We’ve got 20 moving office tips that you’ll be able to implement as you go through your moving process. By doing so, you’ll avoid the mistakes so often making when relocating.
If you’ve got a move coming up and you haven’t yet started preparing for it, now’s the time to change all that. The sooner you get started, the better it’ll be for you and the smoother your office transition will be. We’re moving experts and have carried out many office moves for businesses like yours, so read our 20 moving office tips and make the most of what you learn.
Employees Managing Office Boxes
1. Don’t Neglect Planning
The first thing you need to know and understand is the importance of planning. If you want your move to be successful, it’s vital to plan ahead. Don’t be one of those people who leave it until the last minute, even if that’s usually how you treat deadlines. Moving office is not the kind of thing that you’ll find easy to pull off under pressure if you haven’t thought about the planning process until the very last minute.
2. Hire a Reliable Moving Company
Next, you should think about working with a professional moving company. Moving office is difficult at the best of times and the task will be so much harder for you when you try to go it alone. There’s a lot to do and taking on this kind of challenge is always a lot easier when you have a team of people working on it for you who know what they’re doing. Browse the options and find a moving company that has experience and you feel you can rely on.
3. Ensure Everyone Packs Up Their Desk
Before you can go ahead with the move, you’ll need to make sure that everyone packs up their own desk. This is their space and they’ll have private things that they’ll have to pack up and take home with them until they can be transferred to their new desk at the new office you’re moving to. So not to seem like you’re invading employees’ desk spaces, it’s vital to warn them ahead of time about clearing their desks and give them plenty of time to do so.
Boxes With Labels
4. Label Your Boxes Carefully
Labeling your boxes will be an important part of the moving process. This is something that your moving company might be able to do, but you can do it yourself if you want to as well. Either way, having labeled boxes will keep the move organised and efficient. Things that it’s best to move together in the same boxes will be kept together, making it so much easier for you when it comes to unpacking all of those boxes at your new office at the other end.
5. Check the Insurance Details
Before you go ahead with any move or using a moving company, you should check the insurance policy that’s in place. Of course, you probably don’t anticipate anything going wrong but you never know what might happen once the move is underway. It makes sense to ensure you have the cover you need. Talk to your moving company about this and go over the small print to ensure you’re not caught out later if something goes wrong.
6. Consider How You’ll Adapt to the Space and its Size
It’s a good idea to start thinking about how you’re going to adapt to the new space that you’re moving into. Each office is unique and has its own size, shape and dimensions. That means your furniture is going to need to be arranged differently to how it was in your old place. You’ll save time and confusion on the moving day if you think ahead and plan out the new layout in advance of the move. That way, you can simply have it placed where you want it as soon as your furniture arrives.
7. Take the Opportunity to Have a Clearout
While you’re moving your office and clearing everything up, it makes a lot of sense to have a clearout of your office. There are probably lots of things that you don’t really need to keep hold of any longer. This is the perfect time to get rid of those things you don’t need. After all, what’s the sense in taking them with you and filling up boxes with things that’ll have no purpose of function in your business’s new office space?
8. Announce the Move
Announcing the move is a wise idea. You want your clients and all of the people your business works with and has contact with to know what’s going on. That way, they’ll understand if you’re slow to respond to their communications for a couple of days. And they’ll also know where to find you. It’s not the kind of thing that should ever be kept a secret when you’re trying to run a functional and successful business, so don’t be afraid to shout it loud.
Employees Moving from Office
9. Plan for How You’re Going to Move Your IT Setup Efficiently
Dealing with the IT side of things when carrying out an office move is one of the toughest things of all. It’s not easy disconnecting all of your hardware and cables in a way that’s safe and protects the data contained on all those devices. You don’t want to risk anything being damaged or corrupted, so make sure that you plan ahead with your IT team. It’s a good idea to get this stuff moved ahead of the official moving day so you don’t rush and make costly errors while moving it.
10. Change Your Meeting Schedules
If your business is always holding lots of meetings and there’s always something going on in your workplace, that might not be possible for a week or so either side of your move. You’re going to have to work around that and plan ahead so you don’t end up cancelling arrangements at the last minute and letting people down. That has the potential to sour relationships with people and it’s completely unnecessary. Think ahead and get those meetings rescheduled sooner rather than later.
