The Moving Planner Blog

Moving an office is often much more challenging than an entire home. If you forget to handle something for a personal move, it only affects you. However, if something is neglected or overlooked with a corporate relocation it can affect employees, business deals and professional relationships. Great care should be taken when prepping for these moves. The sooner you start preparing, the better off you will be, and the more organized you remain throughout the process, the smoother the move will go.

Create a Timeline

The easiest way to stay on track is to actually write a list of all tasks that need to be handled, and then put them on a timeline according to when they should be done.  You are more likely to take care of something if you write it out because you naturally hold yourself more accountable.

Interview and Hire Movers

The last thing you want to do is wait until the last minute to hire your movers. Moving an office is an intricate task whether you have ten cubicles or five floors worth of offices. The movers are going to want to come take a look at everything to give you an appropriate estimate. They will need to also take into consideration if they will be dealing with stairs, elevators or lengthy walks at either location.

Evaluate New Space

You may want to take pictures or a video of the offices at the new place. You will definitely need to take measurements; this includes hallways. You may find that some office furniture you have might not fit so you need to do a little shopping. You should also have an idea as to which office from the current location goes to a specific office in the new building. Unless of course, you prefer total chaos with all the boxes and electronics tossed into random rooms?

Employee Responsibilities

Will the employees be responsible for packing their own office or cubicle? If so, you will want to be very specific as to how you want things labeled. If you are having the movers pack everything, you may want to recommend employees take personal belongings home by a certain date.

Will they be responsible for ordering their own new business cards? Can you delegate some of the responsibility on the timeline to certain employees? Will they take inventory of their office? Perhaps one can be in charge of collecting current key cards while another can make sure everyone has a new parking permit. There are a lot of little jobs they can do that will allow them to feel important and included in the move while also alleviating some of the workload off you.

Prepare the New Building

When you are moving an office, you want to be able to do it in such a way that it doesn’t affect business. Fair enough, this may be impossible, but at least you can try. Have everything ready at the new place so when employees arrive, they can fall right into routine. This could include making sure that internet and phone lines are hooked up and operating correctly. Above all, be sure the vending machines are full and the coffee maker is ready to go!