10 moving office tips for employees

Moving office takes time, luckily, it is a burden that everyone in the company shares equally. With the right planning, organisation and coordination, a lot can be achieved with as little effort invested as possible. The work must carry on at the new workplace location, so having everyone exhausted by the move may result in turnover you don’t need. Therefore, everyone must play their part in this process. Here is our office moving checklist for employees.

1. Tell all your clients

The first thing you need to keep in mind is that this move isn’t just affecting you. For instance, what happens in a situation where an important client decides to visit you, unannounced, at your old location, only to find you absent. In this case, they might get the impression that they are not important enough to get a timely notification of your company’s relocation. To avoid this, contact your clients in advance and let them know you’re moving office, including the new office address, change of operating hours and telephone number (if any).

2. Make an announcement

When a company relocates, there are so many things to do. Most importantly, your workforce needs to make an important choice whether they will relocate with your business or quit. In a situation where the move is across the country, it isn’t that odd to assume that some staff may decide to leave, yet this is something that needs to be discussed in time.  It is vital that the employee responsible for spreading this announcement (most commonly someone from HR) does this to give employees enough time to work their notice period and recruit for new staff. This usually means weeks or even months in advance.

3. Hire office movers

As for the move itself, contacting professional office movers in advance to avoid the hustle. The office manager is recommended to have the full list of the items, including computers, furniture and storage, that are transported to a target location. It may be more cost effective to purchase new office furniture and equipment at the new location than to pay for the relocation of goods from your existing office. You can either sell these items or donate them to a charitable organisation. It is recommended to get an itemised quote from the office movers to work out what is the best course of action for you.

4. Get the packaging material

Simply contacting office movers isn’t enough, it is also your job to secure all the materials that you’re going to take to your target location. For this, you need to get a sufficient amount of boxes, duct tape, labels and other important items. It is important that you are as organised as possible during this process.  It is common for many items to get misplaced and mishandled during the move as people don’t know the importance of the contents of the box. For this reason alone, some companies purchase, borrow or rent out a label printer.

5. Prepare the new destination

Apart from worrying about your current office, you must also adequately prepare your new destination for your arrival. So, if one of those destinations is Sydney, for example – the next sensible move would be to hire a Sydney removalists who satisfy your company’s standards. With the removal services on your side, you can prepare the office for your inevitable arrival. Aside from this, the office in question might require some additional work especially if you have complicated computer or server setups, which is why you might also want to inquire about local contractors.

6. Official address change

The issue about relocation bears some legal complications, as well. Your company is probably registered at your current location so this will have to be changed. Next, you also want to cancel all subscriptions you have at your current location or just redirect them to the next one.

7. Situational company name change

In the same manner, you might be also compelled to change the name of the company. Imagine a scenario where your company name has the name of your city or region as the part of the phrase. Furthermore, your entire marketing might suffer from it, yet the consequences you will experience at the target destination if you fail to do so are even greater. Sometimes, it might be a good idea to organise a great brainstorming session amongst the team and try to figure out how to deal with this situation as painlessly as possible.

8. Think about the insurance

Another thing you should take into consideration is the one of insurance of your equipment, office and company in general. Sure, this is something that is already handled at your current location but you need to ask yourself one thing: “Does the insurance on our computer equipment and furniture cover any damage made during the office move”. Pointing this out to some of your supervisors might earn you some extra credit with them, as well as save your company a small fortune in repairs and re-purchases. It might also be worth your while to inquire about things like plumber and handyman insurance types, for your future headquarters.

9. Organise the packing

In one of the previous sections we mentioned the issue of acquiring the right packing materials and while this helps you immensely in the process of packing, there is still a lot you have to do. In order to ensure nothing is accidentally misplaced or mishandled, a manager might want to hire people responsible for packing. Each of the people responsible might have their own area, which includes certain items or types of items. With the right organisation, everything becomes considerably easier.

10. Try to alleviate the tension

Finally, the process of moving office is always a difficult one, especially since some of your partners, employees and clients may abandon you for good. Therefore, it is a job of every responsible team member to try and alleviate the tension around the office as best as they can.

FAQs

What to do with office equipment that you don’t need at your new office?

When moving offices it isn’t uncommon to have extra furniture that doesn’t quite fit into the new office. Depending on your financial and logistical position, you may want to try one of the following avenues:

• Sell your unwanted office furniture online or in the classifieds
• Donate it all to a local charity or another business starting up
• Store it. This might be helpful if you’re looking to expand in the near future, however, the cost for storage may quickly outweigh the benefits.

How to safely move computers and electrical equipment?

Quite possibly the most important aspect of any move is ensuring the computers and computer networks are transported safely. Computers will need specialist moving equipment to ensure they do not receive any damage en route to the new office. Taking special care to preplan the move and how cords and accessories will travel will decrease your downtime at the other end.

Here are a few things to consider when moving your computers:

• Wrap them well using special padded wrapping.
• Consider how the computers will be moved. Specific computer moving trollies can make the process safer by reducing vibrations from the road during moving.
• Is your equipment insured while in transit? Check with your insurance company and make any adjustments to your policy if needed.

Wrap up

By following this office move checklist, your moving office experience will become as simple and efficient as possible. Sure, there are always some unforeseen difficulties you might encounter along the road, but as you progress through each of the above steps, you will feel the weight on your back getting lighter and lighter.