Tips to consider when moving offices

Photo by Michal Balog on Unsplash

Businesses have to be able to adapt to be successful, and sometimes that means they literally grow too big for their current premises. It might be that you are moving from a small home office to a larger one because you need more space for employees and equipment. Perhaps you’re changing locations because you feel there is more business somewhere else. It might even be something as simple as the rent becoming too high or feeling like a change. 

Whatever the reason might be, moving offices can be a disruptive experience, and it pays to make it as smooth and straightforward as possible. If you can do this, you can continue running your business with little to no downtime – something that your customers (and your bottom line) will appreciate. Read on to find out some useful tips to consider when moving offices. 

Draw up a plan 

Assuming that you already know your office furniture, machinery, and other important equipment is going to fit in your new office (something that you should thoroughly check out ahead of time), it’s a good idea to draw up a plan of where those items are going to go in the new office. That way, whoever is moving the furniture for you, whether it’s your employees or you’ve hired an external removals company, they will know exactly where to put everything when they get to the other end. 

Without a plan, all your office equipment will be left in the middle of the room, and trying to move it all yourself or organize things once this has happened will be difficult. With a plan in place that shows precisely where every desk, chair, and box of files should be put, the end result will be much easier to deal with. 

Hire a storage unit 

Trying to move everything at one time is not an easy feat. If you want to lessen the impact of the disruption, hire a self storage unit. When you do this, you can take most of your office equipment there, and you can gradually move boxes and chairs and so on into your new office space once you’re ready. If you haven’t had a chance to create the plan we mentioned above, or you want to decorate your new office before you move everything into it, this idea will work well. 

The good thing about having a storage unit is that you can continue to use it even when you have completed the move because it’s the best place for keeping sensitive information and important documents. Plus, if you need to rearrange anything, you know you’ve always got a place for it to go.  

Declutter 

Any move, whether it’s a business one or a personal one, offers those involved the ideal chance to declutter. Decluttering just means ridding yourself of anything you no longer want or need, and whether you hire a big skip or you head off to the local charity shop, the result is the same – you only have to take the things with you that you actually need and will make use of. 

The beauty of this idea is that there will be fewer items to pack (and therefore unpack), and it will feel like a whole new beginning when you reach the final destination.