Charge RosterIn short
Start with the employees who are likely to use workplace charging, not total headcount. Understand when they are at the site, whether they can charge elsewhere and when they actually need workplace access. Then define eligibility, booking or sharing rules, costs where applicable and what employees should do when their charging turn ends.
Start by understanding employee demand
The number of employees at a workplace does not tell you how many people will depend on workplace charging.
A short employee survey can establish a more useful demand picture.
- Do you currently drive an electric vehicle?
- Do you expect to switch to an EV in the near future?
- How many days per week do you normally drive to this workplace?
- What is your typical round-trip commute?
- Can you charge reliably at home?
- Would you use workplace charging if it were available?
- Does your vehicle normally remain at the workplace for most of the day?
- Which workplace location do you normally use?
Use the answers to understand likely charging users and their timing rather than treating every employee as equal charging demand.
Decide who gets access
Define who workplace charging is intended for. That may be employees only, or the same infrastructure may also serve company vehicles, visitors or other authorised users.
If different groups share the same chargers, make their access rules explicit. Eligibility does not have to mean priority, and priority should not be negotiated informally between individual drivers.
Design the employee experience before choosing the rules
A driver should be able to understand the charging process without asking facilities for help every day.
The employee experience should answer:
- Which workplace chargers may I use?
- When are they available?
- Do I need to reserve a charging time?
- How long may I use the charger?
- What happens if my plans change?
- When must the charging space become available again?
- What do I do if the charger is unavailable or faulty?
If those questions have clear answers, many day-to-day charging disputes disappear before they occur.
Choose how employees share limited chargers
When charger supply comfortably exceeds demand, first-come-first-served access may be enough.
When several employees regularly depend on the same chargers, employers can introduce defined time limits, reservations, assigned periods or another shared-access model.
Reservations are useful when employees need predictability before arriving at work. The driver can see whether a suitable period exists rather than commuting on the assumption that a charger will become free.
Make the rules easy to find
Employee charging rules should be visible where employees need them.
- Eligibility
- Bookable charging hours
- Reservation or access method
- Maximum charging or booking duration
- Cancellation expectations
- End-of-turn expectations
- Whether another vehicle may ever be disconnected
- Fault reporting
- Any charging price or reimbursement arrangement that applies
Pricing, reimbursement and tax treatment vary by organisation and jurisdiction. Employers should document the arrangement they use and obtain appropriate local tax or legal advice where necessary.
Do not make employees police each other
Shared charging becomes harder when individual drivers are expected to decide whose need is more important or confront colleagues who overstay.
The workplace should own the rules and the process for resolving repeated misuse. Employees can then follow a common system rather than negotiating access case by case.
Make cancellations part of the programme
Unused reservations hide available capacity.
If an employee no longer needs a charging turn, cancelling it should make that time available to somebody else. This improves access and also gives the workplace a more accurate view of genuine charging demand.
Measure what employees cannot get
A busy charging schedule does not automatically mean the workplace needs more chargers.
Pay attention to valid employee charging requests that repeatedly cannot be accommodated. When reasonable scheduling and sharing still leave employees without suitable charging time, the organisation has stronger evidence of a capacity constraint.
Employee workplace charging checklist
- Survey likely charging demand
- Define eligible users
- Choose how charging time is allocated
- Set clear booking or time-limit rules
- Make availability visible
- Define cancellations
- Define what happens when a charging turn ends
- Publish fault/support contacts
- Document any pricing arrangement
- Track recurring unmet charging requests
- Review the rules as employee EV adoption changes
Where Charge Roster fits
Charge Roster gives employees one shared schedule for workplace charging. Drivers see available charging time, choose a start time and duration and reserve a charger.
The workplace manages the charging sites, shared chargers and booking rules and can see when requested charging time cannot be accommodated.
Charge Roster schedules access to charging time. It does not meter electricity, calculate employee reimbursements or determine tax treatment.