Hybrid working and tenant parking preferences

Tenants adopting hybrid work are demanding new ways to manage their car parks. With the uptick in return-to-work initiatives, refreshing parking for hybrid work requires turning fixed assets into reliable and flexible parking spaces. Landlords and property managers who understand this see greater park utilization, revenue, and tenant happiness.

Parkable helps better manage tenant and workplace parking. With so many workplaces adopting flexible work, the parking challenges and opportunities in multi-tenant buildings are ready for a fresh approach too.

Our new solution matches parking demand with supply using any combination of unleased and available leased spaces. This gives parkers an even better parking experience from the moment they plan their journey to work. And of course, contributes to tenant retention.

We recently reviewed our workplace parking data collected from hundreds of workplaces and thousands of parkers across the USA, United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. The majority of these parks were in tenanted commercial buildings.

So what do tenants want from their parking arrangements?

Why tenants think parking doesn't work

Traditionally tenants lease a fixed number of bays. And then internally they treat the bays as a fixed resource that is mostly allocated based on hierarchy or to visitors.  Senior leaders, for example, are often given car parks for their exclusive use.

With so many organizations now working flexibly, this model no longer works. The disconnect when you run parking as a fixed resource with hybrid workplace tenants usually shows up in four ways:

1. Cost: Tenants pay a fixed cost (which includes car parks) for the lease term irrespective of how well parks are used.
2. Unbalanced demand across the car park: Parking demand can be high for one tenant, but much lower for another.  Tenant parkers often feel frustrated if they have to park further away for the same cost or more when there is a space available in their building.
3. Spare capacity: Unleased spaces as workplaces have scaled back their car parks as leases renew.
4. Underutilized spaces: When everyone can work from home occasionally, allocated spaces are no longer used daily. And in some cases, utilization dives dramatically.

Fair and flexible parking

Our data shows that 84% of Parkable workplaces have adopted a fair and flexible approach to parking. Around the world, workplace parkers are booking spaces in advance of their commute and are happily sharing their unused spaces widely. Importantly our algorithm gives everyone a fair chance at getting a space each time.

Additionally, the feel-good factor when workers get a park because someone has released their space fosters a positive workplace culture.

Beauty industry titan, Revlon, recently implemented Parkable when they relocated their Australian headquarters. Revlon’s new site offered great opportunities for the business, but the downside was that on-site parking was limited. With Parkable, employees now plan in-advance and request parking spaces in advance. Plus the few with permanent bays share them with everyone when they’re working from home, on holiday, or leave. Parkable’s algorithm brings equality to parking.

Erin Carle, senior HR manager at Revlon says, “This office move presented Revlon with a parking cultural shift as our previous office had parking for all employees. It was a no-brainer to treat all our employees equally by providing the opportunity to share parking. It has been so well received and Parkable is the engine behind it all making it possible.”

Dramatically reducing parking admin time

Another consequence of hybrid work is the steep increase in parking administration. We often see solutions stitched together in spreadsheets, emails, and chat groups. However, without help, it quickly becomes hugely time-consuming and fraught.

Parkable helps Property managers and their tenants’ parking administrators to step away from juggling daily parking requests and other associated time-consuming admin. Once set up, parkers and tenants self-manage their parking bookings, payments, and bay sharing.

Customers tell us that before using Parkable their admin was exploding. For example, one company spent up to 9 hours per week managing 117 parks. With Parkable, this is now about 30 minutes. Day-to-day tasks like sharing spaces, allocating parking to groups, priority bookings, and granting car park access disappear. Single-sign-on onboards and offboards staff automatically. Parkable even manages some infringement matters.

When Property Managers use Parkable they know space utilization, can change space allocations, and have an auditable record of tenant activity. They can create and download PDF maps of tenant parking allocations in minutes which replace hand-drawn maps and spreadsheets.

Getting more from visitor parking

Better managing visitor parking spaces is top of mind for many.  This includes giving a great visitor first impression with secure, seamless access and automated invitations that provide a one-time access key to the gate or barrier.

From talking with over 200 customers, we’re seeing early signs that many tenants want to change how their visitor parking is structured too. This is coming on the back of communal areas and event spaces in buildings. Instead of having a fixed number of visitor spaces, tenants would like this to flex according to business needs such as in-person events and conferences.

ITV uses Parkable to manage more than 400 visitors each month. It manages access control, provides bay numbers, and boosts first impressions.  The building remains secure as the visitor enters their license plate number, which is automatically scanned upon arrival. 

Better management of electric vehicle parking

As more buildings integrate EV chargers into their car parks as either a shared resource for everyone to use or for single-tenant use, complexity increases. Whilst making EV charging available is great for ESG values, managing the space is hard.

Currently, EV charging management is a priority for tenants who already have them installed and this is likely to grow as EV demand grows. Typically problems managing EV spaces include demand outstripping supply, tenants wanting to limit the charging time available for each car daily, and parkers being automatically notified when their car is fully charged (so they can free up the space for someone else). Also, some tenants don’t want EV spaces to be exclusively for EV use, but to flex to regular parking as required.

Happier parkers use Parkable when hybrid working

Parking needs to flex quickly and easily to meet the demands of hybrid work. Today parkers and workplaces are asking for fair, flexible parking without the burden of huge administrative loads.

Is your property ready to move on from spreadsheets, hand-drawn maps, and phone calls to a digital parking management system? Turning parking from a fixed asset into a truly flexible one is much easier than you’d think.

Unsure about what your tenants want from their parking? Ask us about how we can help survey your tenants to get the answers you need