How To Prepare For An Office Relocation Tuesday Aug 22, 2017

Relocating your office is an intimidating balancing act. Between pulling off a seamless transition without interruption to services, notifying your customers and vendors of your move, and making sure you and your employees don’t go crazy, it might seem impossible to keep all those plates spinning. But with proper planning, you can keep them from crashing to the ground. Here’s how.
office moving

2 Months Before Moving

• Using Google Calendar, Outlook, or another application, take notes of important dates and timelines. Share your notes with your employees so they can see what’s going on and help you stay organized.
• Communicate these dates and timelines to your movers and suppliers.
• Make sure your property manager is aware of when you are moving.
• Have a meeting with department heads and place the responsibility on them to mention or take care of any special requirements for their employees.
• Make an enthusiastic and positive company-wide announcement explaining the need for the move and mentioning any special features of the new location. Get employees on every level excited by sharing blueprints, photos, and your vision for the new building.
• Take a complete inventory of furniture, electronics, and other items that you’re taking with you to the new location.
• Donate or sell anything you won’t be moving to the new office.
• Begin clearing out, shredding, and recycling unnecessary files, including outdated financial documents (anything older than 7 years).

1 Month Before Moving

• Order new office supplies and marketing assets that will feature the new address, including business cards and stationary.
• Notify your most loyal customers of your new address and telephone number.
• Issue a press release advertising your new location.
• Call utility companies (electric, gas, water, waste management, phone, cable, and internet) and notify them of your moving date so they can start service at your new location and disconnect service at your old one.
• Let neighboring business know if the moving trucks will cause any traffic obstruction.
• Email detailed moving instructions to your employees and direct questions to department heads.
• Ensure that your most important digital files are backed up on external hard drives or on a cloud server.

2 Weeks Before Moving

• Implement an organized, color-coded packing and labeling system.
• Determine the furniture layout of your new facility on floor plans, and then enlarge copies of these floor plans to place visibly on walls in the new building to help guide movers. Also paste up signs pointing to key locations.
• Get the names and cell phone numbers of every employee involved in the move.
  Remind your customers that you’re moving and provide them with instructions about how to get service during the transition.
• Designate which employees will move to the new office first. Choose employees with good leadership skills who can keep everyone focused on their work.

Moving Day/In the Weeks After Moving

• Check your inventory list against everything that was moved over from the old location. Make sure nothing is missing.
• Distribute new business cards and stationary with the updated address.
  Update your online directories and social media profiles with your new contact information.
  Take your transition to a new location as an opportunity to update your office’s décor or even your company’s culture.

At Advance Relocation Systems, we’re experts at moving your business and your employees. If you have a question, ask us, and we’ll share our many years of experience.

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