Finding new office space may be the easiest part.
Moving offices requires research and planning. You have to accurately estimate the amount of new office space you’ll need both now, and in the future.
You need to find a location that’s accessible to employees.
And you have to identify the best time to move to produce the least possible impact on operations.
As daunting as those logistics may seem when you’re putting everything in place, the thought of packing up all your company’s belongings pre-office move may feel even more overwhelming.
An improperly managed office move can cause a number of issues — missed client calls, delayed orders, lost files; all of which can wreak havoc on productivity. However, with the right amount of preparation, moving offices doesn’t have to involve a single interruption.
Last month, Talent Intelligence’s Chicago team relocated to a new, expanded location. Moving offices took months of planning; but we’re happy to report all items — and employees — arrived safely at our new office space.
Organization, and attention to detail, are key to making the process go smoothly.
A few things we’d advise, if your company is considering moving offices:
- Get organized internally. Consider appointing an internal employee or team to establish and monitor an office move plan. Not sure where to start? Commercial real estate service 42Floors’ office relocation checklist offers some tips on the steps you should take.
- Share the new location with staff. Personnel Today recommends sharing the office move information with employees as soon as possible to let them start planning for a new commute (or relocating to a new city, if your move is significant). You want employees to be excited, not upset, about the new office space news; giving them plenty of time to prepare can help.
- Take care of IT needs early. Service providers don’t always install new service immediately. Make sure you give them ample notice to have everything set up before the day you’re scheduled to be moving offices.
- Get a jump start on design. If you’d like to make some upgrades to your new office space—such as adding new carpet, paint or other cosmetic tweaks—make them before moving offices. Ideally, negotiate with the building and/or vendors to start the work as close to the time you sign your new lease as possible.
- Arrange assistance. Reduce potential productivity delays by outsourcing every aspect of the office move you can, from packing to toting extra equipment and files from the old location or your new office space to a storage facility. (If you’re wondering how much to budget when moving offices, costs can vary; price info site CostHelper estimates moving a 10,000 sq. ft. office ranges from about $5,000 to $30,000. Service providers can provide a more specific estimate for your office move.)
If your entire team isn’t moving offices — but you’re hoping an employee or two will agree to — chances are, the relocation package you offer will have a big impact on whether or not your proposition is accepted. If you aren’t sure what to include, check out our employee relocation blog post.
As your organization’s workforce becomes more spread out, you can find you are facing additional challenges, such as keeping employees in satellite offices enthused and engaged.
If your organization is experiencing growth and, as a result, is either moving offices or individuals to new areas, find how to reach out to remote locations to retain workers using a mix of communication tools, enterprise-wide policies and other techniques.