do list while streamlining it and ensuring a payment never gets missed.

While this model may seem like the fairest, it can leave employees with needs and responsibilities outside their control feeling like the system disadvantages their commuter options. Unaddressed, these feelings can lead to some pretty serious consequences, such as 

 and ultimately, decreased staff retention.

Another side of this is that while the first to come is rewarded, we’ve seen examples of employees showing up early to work to get a spot but then nap or eat breakfast in their car. Therefore, staff members with families (or who live far away) never get a parking space at the office. This grows the same resentment and unfair feeling, as though the company is not doing what it can to ensure their parking options are convenient and affordable.

Parking lot management software streamlines parking by changing to a booking system, allowing employees to book appropriate spaces independently of how early they can get to the office.

Switching from allocated spaces based on seniority, or first-come, first-serve spaces based on availability, to a parking lot management software that gives employees the power to plan their commute in advance. This flexibility means seamless space sharing between employees who aren't in the office and employees who need a space at a specific time.

Using parking lot management software that can be programmed with the appropriate division of large parking lots means specifying how many spots are allocated for businesses. Gone are the days of the daily parking space lottery. With Parkable's parking lot management software, parking is based on schedules and needs.

Parkable's parking lot management software saves your admin team time and money. They no longer have to manually allocate parking spaces; these are automatically assigned and re-assigned using a smart algorithm.In fact, with flexible parking software, managing every type of parking is simplified. Whether it’s booking spaces for visitors, allocating 

 also provides real-time reporting and dashboards, meaning you can make better informed decisions about asset usage in the short and long-term.

Parking lot management software increases the productivity of parking lots while minimizing redundancies. By allowing for appropriate scheduling and sharing of parking spaces, pavement never sits empty, waiting for payment. This optimizes the space available, increasing occupancy and, thereby, revenue. Revenue is also improved with parking lot management software by cutting associated costs and work for the company.

Use parking lot management software to increase flexibility and revenue

Parking lot management software is designed to remove the pain and inefficiencies of outdated practices. By using parking management software backed by industry titans like 

, you can simplify facility management while maximizing parking lot efficiency.

 to see how Parkable can improve your revenue and experience.

Solving workplace parking problems is vital to an effective facility management program, but it's also a complicated proposition. Managing parking lots at scale will quickly become more complex than you may have bargained for.

How to manage private parking lots at scale

The workplace is changing. Even in the last 3 years, tenant needs have changed, demanding greater flexibility, improved amenities and more of a focus on workplace experience. In addition, with the advent of hybrid workspaces, tenants are more resistant to signing longer leases.

It’s no secret that improving tenant experience will directly impact your Weighted Average Lease Expiry (WALE) and Weight Average Lease Term (WALT). Ultimately, this will contribute to increasing your bottom line.

Many property professionals are exploring tenant experience apps as an approach to tackling tenant stickiness and retention.

A tenant experience app is like a remote control for your tenants to use in their space. It offers employers a single administration console where they can manage their employees' experiences. Employees can easily access on-site and digital resources, such as workplace commuting options, desks, conference rooms, or 

Tenant experience apps act as a hands-on assistant that helps employees and employers get the most out of their leasing space. Tenants can even reach out to their leasing offices with some tenant experience apps including CBRE Host and Equiem. Offering a tenant experience app to potential and current tenants is a significant value add. Tenant experience apps may be the perfect addition that will entice new tenants and keep old tenants, increasing your WALE and WALT.

Tenant experience apps are often mistaken for 

, but the two are different. Employee experience apps are excellent tools for paring down employees' apps to a straightforward dashboard - it's a virtual assistant for virtual work. Tenant experience apps are more visceral and physical, working to streamline the tenant's physical space for employers and employees.

HqO offers significant tenant experience interactions through creating a feedback loop to engage with everyone at a property. The pre-built tenant management provides an easy-to-use framework to stay organized even when you have multiple locations and tenants.

This tenant experience app offers push notifications, community forums, and content and event programming. HqO is excellent for your WALE and WALT because it empowers your tenants to handle many aspects of their experience, including visitor management, resource booking, and self-service work order submissions. The easier it is to work in the space, the longer your tenant will want to stay.

This tenant experience app focuses equally on tenant and landlord experience, offering the standard tenant experience app functionalities, with booking space capabilities and more. However, CBRE Host also acknowledges the needs of landlords by providing detailed analytics on app engagement, workplace occupancy, amenity usage and more. Providing Not only does this improve your WALE and WALT by improving the experience, but it helps elevate all aspects of your business.

