Top tips for Moving Office

Budget

As with all aspects of running a business, it’s important to budget for the various costs involved in moving to your new office space. These include the cost of moving supplies, hiring professional movers, the cost of the downtime of your business (which can be anything from one day up to a week) and any renovation costs that you may need to perform to the new site before you move in. If you lay out your budget on paper first and the costs blow out, you’re in a far better position to reign it in than you would be mid-move.

Work off site

If you allow employees to work from home, why not consider hiring a removalist firm to take care of the entire move while your employees continue running your business from an off-site location, whether that be home or a temporary office set up elsewhere? This way, while the removalists and one or two delegated employees take care of the move, everyone else can keep the business running to ensure there is minimal downtime.

Have your employees pack their own things

If everyone has been allocated their own filing cabinet, drawers under their desk or something similar, have them pack all of their office supplies and belongings into their cabinet to make the move faster and ensure nothing gets thrown out or lost. Also have one staff member, perhaps someone from IT, to label each computer and any other technology to ensure the right staff member is reunited with the equipment. Another staff member or two should be put in charge of client files, to ensure nothing confidential is misplaced in the move.

Pick a quiet time to move

Technically, there’s no great time to move an office, but there are certain times of the year that are definitely quieter than others. For instance, you absolutely do not want to move before the End of Financial Year no matter what industry you’re in. Most industries experience a lull in January, immediately following the Christmas period, so this is an ideal time unless you work in a few select industries such as tourism or some areas of retail.

Move some departments gradually

Where possible, it can be helpful if you can move some departments gradually rather than quickly. The IT department, for instance, may find it easier to move some of their equipment over in advance to set up so that there is never one complete period of downtime. Any staff that regularly communicates with clients (such as customer service) may also find it useful to move gradually, so that they are never completely unavailable either.

Organise a clean up crew

One thing that almost everyone forgets when moving office or house is to go back to the old space and clean up. If you know that it will be impossible for your team to take the time to clean up, hire a cleaning crew in advance to ensure there are no issues when you go to claim your bond back.