A poorly organised office move is going to cause untold stress and strain for everyone involved, but it doesn’t have to be this way if your office move is organised properly. If you are responsible for managing an office relocation you may be looking for some guidance – so keep reading for some key tips to help your office move go as smoothly as possible.
Choose an Office Relocation Company
Your starting point needs to be to hire the best Office Removals Company
for the job. There are dozens of removals companies that you can find who will say that they can do the job for you better and cheaper than their competitors. However, the cheapest option is not always the best deal as you will not receive the customer service you expect as a business. You must ensure that the removals companies you ask to pitch for your business specialise in office moves – and not simply home moves.
Best practice says that you should contacts Office Removals Companies 8-12 weeks before your scheduled move date and always get 3 quotes from reputable office moving specialists. Your chosen removal companies should be able to provide you with a quote based on your specific needs and a service tailored to you. Always make sure you are comparing like for like quotes as your valuable business possession are too important and business critical to risk going for cheaper alternatives that do not offer a quality service.
Create your new office floor plan in advance
Before your business moves office, it is important you take the time to understand the layout of your new office space. You need to plan the best use of space for your company and organise where all employees and office equipment will be stationed. Your chosen Office Removals Company should be able to help you prepare a new office floor plan to that on the day of the move everything will end up its in proper place. It is important that you label everything on your floor plan showing where all items are to be located. You will need to take measurements of the new office layout to ensure all of your equipment and furniture will fit where it is to be positioned. Label everything and using a colour-coding system can help you greatly when staying organised. If you have any questions ask your removals company they will be there for you.
Distribute an Office Moving Guide for all employees
Another key document to prepare is an Office Moving Guide – which needs to be given to all of your staff members. This guide needs to contain all of the information that will help them prepare their workspaces and possessions correctly for the office move – are they moving personal possessions themselves etc. Make sure that everyone knows what needs to be labelled and colour-coding system they should use if appropriate. Depending on the size of your organisation, it may be sensible to assign roles to certain staff members to help you co-ordinate the office move more smoothly. Make them responsible for their team or area and be clear about what you expect of them during the office move process.
Be sensible about your office moving packing
Whenever a company needs to move office there are some simple rules of thumb that can be followed when packing up your office. Ensure that all your staff members’ personal items are packed up by each individual and their name is clearly labelled on each crate or box used. Packing smaller items together will help to save space, but remember not to overload your boxes as this can cause them to split and may damage item. Discuss with your moving company beforehand but you may not need to empty all filing cabinets. Instead, you should lock all filing cabinets so that they can be moved safely to the new office. This is a huge time saver as all that needs to happen is that each filing cabinet gets repositioned in the new office space.
Think about using storage facilities during your office move
When moving in to a new premises you will want to make the most of your new space, there may be certain items that you don’t need on a day-to-day basis that should go into a local storage facility. Your local removals company should be able to arrange storage for you and which items which may be better going in to storage. You may also decide to use this opportunity to get rid of old files and paperwork, using a self store facility or archive storage means you still have your documents kept as a requirement by law, but they are not using up precious business space.
Burke Bros Moving Group are proud to be office removal experts, we have relocated hundreds of offices and businesses in the UK. If you would like a free pre office moving survey please call us on 01902 714555.
