8 Strategies to organise a successful office relocation

Workplace relocations are often crucial for helping your company grow and continue to make impressive improvements within the industry.

It is your chance to liven up your office space and ensure everyone has enough room to do their jobs without feeling packed against one another. 

But, if you’ve ever moved house before, you know how stressful and time-consuming a move can be. When you consider an office move, things become even more difficult, as there are many different parts to remember to ensure everything is transported from one place to another with minimal disruption. 

This is why strategies are so important when planning your office move. With so much to consider, there are many factors you need to highlight before and during the move to ensure a seamless transition and prevent any roadblocks. 

Plan Early 

You mustn’t one day decide you need to move offices. It is something you and your team should consider carefully by considering all important documents, general logistics, and the location of the new office. 

Planning things too quickly can cause the move to come around much faster than you expected, so you’ll likely be unprepared for the move, which will cause severe delays and could put your company on hold for longer than you need. By outlining a comprehensive plan, you can continue to work as normal while still identifying the demands of the move. 

Consider potential moving issues 

This plan will also bring up several issues your move could encounter. Are you in the middle of a significant project, and if so, how will the move affect this? The location is another thing to think about. How will the move impact your current team, and is the new office easy to get to. 

The same goes for clients or customers who may prefer the current location as it is easily accessible via personal and public transport. Other issues include parking and the cost of the office. Can you justify purchasing more office space (if looking towards expansion), or will a smaller office still benefit you, especially with the increased remote working culture across many industries?

Identify what you will take with you 

If you begin your move early enough, you will have time to identify what you do and do not need to bring with you. Depending on your office setup – and how long you have been there – you may come across years of files and folders that are not required anymore.

Take this opportunity to clear out back rooms and start fresh in your new office. You will also require packaging materials for transporting essential equipment, like tables and chairs. If you work in an industrial environment, working with machinery movers will make relocation much easier to ensure you can continue manufacturing or similar projects without missing too much (if any) time. 

Inform clients and customers

Clients and customers will also need to know when and where your business relocation is taking place. You will need to inform them as soon as possible, ideally once the move is confirmed, but do not expect them to read every email or message you send them. 

To avoid any problems, design materials, such as flyers and content, that make it clear you are moving your office elsewhere. These materials should be clear and easy to view whenever you send them over. Reminding clients regularly will give them no excuse for missing it, as you will need to cover yourself if a client gets upset and believes they were never informed. 

Update online information 

At the same time, you also need to update all the information you have about your business online. This includes search engine information like Google My Business, but also social media accounts and your website. 

You shouldn’t update this information until the move takes place, as you don’t want people visiting an office that is not up and running yet. If possible, include information announcing the move along with the date so that customers are aware even before you pack up and set up elsewhere. 

Find solutions to manage disruption 

There will be plenty of disruptions that are caused by the office move, so working out ways to avoid these disruptions is vital. As you pack up the office, your team will need to work with fewer resources, and this could cause frustration and other issues. You will want to find ways to avoid disengagement, too, so it might be useful to encourage remote working if possible. 

You might be able to set up at two separate locations, the current office and the new one. If this is the case, you can split the team to ensure you can maintain productivity even during a hectic period for your company. 

Get everyone involved 

Even if you’re using a professional moving company, you should still ge4t everyone involved. Giving everyone a job related to the move will make things run much more smoothly, even if that is a minor as encouraging everyone to pack their own desk up. 

If everyone gets involved, you can minimize downtime and ensure everyone is responsible for their own station, which will avoid things getting lost or misplaced, which will make it more difficult to hit the ground running at the new office. 

Unpack the necessities on arrival

Once you arrive at the office, focus on unpacking the essentials before anything else. This could be desks and chairs as well as computers and other necessary systems. Things like the coffee machine and others can wait for now, as can documents that aren’t required immediately. 

The best way to do this is to make sure every box is labelled clearly and that you group these boxes to save you from searching through a mountain of useless items. You will need to unpack these eventually, but right now, it’s the work materials that matter the most. 

Making moves

A move to a new office or workplace can be the catalyst for taking your business to the next level. By understanding what elements are most important, you will be able to shift your operations from one place to another without too much disruption and continue to work as normal.