AIBU re Office Car Park Wars

[NaughtyAmeliaJaneridesagain]

I work at an office with limited car parking. There are several branches of my organisation, many without car parks. The person allocating spaces to staff favours her friends. Additionally, higher management insist they must have a space every day. Parking locally can be difficult and is expensive. Staff constantly moan about current set up. Do you have a system of allocating spaces for staff whose work patterns range from 2 days pw to full time, including many term time workers, with circa 100 staff and 35 spaces, and about 10 managers? How do you deal with this issue at your workplace? Staff getting more and more irate, has been raised numerous times over years and nothing changes. I feel I need to present a solid plan or am gonna go nuts. Just heard council plans to develop nearby car park next year and things are going to get nasty. WWYD ? AIBU to try to get this changed? If so how ??! Previously managers said they would give up spaces if they ALL agreed to. Needless to say a manager refused to do so, so none did ! Practical suggestions welcomed 😀

I used to work somewhere that you were allocated parking pro rata depending on your hours.

Full time was guaranteed a space 3 or 4 times per week. You had to book via an online system which logged your number plate.

You work 2 days you’re guaranteed parking for 1 etc.

Same at our place.City centre , very limited spaces, the allocator is a secretary who favours certain people for no reason and allocates herself a space. Infuriating !

In our other offices it is based on seniority and length of service, but you don’t get bumped off if someone more senior joins. Much fairer I think.

We are moving offices soon and the parking won’t be as it is now so that’s pissed on her chips.

My dad works in a place that has a similar parking problem. His place of work have contracted mini buses and certain car park spaces (presumably council) not even that close to work and the mini buses go and pick the workers up and take them to/from work.

Do parking spaces have to be allocated, can it not be first come first served - with the exception of management who automatically get a space?

Lottery. Resets every 3 months.

our office has just moved.
we do not have parking any more al all, all have been converted to cycle parks & showers.

blue badge holders get paid a spot in the car park of the office next door.
anyone else can park for ££ at the shopping centre half a mile away

Ours is length of service, even for directors. Only the CEO gets a space sooner. I’m 12 years in and probably another 5 off a space!

First come first served would be unfair on the part timers working school hours. Office opens 7:30am to 6:30pm on Flexi hours, so would be same early birds every day 😏 just want a fair system for all, but not sure how to put it into practice transparently. Not my job to do car park - thank goodness, just want to help resolve an issue that is getting people's backs up 😀

I definitely agree with pro rata parking! It should be done fairly. How many spaces- how many cars need one. Every gets allocated a certain number of days depending on how often they work. This causes no resentment and makes it much fairer.

My work uses the Tetris scheme- everyone blocks everyone in and we move accordingly if people need to leave earlier throughout the day 🤣

The number of spaces available to us has been drastically reduced because developers have finally got round to building houses on what was most of our car park. All the spaces are now in the cramped undeground car park.

Spaces are allocated to teams, except for the exec team who have designated spaces. You have to book them and priority goes to staff who mainly work in the community but have to pop in to do admin.

Because my team is a very new team, we don't have any allocated spaces, but I'm often able to reserve a space that belongs to my old team. If not, I can usually find a space on the street, and because I'm an essential user, I can claim my parking charges back.

If I can't get a space when I come back from appointments, I go home and work from there. It's only a mile away, and the nearest on-street parking available after about 9am is almost as far away.

We have none available. We are five minutes from an Underground station.

A suggestion, priority to those with electric, hybrid or small cars. Make those with Chelsea Tractors walk.

We Negotiated a rate from a nearby car park that ensured enough spaces for everyone along with the works car park and spread the cost across all users.
Spaces nearest the office got allocated by seniority.
Senior people kicked off about having to pay £20 pm and were happy to let less well paid staff pay a lot more 🙄

Ours go by length of service at our place regardless of seniority - if bay holders are not going to be using their bay on certain days i.e. they are on leave, WFH or only work certain days then their bay will be reallocated accordingly to the next person on the list for that period - this week for example a few bay holders are on leave as it is half term so the bays are being used by the next people on this list. It is done fairly with absolutely no favouritism.

Ours is based on need. People who realistically live too far, or too remotely to be able to use public transport, people with unsociable working hours, people with caring responsibilities etc. It's not done by seniority at all, people are ranked on need and the 30 people at the top of the list get the spaces. It's assessed periodically, or if a new person starts. Alllocated by staff number too, so anonymous.

We work on pro rata for days worked, but it gets complicated by visitors from others offices being allocated spaces to attend meetings etc, sometimes at short notice, so that they don't claim expenses, which means spaces available vary from day to day. Logistically allocating fairly seems a nightmare 😨

Everyone goes in a draw including managers. If you have 35 spaces then over 3 months everyone has a space for a month on a rolling 3 month rota.

Gives person who haven't been allocated space chance to buy monthly parking permit elsewhere.

I don't see why managers should automatically get space either.

At my old work it was done on length of service. Part time/full time made no difference.

Everyone started in the furthest away car park, about a 10 min shuttle bus away.

After 5/6 years, depending on others leaving or getting moved up, you got moved to the middle car park, about a 5 min shuttle bus away.

I did 12 years and never made it to the central car park, just a 5 min walk from the office. I did sometimes car share with someone with a central permit though so that was a bonus! Also for night shifts and on Christmas day everyone was allowed to park in the central car park as the shuttle buses didn't run.

It was done on seniority at my work. If there were more people than spaces at a certain seniority level then a rota was worked out between them.

Has anyone ever used a computer programme or app to allocate spaces daily? How would you tackle managers having space daily when other offices don't even have car parking ? Are there tax implications in this we can bring up ?

By Seniority and there must be a couple of medical needs spaces. Develop a policy with HR.

My employer hired full-time valet parking staff so all staff could park. They can squeeze in many more cars by stacking.

At h's work they prioritise those who would have awkward journeys by public transport (eg those in rural villages without bus services) and those who drop children on the way, after that its on longest service. There's only 1 space for every 5 people or so because the council refused planning for underground parking when the site was redeveloped saying staff should use public transport (then council cut all the bus subsidies and the service even from our city location stops at 6pm!)

We have two parking spaces, plus space for motorbikes.

For us, management get first priority as they have to be in earlier and leave later than anyone else. As Deputy Manager I get parking five days a week - the other two managers walk/ride motorbikes so don't need a space. I have a colleague who has to do the nursery run before school, so he gets second priority as otherwise he'd never manage to find a parking space in time. If either of us are off, then priority works on distance - whoever lives the furthest away gets the parking spot!

It works well and doesn't cause any problems. There is free/£1 parking available but it might be a 10-15 minute walk away on a busy day.

At my current office there's enough parking for everyone but there's only 5 spaces allocated to the team near the office (smallish team), and everyone else can park in another car park (free) about 5 minutes walk away.

It's up to the MD how the spaces are allocated, it used to be by seniority, now it is via a rota amongst all the office staff, so you take it in turns to get to park close to the office.

At my last company it was based on an algorithm of seniority and length of service combined, otherwise the company paid for your parking at a local council car park a ten minute walk away. And there was a shadowing system so if you didn't have a permanent space then you'd get one any time your shadower had a day off or holiday etc.

I think both of the options above are pretty fair, but I think it's a nice gesture if the company pays for other parking if the onsite parking is limited. To be honest I wouldn't now work anywhere that didn't have free onsite (or very closeby) parking available if I had to drive in.

Where I work now, first come first served, and the rest park on the road.