The real estate industry has to keep up with a rapidly changing world and the various associated technological processes by adapting itself to meet the demands of contemporary consumers. Talking about the real estate industry, we often imagine it to be a nimble motorboat, able to rapidly change its course. Unfortunately, this is not the case. The real estate industry is more like a giant container ship, painfully slowly adapting to changes. The same applies to office properties, which take several years to build and are designed even earlier. The technologies appearing on the market today, did not even exist when the office building was still at the planning stage. This is one of the reasons why changes on the property market and especially when it comes to office buildings take a long time.
Inter-generational dialogue
How should office managers respond to today's challenges associated with real estate and technology? After all, Generation Z, already widespread on the labour market, should feel taken care of. New, innovative and intuitive technologies are important for them. And those are rarely features of older office buildings. What about the millennials and Generation X? What are such employees looking for? What would entice these individuals to work at an office? It is imperative to be able to respond effectively and efficiently to these changing market conditions.
What about remote work?
A remote work option makes a job offer that much more attractive. Employees have discovered the opportunities that working from home could bring to their lives. On the other hand, employers prefer when there is far less remote work. Companies are increasingly putting pressure on employees to spend more time in the office and at home. Unfortunately, employees lose time commuting. Although not if they work from home. The discussion on the pros and cons of office based, remote or hybrid work is practically endless, but it is worth summarising it in one sentence: office based work is imperative for most jobs around the world.
Car park spaces reservation system
Technology, office based work, inter-generational dialogue? How can these be combined? ParkCash has developed a car park spaces reservation system for office buildings that addresses the above three issues. It makes office car parks more egalitarian, i.e., every employee, not just the managers, can park their own car at work. This is made possible by an app that will allow employees to reserve a car park space at a company car park for a day before commuting to the office.
ParkCash and modern technology
A car park spaces reservation system can even be implemented in older office buildings that remember the days of the Lehman Brothers collapse. A barrier is all that is needed at a car park for the ParkCash system to work effectively. This system can be integrated with all types of barriers. ParkCash may also be integrated into any building application. This acts as a breath of fresh air for older office buildings, which are not very modern, but now can stand out from competing properties.
Inter-generational dialogue, remote work and ParkCash
The ParkCash mobile parking reservation app allows users to reserve a car park space in a simple and intuitive way. Every employee from every generation will be able to use it in the
same way and commute to work in comfort, without having to worry about searching endlessly for a parking space. Our system also allows users to reserve a space with a charger for electric cars, scooters and bicycles. This feature means charging is safer as there is no need to bring a scooter for example into the office and charge it from an office socket.
ParkCash reservation system
Before the introduction of ParkCash, car park spaces were allocated to specific employees, usually as a perk for managers. However, with the advent of remote and hybrid work, many car park spaces were left empty as managers partly worked from home, leaving their allocated spaces vacant. This was a source of frustration for other employees who saw empty car park spaces but were not able to use them.
To address these issues, ParkCash has designed a system for reserving and sharing these spaces. Employees have access to the ParkCash mobile app, which allows them to reserve a car park space before coming to the office. With this solution, employees do not have to worry about finding a space to park at their workplace as they can reserve one in advance. Alternative means of transport such as public transport can be used if no spaces are available.
It is noteworthy that ParkCash encourages customers to reserve car park space for entire days rather than periods of just a few hours. This is a precautionary measure to prevent a reservation expiring in the middle of a meeting or work session. Reserving a space for a whole day gives employees the peace of mind that a car park space will be available to them for their entire time at the office.
The mobile app also features a payment module for car parking charges. Users have a choice of contemporary payment methods: Blik, Apple Pay and Google Pay. The payments module addresses, among other things, the option of transferring the process of accounting for a corporate benefit such as a company car park from the finance/accounting/HR department to the employee's automatic payments in the app. In addition, the payments module allows the owner/manager of an office building to engage in short-term rental of empty car park spaces to employees of all companies based in the building who do not have employer-guaranteed parking spaces.
The ParkCash car park system is suitable for both new-builds and older office buildings.
Summary
Technology, inter-generational dialogue and remote work are all factors which have an impact on the modern workplace. Entrepreneurs who find effective answers to these challenges will attract the most talented employees.
