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We know that moving offices can be a pain whilst trying to keep working as much as possible, that’s why we have put together an office relocation checklist to help you prepare for your move to ensure the least business disruption possible. 

If you’re thinking of moving offices soon, keep reading! 

Leave plenty of time 

First up, is to leave yourself plenty of time to plan your office relocation, by rushing everything in a few days this will leave you with little time to actually work. You’ll likely be stressed trying to pack everything in time for your move, as well as trying to organise everything else that needs to be done before you leave your current office if you don’t give yourself plenty of time. 

Appoint A Project Manager For Your Office Move 

Once you have left yourself enough time to calmly pack your things up, we’d recommend appointing a project manager to oversee the running of your move. This will help ensure that everything is done efficiently and that everyone in the office has their own job to help relocate the office. Again, by a project manager giving each team member a job this will save time for everyone involved meaning there is more time to continue working normally. 

Organise An Office Removals Company 

Next up, on your office relocation checklist will be to organise a specialist office removals company to help with your relocation. By hiring an experienced office removals company, they will know exactly what needs to be done and will do this in the most efficient way possible. At Hackworthy & Son’s we have over 40 years experience in office removals, and we know how important time is in business, so ensure that you are moved as quickly and effectively as possible. 

Offices are obviously home to lots of electronic items, confidential documents, desks etc, and by hiring a office removals company this saves you the hassle of having to move all of this by yourself whilst trying to work and keep all of your things safe and secure. 

Plan Out Timings To Work From 

Once you have a moving date and have organised your removal company it’s worth making a plan for not only moving day but also the lead up to this, to make sure that what needs to be done beforehand gets done. Much like this checklist, making a plan will help you be able to tick off tasks as they are done and leave you relaxed knowing that everything has been thought of has been done or is planned to be done soon. You’ll want to plan when to start packing up your things, what you can pack up first and what will need to be packed at the last minute, as well as how long it will take you to move and the timings involved in unpacking. This plan will also help you to work out the rough downtime you’ll experience moving office, to be able to inform people when you’ll be back open to contact/ visit etc. 

Work Out Where You’d Like Things To Go When You Move 

Not only is it recommended to plan your timings, but it’s also suggested to work out where you’d like things to go when you move before you arrive. You should be able to get a floor plan of the property, so you can use this as rough guidance to work out where things can go whilst you're not physically in the new office. This will also help when it comes to moving as you’ll be able to tell the removals company exactly where you’d like things to go. Another time saving trick when it comes to moving. 

Check Your Lease Agreement 

It’s important to check your lease agreement before moving to see where you stand if you leave the premises earlier than your lease agreement, whilst this can’t stop you from moving you may end up losing your deposit. So, it’s definitely worth checking this to ensure that you are aware of this, should the situation occur. Another thing to check when looking at your lease agreement is whether you are responsible for damages to the office, if you are you may again risk losing your deposit, so it may be worth seeing how much the damages would cost you to fix before losing your deposit to the landlord. Although, make sure that you have the right permissions to get these damages fixed by yourself before going ahead with this as you don’t want to break the lease agreement. 

Notify Clients, Suppliers, (And Any Other Important People) Of Your Move 

You’ll want to think about telling clients, suppliers etc of your move before the big day, in order for them to be aware that you may experience a day or two of downtime, and that they will need to travel to a different place next time they come to visit your office. As well as this, the changing of address will need to be updated with suppliers for billing reasons. 

Buy Furniture Or Declutter 

Depending on whether you are moving to a bigger office or are downsizing to a smaller one with more employees working from home you may need to buy additional furniture for the bigger space or declutter before moving into a smaller space. So, think about researching the furniture you’d like in your new office or use some spare time to get rid of things that you don’t need any more and will take up needed space in your new office. 

Contact Your Providers

As it stands with moving house, office relocation is no different when it comes to informing the relevant companies, providers etc of your office move. You’ll want to contact your phone and internet provider (and organise a new one if you need to), as well as contacting your utilities provider (if you are responsible for this), your insurance company, banks etc. One provider that you might forget but is super helpful is setting up a mail redirect with the Royal Mail, to ensure that any old post that gets sent to your office after your relocation is redirected to the new location. As there is always going to be one or two people that you’ll have forgotten to inform about your move, the redirected mail that you receive will remind you to inform these people. 

Organise Cleaning 

Finally, on our office relocation checklist is, to organise the cleaning of your old or new office. You’ll want to think about cleaning your old office before moving to ensure that you leave it in a good condition for the next tenants, as well as putting your company in good stead to receive any deposit back that you paid when first leasing the property. 

If you can do this as a team that’s great, but many cleaning companies offer a one off cleaning service, dedicated to end of tenancy cleans and will make sure that the property is sparkling clean before you hand the keys back to the landlord. What’s better is that hiring a cleaning company will save your team time to work or finalise the packing/ unpacking of your office. 

If you’re looking at relocating your office soon and would like some advice on the best way to do this and how much this will cost, get in contact with Hackworthy & Sons today and our team will be happy to help.