Smooth Moves

What should go right by following the tips below and what can go wrong during if not considered during an office move:

1. The Budget. Companies often lack a proper budget for a move and find out during or after the move they are paying more than expected. New furniture is expensive and so is disposing of old furniture. Preparing a line-by-line plan of all items being moved based on type, what services are required and what materials are needed to receive a budget from the movers. Then add 10%, this will set aside enough so there are no surprises.

2. The purge. You can save on the expense of renting the unnecessary amount of moving bins or purchasing boxes that are not required by doing a purge of unnecessary paper, obsolete IT equipment or broken furniture. It will be cheaper than relocating items no longer needed or not knowing where to place items not normally needed, especially if moving to a smaller space or one without a storage room. Moving to the new office is a cultural change for any corporation, so treat this as prep time to go through old marketing materials and throw out items that need to be purged.

3. The Backup. Moving trucks can break down, elevators can go off service, movie shoots can shut down busy streets, computer equipment or priority items can get misplaced during the move. Make sure you have backups of important files on flash drives for ease of access and have "open me first" boxes assigned to employees.

4. The Order. Understand the importance of the order of things. Employees should not be finishing their work day at 5pm when the movers are arriving at 5pm. Each person should have their IT equipment backed up, powered down, disconnected, wire management completed, tagged with a label and ready to move BEFORE the move team arrives.

The movers will have a plan in place to move selected items first that are necessary for placement of the priority items: desks will move over to destination before computers so the computers have somewhere to be placed but this also means the computers will be placed on equipment and staged to get them out of the way so the desks can be dismantled and shipped over. Being prepared prior to the move teams' arrival will reduce delays and extra charges due to waiting time accumulated from not being prepared.

5. The Nurturing. Some employees will be inclined to resist change, may become anxious and will not be packed on time. Allay their fears by keeping them in the loop with updates and solid timelines. Moving is stressful for everyone, employees do not like change of their environment so encourage comradery with a packing party and keep them updated as things progress. Have a new, personalized gift for each employee on their desk the first day at the new location to welcome them to their new space (remember moving is stressful for them as well and happy employees are productive employees).

6. The Plan. Co-ordinating with your IT team in your new space is a top priority. Without phone and computer systems, how will you connect with your clients? It is essential to involve IT communications right off the bat. Servers are the most important things to move, then the hardware and then the functionality of placement at destination to ensure hookups will not be delayed due to poor placement options and data wires not reaching the IT room.