Office Moving: How To Do It Right
Relocating an office is a long and involved process, even for a small business. If not handled with due diligence, moving your office doesn’t end when you’re in the new building; everyone working there can spend weeks or months trying to find the things they need in an office where everything was shoved in with insufficient planning!
If you need to embark on a big office move, here is a brief overview of tasks necessary to smooth both the move itself and the adjustment to your new surroundings.
Tips For Relocating an Office
- Find a commercial realtor to help find the new office. When you decide on one, don’t forget to tell your building owner about your plans to vacate. Know how much lead time you have to give.
- As early as possible, decide who will be in charge of the overall move – you or an employee. If your company is large enough to have separate departments, make sure each department has one person named to voice any move-related concerns they have.
- Research moving companies, especially ones that have experience (or even specialize) in commercial moves. Every office has heavy furniture and fragile items, and even if yours has relatively few, it’s more efficient to hire a professional packing and moving company to pack, move, and unpack your office. Reserve their services early.
- If the move is far enough to affect commutes, make lists of which employees will stay with the company and which will leave.
- Draw up a plan for how the items from the current office will fit in the new one. Make lists of what will need to be acquired for the new office and what can be discarded (preferably sold) from the old one. Make widely available floor plans detailing where employees can find people and equipment in the new office. De-clutter as much as you can.
- If relevant, let other businesses in the building know when you plan to move in and work with them to smooth out any conflicts ahead of time.
- Call the utility companies and make sure everything will be turned on. It’s such an obvious thing that you can forget it with all the other tasks that need to be accomplished.
- In the new office, connect your computers first, along with whatever routers, switches, and other IT equipment needs to be installed. Even if you have all the same equipment, there is never a guarantee everything will function correctly right away. By connecting your computers first, IT can discover and fix problems before your employees are ready to get back to work.
Contact Pack n Send With Your Office Relocation Needs!
Office moving is a major undertaking, and doing it well will save you months of future headaches. Have more questions about an office move? Contact us today.
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