11. Put Someone in Charge
There should be one person in charge of the move. Rather than having lots of people doing parts of the job, it makes sense to have one person pulling the strings and making all the right arrangements. That way, people will know who to go to when they have a question about the move and that one person will also be able to delegate tasks to other people. This position is the Moving Manager, and it might be offered by the moving company you choose if you pay for a complete managed service.
12. Prepare All of Your Employees
All of your employees should be prepared for what’s about to happen and they should understand what it all means for them. They might come to work on Friday in one office and have to turn up at a new one on Monday. When you’re busy with the move, it’s easy to neglect things like this. Be sure to be there to answer any questions about the move your employees might have. You don’t want there to be any confusion at all in their minds regarding any of this.
13. Understand the Rules and Regulations of the Building You’re Moving Into
When moving to a new office building, you’ll be dealing with a new building management organisation and new rules and regulations about how the building should be used. When you’re moving furniture through a building and to your office, it can be very easy to break some of those rules inadvertently. That’s why you should call ahead, talk to someone from the management company and get to know the rules and regulations. They should be able to advise you on what to do and what not to do.
14. Create an Inventory for Each Department
If you’re carrying out an office move and your company is quite large, you should try to break things down by department. Otherwise, things can get too messy and unwieldy during the move. One way of handling the situation is by creating an inventory for each department inside the business. That way, each head of department can track the things that need to be moved and ensure an inventory is in place that can be checked against at the other end.
15. Check Over the Space You’re Moving Into
A day or two before the move takes place, it’s a good idea to head to the office space you’re moving into and check it over from top to bottom. That’s important because you’ll want to be aware of any problems or damage that’s present before your arrival. Ideally, you should leave time to carry out repairs and fix any issues before you go about the process of moving all of your stuff into the space. It’ll make your life easier in the long-term.
16. Move Some Non-Essential Things in Advance of Moving Day
Things like plants are often not dealt with by moving companies, so you should definitely think about moving these yourself before the moving day arrives. It’s also a good idea to move some other things that are non-essential. There are probably lots of small things that are easy for you to move, and it makes sense to move them yourself ahead of time. It means you can focus on the bigger and more important stuff on the actual moving day.
17. Start Putting New Storage Plans in Place
Before your move, you might want to think about the new storage solutions you’re going to put in place at your new office. Doing so will help you to make sure you know where everything needs to go once you reach your new workplace.
18. Check Financial Obligations with Your Old Landlord
When moving out of an old office space, you might have to pay for any damages that were caused during your time in the office. The landlord will expect this, so it’s easiest for everyone if you check what your financial obligations are with your old landlord. That way, you can pay them off and get them out of the way as soon as possible.
19. Have Managers to Oversee Things on Moving Day
Overseeing things on the day is important. You’ll want to make sure that you’re there to direct the movers and answer any questions. After all, each and every office relocation is unique and there are specific challenges that come with each move. Being on hand as someone who’s familiar with the office, the building and the furniture that’s being moved will help the professional movers and ensure it all goes as smoothly as you want it to.
20. Don’t Forget to Update Your Address Everywhere
Finally, you need to remember those little logistical things that are so important when your business is moving office. Your clients, business partners, suppliers and plenty of other people and organisations will need to know what your new address is. You don’t want to miss out on mail just because you forget to hand out your new address. This should include making sure the address on your website, business cards and letterheads are all changed as soon as possible.
Choosing Chess Moving for Your Office Relocation
If you want to get your move right and avoid any costly and unnecessary mistakes, it makes sense to rely on the professionals. Here at Chess Moving, we help businesses like yours with successful relocations all the time. We have a dedicated and experienced team of professionals who can take care of each aspect of the move to take some of the pressure off your shoulders.
We offer services including office relocations, office removals, employees relocations, hospital relocations and library relocations. Our services are door to door and we provide special insurance packages as well. Be sure to get in touch if you want to find out more about how we can help you with moving office.