Moving Offices: 5 Tips to Maintain Your Sanity (Guest Blog)

Office relocation can be a taxing affair.With thousands of supplies and pieces of equipment to move, employee relocation to oversee and the prospect of a business running at very low capacity, the stress of office relocation can be pretty tough to bare.

At some point between moving and unpacking, in the dead silence of night when all you can hear is the phrase “have we got enough boxes for the printers?” swirling around your head, you may start to question your sanity. But in the depths of your despair, fear not, because there are a number of steps you can take to reduce the stress of office relocation.Here’s how you can do it.

1. Appoint a Relocation Manager

When it comes to office relocation, confusion is the enemy. Nothing will make you question your sanity more than not knowing what has been dealt with and what hasn’t; who is responsible for what and who isn’t.

Appointing a dedicated project manager for your relocation ensures you and all other members of staff have a single point of contact for all concerns and queries regarding the office move. It also means the manager has full control of the situation.But how can one person keep track of so many moving parts?

2. Create an In-Depth Office Relocation Plan

Prior to your office relocation, it is advisable that time and energy is invested in creating an all-encompassing office moving plan and strategy. This will include every how, when, where and what if; how things will be move, when they will go, where everything will be during and post-move, what if something goes wrong.The greater level of detail you cover, the better the position your project manager will be in to ensure efficiency and relocation success.Incorporate checklists, timelines, potential pitfalls, employee schedules, budgets, current work projects and more into this detailed plan, providing a comprehensive idea of how the move will go and what you need to work around.

3. Inform Clients and Staff of Your Move

You’ll be hard pushed to find something that’ll keep your gears turning into the small hours of the night more than the prospect of angry clients. These people make your business. The last thing you want is to have office relocation lead to inferior results.

It is vital that you inform clients of a relocation well before you actually move. This allows you to ensure that you avoid any tight deadlines or high-priority projects close to moving day and that they are keenly aware that your ability to work for them will be reduced over this period. It also allows you to give them a realistic projected downtime, so that they are fully appraised of the situation and not caught off-guard by an inability to contact the business.

While informing clients is great for a good night's sleep, for sheer practically, it is also worth informing staff. Having your workforce up to date on moving times means they can start to reduce work output as you head towards moving day and get all important tasks done prior to relocation.

4. Allocate Time for Pre-Move Work and Post-Move Adjustment

If you’ve moved house, you know that relocation isn’t just about some guys in a van turning up on moving day and being set up in your new digs by the evening. It takes a lot of preparation to ensure a smooth relocation process and a lot of a time afterwards to get adjusted to the new environment and have everything unpacked.

Allocate time for preparation and adjustment, keeping your targets realistic. If it is expected that’ll you do things quicker than is actually possible, you’ll hit problems — chief amongst which being upsetting upper management and shareholders, as well as clients. If you have informed them you’ll be back up and operating at full capacity before it was realistically possible to do so, you could face a backlash.

If you know you’ve got time to prepare and adjust, your state of mind — and that of other employees — will be in a much better place.

5. Seek Out Specialist Corporate Relocation Companies

To be confident of a successful and effective office relocation, you need to be confident in the people responsible for moving your entire office. Hiring a home moving service to relocate vastly expensive items like servers and countless computers, alongside large quantities of big pieces of furniture like desks and meeting tables, isn’t a good idea.

You should be working alongside specialists in corporate relocation; moving companies that understand the intricacies of office relocating. Hiring the right moving service ensures they can be in tune with your plans, offer the right options to safely and effectively transport your office and be fully equipped to deal with any problems that may occur. Corporate relocation companies are also a great source of wisdom and advice for those struggling to get their head around the relocation process.

Author Bio:

A senior member of the Gerson Relocation team, Heather Darby has been involved in countless corporate relocation projects over the years.