Including a fun option for in-app ordering and payment for the property's existing food and beverage providers, an in-app events calendar with custom registration forms, and mobile access options that eliminate the need for keycards, this tenant experience app streamlines the experience for everyone. They even have an 

 that enables parking space booking and sharing and can open gates to parking lots, all without leaving the app.

Cureoscity offers a bespoke native experience hand-tailored for iOS and Android for each client. Their content is curated and layered for an immersive yet organized experience supported by leading websites. In addition, their property management tools are streamlined to support a high workload while giving a live performance analysis so that you can make real-time decisions and pivots. This tenant experience app creates a platform that heightens your WALE and WALT by offering more profound insights from landlord through to tenant.

Equip offers the opportunity to create a branded tenant experience app, increasing brand loyalty in a simple, streamlined, and custom way. It also allows you to integrate existing building management systems, including 

, access control, and space-booking software, to create fun and interactive user experiences that don't miss a beat. Landlords' lives are also made easier by increasing communication between themselves and tenants while understanding their needs with actionable intelligence. Leveraging this abundance of information can help you improve your WALT and WALE by applying insights to building and tenant management strategies.

This tenant experience app brings flexibility to a vast range of services and products. Yardi is designed to handle a massive load of properties, making it the perfect tenant experience app for 

 companies looking to increase their WALE and WALT on an extensive list of properties simultaneously. With a suite of products that can be tailored to your needs, Yardi assures you that they have the answer to your problems.

Tenant experience apps increase engagement and satisfaction; a tool to meet changing tenant needs. Equipping you with enhanced building and tenant capabilities to increase tenant happiness and engagement, ultimately supporting sustainable long-term WALT and WALE growth.

integrating your tenant experience technology

 with Parkable to improve parking management across your portfolio.

The workplace is changing. Even in the last 3 years, tenant needs have changed, demanding greater flexibility, improved amenities and more of a focus on workplace experience. 


5 tenant experience apps to increase your WALE

, you can simplify facility management while maximizing parking lot efficiency.


Over the past 18 months, hotels have struggled with fewer travellers and guests. For hotels like Stamford Plaza Brisbane, this is partly solved by becoming an MIQ facility for quarantining returning Australians and visitors. But while hotel rooms are filled, the guest car parks often remain underutilised.

The Stamford Plaza Hotel, for instance, had 30 unused guest car parks in the middle of the Brisbane CBD. These parks were sitting vacant, despite demand for parking in the area.

To solve this problem, the Stamford Plaza listed its unused car park on Parkable, a platform which connects unused parking space with those seeking to park. With Parkable, the hotel generates revenue when members of the public use their car parks.

Parkable also uses IoT technology to connect to Stamford Plaza’s access gates. This makes it easy for members of the public to access the hotel car park once they’ve started a parking session, while retaining building security.

"Since COVID, many of Stamford Hotel's guest car parks have gone unused. Parkable allows us to share those parks with the public and generate revenue from an otherwise unused asset."

- Jeremy Harding, Rooms Division Manager at Stamford Plaza Brisbane

Over the past 18 months, hotels have struggled with fewer guests. For hotels like Stamford Plaza Brisbane, this is partly solved by becoming an MIQ facility. But while hotel rooms are filled, the guest car parks often remain underutilised.

Parking management software

Brisbane’s Stamford Plaza Hotel launches Parkable to fill unused guest car parks

3 commercial leasing agents who boosted client revenue - using only their car park

 who has introduced a number of his clients to Parkable. Why? Because when clients are between leases or have commercial excess, Parkable can help them boost their interim or ongoing revenue by subletting parking space to the public.

"Parkable are great at generating income for owners and landlords in between leases on a flexible basis. Being present on vacant sites also gives added security."

Riddle has a client with a commercial vacancy in the residential Hamilton area of Brisbane. Since signing up with Parkable in July 2019, the property owner has consistently made around $3,200 AUD per month. Even during the locked-down months of this year, Riddle’s client has maintained a strong revenue stream.

, introduced Parkable to a property owner in the CBD. The property owner had a car park near Karangahape Rd that was just sitting vacant. Now, the owner makes around $3,000 NZD per month by subleasing their car park on Parkable to Auckland commuters.

