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We know how stressful office removals can be and that you’ll want to ensure the least downtime as possible, so we thought we’d provide you with our top tips on how to prepare for an office move.

1. Create a timeline

First up, by creating a timeline to work towards in the lead up to your office move this will help you to prepare and schedule in things to do along the way so that everything doesn't need to be done at once.

We’d recommend first making a list of the things that you need to do, and then put these in order of priorities, thinking about prioritising things that need to be organised with other people near the top.

It goes without saying that the longer time frame that you have the less time you will need to take out of each day to prepare for your move.

The following tips are things you may want to consider including in your office removal timeline in the order to best suit your needs.

2. Hire a removal company

Take the stress out of moving and hire an office removals company as soon as you can to help you move. By organising this as soon as you can this ensures that you have this sorted when it comes to carrying out the other tasks involved in office removals.

With office removals at Hackworthy & Sons there is no need to purchase boxes, you will be delivered packing crates to a week before your move. However, if your moving timeline means that your packing is due to be started before then let us know and we can organise to deliver them sooner.

3. Declutter any unnecessary items

Much like moving house, office removals will definitely unveil lots of unnecessary items, so use this time to declutter your office so that when you get to the new office all of the things moved will be necessary to keep.

This can help save space in the removal van as you won’t be carrying around items that wont be used in the new office.

4. Create a list of items

Once you have decluttered the unnecessary items from your office, you can then begin to create a list of the larger items required to move in the office removal. This will not only help you know what needs to be moved but will also help the office removal company to know all of the items of furniture that will be going with you to your new office.

5. Deep clean the office

Before your office removal takes place, you may want to give it a deep clean whilst it is completely empty, because when the furniture is moved in there will never be a chance to give it such a thorough clean again.

Although, the office will most likely be clean when you move in, by doing this you will know that everywhere has been cleaned to your satisfaction and will know exactly when it was deep cleaned last when it comes to needing to doing this again in the future.

6. Get everyone to pack up their own desk

Assigning each employee to pack up their own desk will help you to reduce the amount of time spent packing up the whole office, thanks to working as a team. Once each person has done this the office can then work together to pack up the remaining shared areas of the office.

Working as a team could almost be a tip of its own, as this can significantly reduce the time of office removals if packing is not just left to a few people.

7. Make sure everything will fit into the new office

It is important to remember to make sure that everything will fit into the new office before the office removal takes place. This is mostly in relation to the furniture as these are often the items that people move before realising that it won't fit it into the new office, which could waste some much needed space in the removals van. An important point to be considered if you’re buying new furniture for the office.

8. Label your boxes

By labelling boxes this helps everybody, from the office removal company to those that are helping with the move whether this be employees or family members.

Each person knows which room the boxes need to be put into and therefore know where to start unpacking.

A tip if you are moving into a new office with multiple rooms, is to create posters using the same terms labelled on the boxes to stick onto the doors of each room so that the office removal companies can match the boxes up to the rooms ensuring that there is no mix up of boxes in the wrong rooms.

9. Arrange a parking space for the removal van

As with all removals remember to arrange some parking space for the office removals van. It is likely with offices that you share parking areas with other organisations or people, so could mean that you may not be able to guarantee a space for the removal van without planning ahead and arranging for a space to be free on moving day. 

10. Update address on all communications

Finally, we’d suggest that you make a note of the communications that contain your address as this will need to be changed once you have moved into your new office. This could include email footers, business cards, google listings and more. It’s also worth putting a mail redirect in place to redirect any mail that gets sent to your old address which needs to be done at least 5 days before the date you would like the redirection to take place. 

To ensure the least business downtime as possible, preparation is key to office removals, so by following our top tips we hope that this has helped you plan how to best tackle your office move.