Moving office can be stressful for everyone involved. Whether it’s to a new area within the same building or a move to a different town, people don’t enjoy change. Things will go wrong. It will take longer and cost more than expected.
This article will identify some of the ways you could prepare for your move to reduce risks and help lower your stress level. We will discuss how planning and budgeting are essential for a successful move. We will talk about the items to be moved and, most important, the people involved.
Finally, we’ll consider whether using a professional office removal company is the best option for you.
What items are you moving?
You must consider the items to be moved. You will need to pack, label, transport and unpack everything.
Furniture
Furniture includes desks and office chairs, plus meeting room tables and chairs. If your office has an employee kitchen/lounge area, you may also need to move dining tables and chairs or sofas and armchairs from a reception area.
Office furniture probably won’t require any packaging but must be handled carefully due to bulk and weight.
Documentation/books
Paper and card documents and books require careful packaging to ensure they maintain their condition. They must be transported in waterproof packaging.
Office equipment
Office equipment includes IT assets, plus office storage.
IT equipment (desktop)
Ideally, each member of staff will have a crate, or similar, padded, moving box. All of their desktop equipment will be packaged together. This may include a desktop tower or laptop computer. There will be keyboards and cables. There may be multiple monitors, a mouse, a mousemat and possibly a modem.
Each individual crate should be carefully labelled. It will be left in the best spot for unpacking in the new office location.
Some of the desktop equipment is fragile and will need to be loaded and transported accordingly.
Big stuff!
This includes two types of items:
Large devices
Devices such as servers, large hard disk drives, computer racking, printers and photocopiers are expensive and will require special care during the move to avoid damage. These items can be large and bulky and may need specialist moving equipment such as padded crates or cushioned castors or wheels to reduce the risk of damaging bumps during transportation.
Office Storage
Shelves and cupboards, desk lockers and even coat and hat stands may need to be moved or disposed of. The new location may already have adequate storage equipment. If not, these often bulky items will have to be moved with care to prevent them from causing damage to walls and floors.
Employees
Your employees will need care and attention ahead of your office relocation, too:
Planning
Many people find change uncomfortable. Involve your staff in planning. Advise them of details as soon as they are available.
Responsibilities
Involve your staff in the move to make them a part of the project. Give them responsibilities, even if it is clearing and packing their own desk or workspace. Tell them the schedule for packing, moving and unpacking. Advise of plans for any alternative working arrangements, such as working from home, during the office relocation.
Visit the new location
Whether it is in your existing building, across town or out of town, it is important to arrange a site visit for your employees, if possible. They spend a lot of time at work and will be curious about their new location.
You could provide travel information, such as reasonable, or free, car parks and bus or train routes. They’ll want to know where the office bathrooms are and would like local information on cafes for lunch and coffee and, possibly, local shops, banks and medical facilities.
Training
You must make sure your workforce remains injury-free with some OHS education.
If your employees are doing their own packing and unpacking, you should ensure they are trained in lifting techniques to avoid straining themselves.
Education in how to correctly pack delicate IT equipment should be considered as well as warnings of hazards around the office, including trip hazards, before and after moving day.
Your new address
You will need to make sure you update your address details ahead of the move.
Stationery
Including letterheads and envelopes. Don’t forget to print new business cards and update the ‘contact me’ details on your website and social media pages.
Customers/suppliers
Send emails advising of the change of address well before the move then send some reminders before and after relocating. You want visiting customers and key suppliers to know where you are.
The move!
There are some crucial days ahead if the move is to be successful. Some considerations:
Packing day
This is the period when the current office should be packed, ready for moving out.
You should aim to have packing materials, such as crates, tape, padding and labels ready early. Inevitably, some staff won’t be at the office on ‘packing day’. They may be on holiday, ill or part-timers. They will pack on their last day in the office or ask somebody to pack their workspace for them.
You should have a date by which everybody must have packed their desktop equipment and anything they have stored in lockers or cupboards. Often, this is a Friday. Your employees may complete packing and leave the office earlier than usual for the day. This will help the move proceed on schedule.
Cleaning
Depending on your lease, or whether you have sold your current office, you may be required to, clean the space. This could be a simpler task than usual if you wait until everything has been removed and is in the process of being transported to your new office premises. You may have an empty space to clean.
Transport
After packing and unpacking, transport is the riskiest task for your more fragile office equipment. laptops, monitors, servers and photocopiers are all at risk of damage as they are loaded onto and removed from the transport. Poorly stacked and packed equipment is also liable to dame during transportation.
The transportation itself may vary from trolleys to a full-on removal van, or vans, depending on the number of assets being moved and the distance to your new location. Loading and unloading a full office will be hard work and take a long time. You may decide to get employees to help you, or hire some help.
Storage
You may need to arrange storage for some, or all, of your office assets, during the office relocation. It may be the new space isn’t available immediately or you decide you don’t want to move everything at once.
You will need to arrange transport to the storage facility and unloading of your goods, to move them to your designated storage area. You should check whether the storage facility maintains air quality and is waterproof to ensure valuable equipment and priceless documents remain as they were when packed.
The location of the facility is key, especially if you or your employees will be visiting to retrieve or deposit your assets. Make sure you can get in when you want and the facility is easy to get to.
Cleaning
You should consider cleaning your new office before and after your furniture and equipment have been delivered and unpacked. Your employees won’t be pleased to arrive at a dusty office on their first day in the new location.
Unpacking day
This will be your employees’ first day in their new location. Make sure the crates they packed are near their new workspace. They will want to set up their desk the way they are used to working.
Coat racks, lockers, shelves and cupboards should all be in place.
You may need to delegate unpacking duties for employees who aren’t at the new office on the first day. You will need to make sure the empty packing crates can be stored away from the office.
Have a stress-free office relocation with The Moving Man
As you have realised, planning and successfully completing an office relocation can be stressful and has risks for your equipment, your employees and your business.
At The moving Man, we have years of experience and we have successfully completed dozens of commercial and office moves for customers in and around Perth.
We can provide a full service to make your relocation as easy as we can for you and your employees. We will minimise the risk of damage to your assets and have your staff ready to start work again as quickly as possible.
Packing Equipment
We have proven, quality packing equipment to make relocating easier and safer and reduce the risk of damage to goods being moved.
Packing Crates
Our crates are strong, environmentally friendly, reusable polyethylene. They have special interlocking lids making them easier and safer to pack and they stack on top of each other to optimise space.
Standard crates can hold office equipment, books, documents and stationery.
Library Trollies
Our library trollies allow you to move books from your shelves to the trolley, without changing the order of the documents. When we reach the destination your books will still be in display order before you place them on your shelves.
IT Desktop Crates
Our IT crates have foam padding and are capable of holding a complete individual workspace, including monitors, a laptop and peripheral equipment. We provide padded bags for monitors and a packing guidelines sheet with each crate.
Office Equipment/IT Cages
Our top-of-the-range cages have completely enclosed shelves to move quantities of hardware. To help ensure the safety of your equipment, the cages include padded bags for monitors and the castors are shock-absorbing.
Our Packing and delivery services
We are experienced and professional. Our team have moved commercial premises and offices many times. We have developed techniques and methods and use specialised materials to greatly minimise the chance of damage.
We will help your employees to pack, load the transport and unpack at your destination. We will unpack goods according to your new office layout.
Cleaning services
We can arrange for your existing office and your destination to be cleaned.
Storage
Our facilities are dust and moisture-free, secure and easily accessible, for your convenience and peace of mind.
Why not relocate your office the stress-free way with our friendly, helpful, professional team.
Contact The Moving Man today for more information.