Through the years, a business is likely to face many challenges – both serious ones and trivial ones. And one of those difficult times for a company may prove to be an office move – not only because of the substantial office moving costs but also because of the time that will surely get wasted during the actual office move.
Time is often critical for a business, and any hours or days of downtime could turn out to be extremely costly for a corporation. And that’s exactly why companies are doing their best to minimize the time in transition between the two offices by streamlining the entire office relocation process.
In reality, the faster a corporate move is complete, the sooner things can get back to normal and all company operations will resume its usual operations. But planning an office move so that it can reach and maintain the desired relocation efficiency is never an easy thing to do. Not easy to do but doable nonetheless.
Without a doubt, the best way to complete an office move is to follow a good Office Moving Checklist – an effective organization tool to optimize your office move like never before.
Just use this checklist for moving to a new office and everything should be just fine. Note that the following business moving checklist is also applicable, in parts, when moving a home office as well.
3 Months prior to Moving day
Start planning the office move as early as possible for smooth transition. As a rule of thumb, the more time you’ve got at your disposal until the move-out date, the better your chances of organizing the perfect office move.
- Find a new office for the business. Ideally, the place should be superior to the current location, or at least not worse in any way.
- Secure the new location by signing a commercial property lease. Have a lawyer review the terms and conditions of that lease to make sure there are no unpleasant surprises later on.
- Set the date on which you will be leaving the current business office. Notify the property manager of your intentions to move out – good communication is vital for avoiding misunderstandings and possibly losing the security deposit.
- Make the necessary intercompany arrangements if you’re the one tasked with overseeing and managing the commercial office move. In most cases, the best way to approach the office move is to form a task force of reliable employees that will help you achieve the goal.
- Gather the office move task force and discuss in detail the upcoming corporate office move. Here, the best course of action is to assign each member specific tasks that will help ease the transition between the two offices.
- Schedule the next meeting of the team responsible for the office move project and monitor the progress that’s been made during that interval.
- Set a preliminary budget to limit any instances of overspending and try hard to stay within that office moving budget.
- Request office move cost estimates from several reputable corporate movers in your city or town. Bear in mind that to manage a successful office relocation, you do need to hire the best office movers that service your area.
- Compare the received quotes from top-rated office movers near you. Make a comparative analysis of the rates, extra services, and all terms and conditions that the corporate movers offer in order to pick the best offer. Look for estimates that guarantee the shortest amount of time spent during the transition between the two offices.
- Book the services of the best office moving company in your city.
2 Months prior to Moving day
Things should be definitely moving in the right direction as far as the office move is concerned. With roughly 2 months before you move out, here are the major office moving tasks before you.
- Create a detailed inventory of all the office furniture and office equipment in your current company office. The office moving inventory will serve 2 distinct purposes: 1) it will help you determine whether you really need to move everything to the new business office, and 2) it can be used as a packing checklist as well to minimize possible packing mistakes.
- Create a floor plan of the new office and use it to map out how the furniture pieces you’re moving will fit in there in terms of available space and office décor. Ultimately, a floor plan of the destination place will help make the right decision when it comes to what to move to the new office and what to leave behind.
- Think twice before packing and moving any office furniture items – desks, chairs, etc. – that either won’t fit well in the new office space or are too worn out or simply broken to be of any further use. The same is valid for the IT office equipment in the office you’re moving out of – is each and every office equipment unit is worth moving?
- Check whether any of the IT equipment in your office is required to be moved by a specialized company that is NOT the office moving company you’ve hired.
- Examine the floor plan closely and order new office furniture items or office equipment units, if necessary. Set the delivery address to the new office location so that you don’t have to move those newly-delivered items as well.
What to pack when moving: Packing Checklist
1 Month prior to Moving day
It’s only 4 weeks until the move-out date. It’s OK – there’s still plenty of time to organize a textbook office move. The important thing is not to panic but to continue to work on the office moving tasks, one by one.
- Gather the office team that’s responsible for the organization of the company relocation and check the current progress. Get more members to help out if things are going too slowly.
- Change the business address of the company with the USPS so that no important mail gets lost during the process of moving office locations.
- Set up a list of all the partner businesses, government organizations, and individuals to notify of the changed company address.
- Ask office employees to backup the most important data from their computers. Anything can happen during an office move, so the crucial information should stay secure no matter what.
- Digitize the most important paper documents of the company as a precautionary measure. Also, destroy any sensitive documents that are no longer needed – use a shredder to do just that.
- Begin to pile up all the packing supplies you’re going to need – plenty of cardboard boxes of different sizes, wrapping paper, and of course – bubble wrap, LOTS of bubble wrap.
7 Days (1 week) prior to Moving day
It’s only one week before Moving day and things may start feeling a bit chaotic. The best piece of advice when moving to a new office is to remain calm and to continue working on your office moving checklist.
- Get in touch with the office mover to confirm that everything’s fine and they will be there at the pre-arranged date and time.
- Make sure the new office location is ready for you: all the utilities are set up properly, and that the Internet, phone lines, and security systems are all up and running.
- Instruct the employees to pack up their things from their desks the day before the move-out date.
- Remind everyone that labeling any packed boxes is key to achieving a good level of organization. Nobody wants to lose too much precious time after the move in identifying unlabeled moving boxes. Labeling the desks and office chairs may sound silly, but it’s not – the best-case scenario is every employee to get exactly the same desk-and-chair set-up in the new office as a way to accelerate the adaptation period.
- Have everyone in the office to take their personal stuff home, and then take it back straight to the new office.
- Contact a professional cleaning company, if needed, and hire those professionals to clean up the office you’re leaving but not before you’ve vacated the office premises.
How to stay calm during a move
Moving day
The entire preparation for the office move comes down to the day of the move. Luckily, the hired office movers will take care of the toughest tasks – packing all office furniture pieces, packing all sensitive IT equipment, and loading all those items into their vehicle, and transporting them to the new office location.
- Distribute the keys or access cards for the new office to the employees.
- Make arrangements as to who will stay at the current office to assist the movers and who will be at the new office, if necessary.
- Meet the office movers at the arranged hour, show them around the office and tell them what you expect of them. In most cases, everything should be pretty straightforward – all furniture pieces and IT equipment items should be well protected, taken out of the office building, and loaded safely into the waiting moving truck.
- Take one final walkthrough around the office space when the movers are ready to depart to check for something forgotten or something out of the ordinary – like a case of property damage, for instance.
- Arrange for a trusted person to meet the office movers at the new location and assist the pros any way he or she can.
- Have the moving company deliver, then unpack all office furniture and equipment at the new office. The top priority is to lose as little time as possible.
- Ask employees to set up their personal workspaces and workstations at the earliest opportunity so that the normal business of the company can resume ASAP.
- Encourage all company employees to make the new office space cozier by personalizing their own work areas (framed art, etc.) as well as beautifying the entire place with plants.
- Write a review about the services of the office movers you just used. Why? That way, you’ll help other companies use one of the best office moving companies in the country.
What to do on Moving day: CHECKLIST
The post How to Plan an Office Move: Office Moving Checklist appeared first on The Moving Blog.