Another Auckland agent, commercial broker Steven Hook, says that 

. By providing prospective tenants with a way to sublease excess car parks, Hook can remove fiscal obstacles for tenants.

“It makes me feel really good that I can pass on a contact like Parkable that adds value to the client. The client will thank me for the introduction and for adding value to their business, and that helps me to build relationships."

Parkable’s flexible platform is ideal for commercial vacancies and excess

There are two common problems for commercial property owners:

Having excess, unused parking space that isn’t needed by tenants

Waiting for weeks or months to fill a vacancy

In both situations, the property owner’s parking space is sitting empty - and isn’t making them any revenue. Most commercial leasing agents don’t have a solution for clients in these situations. It’s simply a problem that isn’t solved.

Instead, agents like Coen Riddle, Damien Bullick and Steven Hook are going above and beyond to help their clients and boost revenue.

"It's a fantastic service. The car parks were all booked out within the first week of listing. Our client is extremely happy and we will definitely be looking at using Parkable for our other clients."

The benefits of Parkable as a solution for your clients

Parkable is a parking app which connects vacant parking space with either the public or neighbouring businesses. Whenever people park in their car park, your client earns income.

Unlike other parking companies, with Parkable there are no long-term contracts. Car parks can be listed when the space is vacant, and removed once you find a tenant or the property owner wants the space for a different use.

Plus, our agent referral program lets us say thank you to commercial property agents who connect us with property owners in CBD and fringe areas.

Provide a positive introduction between us and your client

Our team lists the car park on the Parkable platform and manages the property

Your client earns the best rates for space

Parkable is trusted by leading commercial property agencies across Australasia, including Commercial Bay, Kiwi Property, Precinct Properties and Stride.

Commercial leasing agents are going above and beyond to help their clients to boost revenue between leases or when there's commercial excess.

Commercial leasing agents

Meet the commercial leasing agents adding $1000s in revenue for clients every month

Instead of sitting empty, excess parking spots at Eden Park Drive in Sydney are 85% occupied

Savills manages a multi-tenant commercial property at Eden Park Drive Macquarie Park in Sydney on behalf of Australian Unity.

In June 2020, the landlord had around 40 vacant parking bays, leaving a gap in the annual revenue for the building. Parkable were able to identify a business opportunity to partner with the landlord and monetise the vacant parking bays.

Using Parkable’s software and app, Savills’ tenants and members of the public can pay to park at Eden Park Drive on an hourly, daily or monthly basis. Result? Instead of sitting vacant, the 40 parks have been occupied at 85% on average since onboarding in June 2020, despite lockdowns.

While Eden Business Park tenants didn’t want to make a long-term commitment to leasing additional parking bays, a number of their staff did require more parking options. The flexibility offered by Parkable was a convenient way for tenants and building occupants to access onsite parking, and Parkable’s car park management technology frees up time for Property and Facilities Managers to focus on their day to day building activities.

“With Parkable, we’ve been able to offer our tenants flexible parking options in addition to their long-term leases. It’s great to expand the services that we offer and make sure we’re meeting our clients’ needs.”

- Brett Hannah, Associate Director at Savills Australia

Members of the public can pay for any parks that aren’t needed by tenants on a given day, providing Savills with another way to monetise their car parks.

Savills' multi-tenant commercial property in Sydney had 40 unleased parks. Using Parkable, Savills’ tenants can pay to park on a casual basis, and instead of sitting vacant, the parks are now 85% occupied.

Savills uses Parkable to generate revenue from excess car parks at Eden Park Drive, Sydney

Over the past month, our Parkable UK team attended three European facilities conferences: 

 at ExCeL London. We heard from industry leaders on space utilisation and how to support a hybrid workforce with a flexible, experience-driven approach.

Across all of these conferences, the key message was clear: The successful hybrid workplace will only become a reality if facilities managers play a leading role in transforming their organisations.

Companies are looking to facilities managers to bridge the gap between physical environment and employee experience. This requires facilities managers to take a stronger leadership position, and help to answer the overarching question: How can the office environment better serve employees?

During the conferences the challenges were defined and solutions suggested - here are our key takeaways for facilities and asset managers.


The facilities challenge of hybrid working: Low and lumpy office occupancy

We all know that office occupancy has reduced hugely since Covid-19, and levels are not predicted to return to those experienced pre-pandemic.


Damien Chapman from Freespace put some numbers of occupancy at the London Facilities Show. He said that before Covid, office occupancy was 50% on Mondays, 65% midweek, and just 40% on Fridays. Those levels have transformed. Today, offices are only occupied 10% on Monday, 30-40% midweek, and 15% on Fridays.


