How to Make Planning an Office Move Easier

Office moving is infinitely more complex than a typical home move. The coordination of people, moving companies, property managers, and more are all top-of-mind, and it can be quite a daunting task that is peppered with snags and complications. In order to avoid the headache, there are some steps you can take that will make planning an office move easier. Here are a few that you should consider before making the transition to your new office space.

Create a Management Team

It’s prudent to treat office moving much as you would any other business project. It will impact your business, and thus you should create a project management team, so to speak. The team can act as a sort of committee that handles planning, contacting and booking necessary vendors, assigning office moving duties, fielding employee questions, and more.

Draft a Numbered Floor Plan

This is a crucial step to take when planning for an office move, and one you should do in advance of the move itself. There will be enough chaos when you transition to a new place of business without having to try and plan where everything will live. Instead of resorting to this, draft a numbered floor plan of your new office to ensure that all necessary items fit the space, and each piece of furniture or equipment has a designated, predetermined area.

Have Staff Number Everything

When you have finished drafting a numbered floor plan, have your project management team mandate all employees to number their stuff based on the corresponding space in the new office. Ask your employees to take personal stuff home with them and transport it themselves in order to mitigate any losses and avoid added complications. This will ensure that every item is in the right place and with the right employee when the move is completed, and also makes the process much easier for the moving team you’ve hired.

Prepare for Document Relocation

This is an aspect that is all too often an afterthought, which can prove to be a costly mistake. Records and other important documents are business critical, and their misplacement can ultimately lose you money, interrupt operations, and result in unplanned downtime. Paper documents, in particular, are susceptible to loss or damage during a move.

Planning an office move is a great time to consider digitizing your documents to avoid the complications that may arise during office moving. It may be prudent to enlist the help of a document scanning vendor to help you convert paper files into electronic format, so you only have to transport the hard copies you absolutely need.