With many returning to work today after a Labor Day break, The Wall Street Journal [subscription required] reports that where employees park reveals interesting insights about what companies and their employees value. In some companies, closer to the elevator is better. And management decides who gets to park closest -- although the winners in that competition vary among companies. And for some employees, the longer the walk to their desk, the better their health.
Simply put, the companies and employees described in this article have six parking lot values:
- Sales performance. Dave Beckman is the top sales executive at 200 employee San Diego, CA equipment-leasing company, Five Point Capital Inc. For the past two years, the 27-year-old's midnight-blue, 2006 Porsche 911 is parked in the spot closest to the its main entrance -- a perk the company awarded him for his strong sales performance. This makes his colleagues jealous and, the company hopes, will spur them to sell more so they can take his spot.
- Organizational rank. Although they're often empty since their occupants are at meetings away from the office, 12 spaces are allocated for top managers at MSW Research Inc. Those empty spaces are painful reminders for other employees that the company puts a distinctly lower value on the time of rank and file workers than it does on its executives'.
- Early to work, faster to desk. For companies with open parking, the key to success for many is leaving early for work. Mike Brunker, a projects editor at MSNBC.com, which shares a campus with Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) in Redmond, WA, says he tries to be a "close parker" by leaving for work every morning around 7 a.m. "I usually can get a spot about 100 feet from the elevator," he says, ensuring a shorter walk while lugging the many items he brings from home -- a laptop, papers and fruit snacks. "The closer I get to the elevator, the better I am."
- Farther from desk, better for health. By contrast, Matt Heinz goes out of his way to park far from the main entrance to his employer's building in Kirkland, WA, to work off some calories. "Every step counts," says the 30-year-old senior director of marketing at HouseValues Inc., a marketing-services company for real-estate agents. "When I park at the end of the lot, it's about 400 steps from my car to the door. That's 800 steps each day, back and forth."
- Avoiding door dings is paramount. Sales executive Gregory Choy at Benecard Services Inc. says he doesn't mind parking far from the entrance to his Lawrenceville, NJ, office as long as he finds a space at the end of a row. By resting his black Nissan right up against the edge, he can allow for enough room between his car and one parked on the other side to avoid a potential dent caused by a co-worker's passenger door.
- Predictability is key. For Peter Dowling, getting the same spot every morning was his goal when he arrived at Jefferson Wells International's Norwalk, CT office lot around 7:30 a.m. "I liked the predictability of it because I didn't have to think." Although he's starting a new job today, he recalls several times at his former job when he found "his space" to be occupied. "It was a prime spot," he says. "I was upset when I didn't get it."
What do your or your company's parking lot practices reveal about your values? Do they differ from the ones listed above?
Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates, a management consulting and venture capital firm. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter. He has no financial interest in the securities mentioned.
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