Chapman focused not just on the reduction in occupancy, but the lumpiness of occupancy. Businesses simply can’t get leases that are only for a few days a week, unless they’re co-working. So how can facilities managers work to ‘flatten the curve’ of occupancy, and reduce that lumpiness?

It’s not likely to change… so how should facilities managers respond?


Ryan Anderson, the VP of global research and insights at MillerKnoll, said that this trend is unlikely to change: 79% of employees want location flexibility, with 65% preferring to work in the office some of the time rather than always being remote.


This is the major facilities challenge. Fewer employees in the same sized office is not financially sustainable for most businesses, and neither is leasing an office that is almost empty for two days a week.


However, there are many ways to respond to this facilities problem - should you break your lease? Reconstruct the office? Reduce office space? Move to co-working? Or simply create a work environment that will attract more employees into the office?


Using IoT sensors to make data-driven decisions

One of the key recurring themes at the Facilities Show in London was the recommendation to use IoT sensors to make data driven real estate and facilities decisions.


The focus was primarily on measuring the occupancy of office space and physical assets, as having firm data on utilisation will drive better decisions about how to adapt or change the workspace. However, IoT sensors were also suggested for measuring environmental factors like temperature, humidity and pollution, as integration with adaptive systems can automatically take action to rectify issues and create a more comfortable and healthy workspace for employees.


Damien Chapman from Freespace also suggested that facilities managers should use occupancy data to limit scale - for example, if occupancy is lower, businesses should close floors to save energy. This also condenses people, so they are more likely to ‘collide’ and have positive social interactions, which reinforces the benefit of coming to a physical shared office.


Ask for thoughts and feedback before making changes

As well as using data, at WWE, Marie Puybaraud from JLL put strong emphasis on asking the right people the questions. These workplace challenges are not solely on facilities managers to solve, and we need a diverse group of people, including HR, to understand what sort of work needs to be done.

Ryan Anderson also talked about the importance of getting feedback from all employees. In his 

 he and co-author Brian Elliott say, “Let [employees] tell you how to enhance existing spaces, rather than unilaterally overhauling the office. … Aim towards progress, not perfection, and whatever your goals are, enlist employees in the experiment and listen to their feedback.”

Take inspiration from hospitality and tourism, and view the office as a destination

Suvi Nenonen from the University of Helsinki spoke at WWE about rethinking the office space as a destination, and to even take inspiration from the hospitality and tourism industries. Suvi said that just as people can cook at home, but choose to go to restaurants, people can work from home, but will choose to go into the office – if it’s a positive destination.


Damien Chapman said that one way to do this is to use the ‘quiet’ time as an opportunity to upgrade from just monitoring metrics, to actually actioning with integrations into building management systems. Often facilities managers are too busy to take on large projects, so now could be the perfect time to add new technology solutions that also provide a better office experience.


To shift to a smaller, quirkier office, or to make your existing space better?

Kay Sargent from HOK spoke at WWE about the movement away from class A, new, premium office buildings. Instead, she is seeing organisations move to quirkier spaces which are less siloed and more connected with the local community.


Wayne Young, the facilities manager at Just Eat, had a different spin on the conversation. He suggested that instead of relinquishing leases when there’s underutilised office space, facilities managers should use the opportunity to build cool stuff to attract people to the office. The kitchen and eating areas should be an area of particular focus, as this is where people often come together and have positive ‘social collisions’.

Wayne also pointed out that businesses could consider adding areas to their workplace, like bars and conference spaces, that are generally outsourced. With more underused space comes the possibility for more to be in-house, rather than rented from other sources.


One thing that remote working will always have on coming into the office is the absence of a commute. Kay Sargent from HOK also reminded us that the decision to come into the office is not only about the work space - it’s also about how people get there. A focus on employee commutes can reveal whether facilities managers can improve the experience through better parking resources and technology, shuttles to public transport hubs, or carpooling programmes.


Broaden your office appeal, and broaden your talent pool

At the UK Facilities Show, Director of WILL+Partners Mitakshi Sirsi discussed how innovative office design can allow organisations to support different types of workers - including those who are neurodiverse, part timers, parents, and those who are older.

“This expands a company’s potential talent pool in a talent war world!” Mitakshi pointed out.


