A positive parking plan

The parking sector needs to work together to win over the hearts and minds of both its customers and workforce

Penny Winder

Penny Winder

What does the ‘P’ in parking stand for? Those working in the sector would like it to stand for ‘positive’, ‘public service’ and ‘profession’. However, all too often, the answer would seem to be ‘problem’.

Parking is a sector that could be said to currently be facing three major current issues of concern. First, public perception and understanding of the industry and its objectives are horribly low. Then there is a wide divergence of quality and standards amongst the staff across both the public and private parking sectors. 

Finally, staff recruitment and retention can be difficult, to quite a large degree because the parking industry is not seen as offering a career, let alone a career path.

While these may seem to be separate issues, they are actually closely interlinked.

Recognising the problem
The poor public perception of the parking sector is partly due to negative representation in the media, politicians and campaigners. However, it needs to be recognised that the press, MPs and motoring groups pick up on complaints about poor service or what appear to be unfair practices. This is very frustrating because, as we all know, there are many professional and conscientious people working in parking, but sadly it is bad news that gets the headlines.

The negative aura generated around parking as a sector can make both potential job applicants and new recruits feel that their jobs are merely stopgaps before ‘something better’ turns up.

So what are we, as a sector, going to do about it?
 
Engaging the public
There is clearly a need to improve the perception and reputation of parking to make both customers appreciate the service they receive and employees feel good about their jobs. There is a range of possible steps that parking organisations can take to address, mitigate and overcome negative perceptions and poor practice.

At a national level, there needs to be pro-active, three-year plan to enhance public knowledge and understanding of the parking industry, its objectives and challenges and the benefits it brings to a wide range of stakeholders across the community. Adopting a three-year approach will ensure the plan is sustained and has a definable arc, allowing the sector to measure and build on its outcomes.

The public engagement initiative should be led by a small team drawn from across the industry and include representatives from the sector’s two trade associations.

The plan should include an objective to publicise the size and wide ranges of skills required by the parking industry and, therefore, the career paths and opportunities that are available. The parking sector needs to encourage quality and structured training as a key solution.

I hope that parking sector embraces these ideas and that it will implement a plan that will help change perception among external pundits, stakeholders and, most importantly, drivers.

A focus on training
The parking sector needs to encourage quality and structured training as a key solution. There are, it can be argued, three key and core steps that will help the workforce can enhance their skills and feel they can develop careers in parking:

1. The private parking industry needs to be encouraged to follow the public parking sector in making it good practice for all first level staff (enforcement and notice processing) to have successfully undertaken the standard examinations, either City & Guilds or WAMITAB
2. The whole sector needs to continue to develop and use parking training pathways with specialist training on different levels (e.g. parking supervisor and team leader training) as well as being focussed on technical skills (e.g. Traffic Orders) or operational skills (e.g. parking customer service)
3. The parking sector need to develop an approach where staff are expected to, and expect to attend training, even if it is an annual one-day refresher such as the civil enforcement officer and notice processing refresher workshops.

Penny Winder is director of Alpha Parking, an independent parking consultancy working with private and public parking operations to improve efficiency and maximise returns by providing a one stop shop service for all parking needs both on and off-street.

If you would share your views on these ideas, Penny Winder can be contacted via: parkingenquiries@aparking.co.uk