Through the years, a business is likely to face many challenges – both serious and trivial ones. 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 do their best to minimize the time in transition between the two offices by streamlining the entire office relocation process.
Just use this checklist for moving to a new office! Note that the following business moving checklist is also applicable, in parts, when moving a home office as well.
Start planning the office move as early as possible for a 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.
1 Month prior to Moving day
With only four weeks until the move-out date. There is still plenty of time to organize a smooth 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 back up 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 bubble wrap.
1 week prior to Moving day
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.
- Contact the office mover to confirm that everything is on schedule, and that 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 an appropriate 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 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.
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 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.