This may look like turning underutilised space into a “mums room”, or quiet spaces for those who require less social interaction and noise.


Jeffrey Saunders from CIFS made a similar point at WWE, saying that facilities managers and HR managers should consider that women and minority groups are more likely to resist returning to the office. Saunders says that businesses can cater to these groups specifically, and make their office experience more pleasant and safe. One area that he noted was the commute, and that ensuring women and minorities have a safe journey into the office (i.e. without needing to walk distances while it’s dark) can be an important consideration.


Facilities managers have an important role in ensuring that organisations can rise to the occasion of hybrid working. However, they don’t have to do it alone - colleagues in HR, employees, data-providing technology, and experts in office design and 

 can also provide valuable insight and advice.

There are many ways for your organisation to respond to hybrid working, and finding the best strategy for your team must be the first step

We're excited to meet up with Facilities professionals in Nashville, to discover innovative FM technologies, and build relationships with like minded people from around the globe. 

Our International Launch Manager, Kezia Lynch will be there in person to answer any questions you have about Parkable's Parking Management System. 

Kez will be happy to shout you a coffee or wine - PM via Email Kez@parkable.com or 

Facilities conference 

Three European facilities conferences in one month: What we learnt

Working all over Australasia, Quest Apartment Hotels is a leading regional apartment hotel brand. In fact, Quest is part of the largest serviced apartment network in the world, The Ascott Limited. They’ve been around for over 30 years and have gathered over 170 locations to fulfil the needs of the modern business traveller. With such a wide-reaching portfolio, we are so excited and eager to announce that Quest will be partnering with us here at Parkable to manage their Melbourne-based corporate office staff parking systems.


Before we came into the picture, Quest’s team was trying to manage their parking situation alone. They have 18 parking bays, which are split up amongst team groups. Staff members have been attempting to share spaces themselves, but the entire process was admin-heavy and cumbersome. And, the admin had fallen on team leads.


This entire process became overcomplicated pretty quickly. So, Quest has been looking for a new system to streamline better utilisation of their space, automating the process and allowing more staff to park on-site. They’ve been hoping to save admin time while ensuring their employees have better, easier access to their parking spaces broken up by department.



For Quest, our main focuses have been to: reduce parking admin, better parking utilisation through bay sharing, and implement a fair booking system. Through all of this, we also had to keep in mind that Quest wanted to divide their parking bays based on staff teams. So, we set up admin groups in the Parkable dashboard to allocate specific parking areas to specific departments for booking, making sure to distribute the spaces across each department fairly. Quest can create separate private groups for each department. Bays can be shared among people within each department.


Getting set up with Parkable, the Quest corporate office team's admin load has decreased and they can now direct more time into expanding the brand's portfolio and presence as a leading international serviced apartment provider.

Quest launches with Parkable

Quest Apartment Hotels launches Parkable to automate parking systems

Why you need to prioritize innovation in your workspace

With supply-side constraints and the effects of COVID still lingering in key markets worldwide, resources are running thin for many organizations as companies prepare themselves for the economic ambiguity ahead.


Despite fears, innovation is more important than ever before.

According to Mckinsey & Company, innovation is “the key to 

.” Supporting innovation-led growth can have lasting benefits on a workplace’s future growth. For example, “organizations that maintained their innovation focus through the 2009 financial crisis emerged stronger, outperforming the market average by more than 30 percent and continuing to deliver accelerated growth over the subsequent three to five years.”


The same McKinsey report also stated that over three-quarters of executives recognized the onset of the crisis in 2020 created a significant amount of new opportunities. While this percentage differed depending on the industry, the sentiment remained. 


Keeping a workplace running and even thriving is possible amid current macroeconomic headwinds. New business models grow from disruption, and this can be seen now. “Disruptive innovation is a process by which a smaller company with fewer resources is able to successfully challenge well-established organizations,” writes 

First and foremost, it’s important to identify where you’re limited in terms of resources. Over the past few months, Parkable has spoken with many of our clients and gained insight into some of their ideas on how to maintain innovation while battling budget and resource constraints.


Before a project has even begun, map out where you may run into some issues. Workplace or facilities leaders must understand which aspects of the project they’re completing might be affected or run into road bumps. 

Asking who, what, when, where, why, and by how much


Getting a scope for limitations allows you to seek out innovative projects that work with the resources that you have more of. And, if you have fewer resources in another area, that’s when you can get the team together and let creative ideas flow.


