Running a business is stressful at the best of times. While it is a fulfilling and rewarding job, there are plenty of challenges you must face too. Upgrading your office space is only one of the many that you’ll encounter. Moving to a new office is just as involved a process as moving to a new house. You have bulky furniture to relocate, fragile electronics to pack, and multiple rooms to clean and clear out. You usually don’t have much time to get it all done either. This can create one incredibly stressful situation. With that in mind, here are some vital tips for a smooth move.
1. Choose The Best Time
No matter how much you try, there is no way to avoid disruption completely when moving your business. However, that’s not to say that you can’t minimize it. You can do this by choosing your moving date very carefully. All companies have peak trading hours, days, and months of the year. It’s important that you select a day that doesn’t conflict with these periods. This will limit the amount of money that you lose. Make sure to also bear in mind that there could be delays.
2. Start Your Planning Early
Leaving the planning for a project as large as this one until the last minute is never a good idea. Because of this, it’s crucial that you choose a moving date well in advance and start to plan right away. Ideally, you should have at least a few months to prepare, although many businesses allow themselves much longer. You can begin the planning process by writing out a list of tasks that need completing. With this list, you can then go on to create a timeline for the office move.
3. Talk With The Team
The decision to relocate your business doesn’t affect just you. In fact, it can often stress out your staff much more. After all, you were the one that chose your new location, which means that you know you can get there every day. Some of your employees might not be able to make the trip. Because of this, they may have to find alternative employment. Letting your team know about the move early allows them to make such plans, as well as ask any questions that they might have.
4. Delegate Tasks To Staff
The relocation of a business, even a small one, is a huge undertaking. Because of this, it’s not something that you’re going to be able to handle alone. You will have to ask your staff to pitch in with the work. You could have some of them pack boxes, while others
5. Put Someone In Charge
You might be the one in charge of your business, but that doesn’t mean that you should take point with the moving process too. With so much already on your plate, you don’t need to add the pressure of relocation into the mix. Instead, you should find someone that you trust and put them in charge. They will oversee the entire undertaking and be the person that others involved in the move report back to. If there’s no one in your team up to this, then consider hiring an expert.
6. Call In The Professionals
Even with the help of your team, moving offices is a difficult process. This is especially true if you’ve never done anything like it before. Because of this, it helps to have the assistance of a professional. Rather than attempt to move by yourself, you should call in a furniture removals company. Don’t choose the first service you come across and instead research several different ones. You might want to ask other entrepreneurs for recommendations too.
7. Update Your Contact Details
Although booking a moving company and packing up the office are vital tasks, you can’t afford to forget about the smaller ones either. While changing the address of your business might not be top of your to-do list, it is very important. After all, if you don’t tell customers that you’re moving, then they’ll continue to try and contact you at your previous address. One of the easiest ways to spread the news about your relocation is to have the local press write a story about it.
8. Clear Out Any Clutter
Like when moving home, you should never take everything with you from your current office to the next one. Although it probably doesn’t seem like it, you will have accumulated a lot of clutter over the years. This junk will make the process of packing and moving a lot longer and harder, not to mention more expensive. From old documents to broken computers, there are plenty of things that you won’t need in your next space. Make sure that you throw all of them away.
9. Plan The New Space
Getting all of the furniture and equipment to fit into your new office might be more difficult than it seems. Even if the space is bigger, you may struggle to find homes for some of your larger items. This is why it’s beneficial to create a floor plan. This plan will help to avoid any confusion or unnecessary stress on moving day. You can label all of the boxes so that the removalists know exactly where everything should go. A floor plan also allows you to assign staff their desks.
10. Set A Realistic Budget
No company has an unlimited supply of cash, especially small businesses. For this reason, you must remember to create a realistic budget for your relocation. Moving office spaces is a costly endeavor. Unless you have a budget to stick to, you will probably find yourself spending much more than you can afford. When planning your budget, make sure that you consider every cost involved. There are many hidden expenses that people tend to forget, such as packing supplies.
11. Use Quality Packing Materials
With a budget as tight as yours is likely to be, finding ways to cut costs is incredibly helpful. That being said, there are a few areas where you should never skrimp. Just one example is your packing materials. Although you can get boxes quite cheaply, you tend to find that, the lower the prices are, the lower the quality is. This creates a risk of the boxes collapsing or ripping when picked up. Rather than potentially damaging expensive equipment, you should pay for better boxes.
12. Move Non-Essentials First
The less stuff you have to move on moving day, the less stressful it will be. Because of this, you should start taking non-essential items to the new office as early as you can. These things might include boxes of office supplies, plants, and decorative items. You don’t need these things to carry out the day to day work in your business, so there’s no reason why they need to stay in the office until you move. Getting them set up in their new home will take the pressure off a little.
Relocating an entire business definitely comes with its challenges. However, that doesn’t mean that it has to be quite so stressful. In fact, with proper planning and the right help, you can make the process a whole lot smoother. Hopefully, by following the advice above, you will avoid any unnecessary hassle.