Research has found that although there is a wide misconception that innovation is only possible with the 

, steady capital and minimal resistance, that might not be the case. In fact, after researchers observed around 150 cases, they found individuals, teams, and organizations all benefit from a healthy number of constraints.


Specifically, “having too few input constraints breeds complacency;” having a “moderate level of input constraints, however, frames the task as a greater challenge and, in turn, motivates experimentation and risk-taking.”

climate encourages creativity and innovation 

within an organizational environment. Looking deeper, to create this environment, leaders must 

“[reframe] adversity as an opportunity.”

 Workspace and organization managers must also have the ability to be resourceful amid constraints. When approached and executed well, it’s also often “the secret to progress, and often, their high-impact innovation.”


“It is important to realize that the same constraint may be interpreted in different ways: as a motivating challenge or as a frustrating roadblock,” writes 

. It’s important for managers and leaders to leverage their leadership abilities and help employees frame the challenge as something positive. By doing this, chances are you’ll boost creativity and collaboration, which will make way for innovation.


A common response from our Parkable clients when it comes to innovating in a resource-constrained environment is implementing tech. Although it seems counterintuitive to invest during this period, adopting new technology can actually enable cost recovery, as it can make up for the shortcoming of older tech or human processes.


Let’s use Parkable as an example. By implementing our platform into their parking lots, 

, an entertainment giant employing over 60,000, actually reduced the amount their team was spending on manual admin tasks by 14 hours every week.


In order to do this, though, leaders and managers need to empower employees, ask them to think big, and stress that there are no bad ideas during the brainstorming process. Encourage collaboration and teamwork to create a more supportive workplace environment. Finally, reward those who push the creative envelope.


However, this is definitely easier said than done. Specifically, McKinsey reports that 

more than 70% of enterprise transformation efforts fail

, resulting in huge losses of investment, time, and trust. Barriers include:


With that, some tips on how to effectively create an innovative culture and implement innovative initiatives within your workplace include:


 Pursue issues that require solving within the workplace, encouraging creativity in applying a solution to a specific workplace problem. Innovation needs to be aimed in a specific direction; it cannot be purposeless.

Gartner suggests “plan and execute small activities that get you a bit closer to your desired goals.” This way, you can see small improvements as you go.

Be realistic in setting goals and targets:

 Especially when first beginning your workplace’s innovative journey, it’s important to manage your expectations.


Our team at Parkable has created a much more detailed guide 

 on how to create, implement and stick to change within your organization.

“An innovative and thoughtfully designed workspace can increase employee engagement, productivity, and 

.” says WeWork’s VP of product and commercialization.


While it’s important to balance both human needs and resource constraints when considering changes in the workspace, innovation can work with constraints rather than against them.


For example, if your workspace has limited parking options which are causing employee frustration and problems in the office, you, of course, can’t necessarily just get a whole new parking situation. But you can work with what you already have, and consider a new parking management system, instead.


This is a scenario applicable to a platform like Parkable.

 as an example. Like many organizations since the onset of the pandemic around three years ago, The NRA has put in place a flexible WFH policy. This saw spaces being underutilized; however, it also created an opportunity for the team at NRA to find opportunities to better their work environments to incentivize their teams to return to the office.


“We wanted to make the return to the office as easy and seamless for staff as possible, and that starts with the morning commute. With Parkable, we’re able to offer reservable on-site parking to all of our DC team members, which reduces the stress of coming into the office,” explained Sarah Kane, The NRA’s Project Lead.


Today, staff at The NRA can get to work without worrying about whether they’ll be able to find a park when they arrive. On top of this, The NRA management doesn’t have to spend hours manually managing and recouping costs on their staff parking. Post-Parkable, The NRA has improved their employee experience, reduced the amount of admin work associated with managing their carpark, and maximized the value of their parking real estate.

When it comes to implementing an innovation climate, it requires a collaborative and creative culture where employees, ultimately, can be creative. Part of helping foster this culture is helping your team automate and streamline their work, so they have the bandwidth to contribute to innovative solutions.


Looking deeper at the impact of TAB implementing Parkable in their car parks, with our platforms streamlining their admin team’s work, that team has saved 670 hours (84 business days) every year on the car park. This allows administrators significantly more time to focus on other important business tasks.


As an executive vice president of a Fortune 500 company explained, “Innovation is driven neither by processes nor systems; it’s generated by

Countryside launches Parkable in London to simplify admin and relieve parking friction.

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