Office Moving Mistakes That Will Make Your Move a Nightmare
Moving from one office to another is a massive undertaking. Not only do you have to tell all of your customers and clients that you’re changing premises, but you also have to move all of your equipment too. Moving chairs, tables, and sensitive electronics require a professional touch – it’s not something you want to leave to the amateurs. Getting the job done correctly is a top priority.
Unfortunately, many companies make mistakes which guarantee that moving office will be a nightmare. It’s a tragedy that countless companies failed to hire an interstate removalist to do the job professionally, leading to all kinds of problems. Moving office is not something that you want to mess up. Your colleagues and customers are all relying on a seamless transition with limited downtime. Not making any unnecessary moving mistakes is vital to protect you and all the stakeholders associated with your business.
The following is our rundown of the office moving mistakes that will make your move a nightmare, and how you can avoid them.
Mistake #1: Failing To Plan Your IT Transition
Moving all of your IT equipment from one office location to another is a significant undertaking. Not only do you have to transport a lot of sensitive material, but you also have to set it up to function at your new premises. Most firms understand the first part of the equation: unhooking their existing network and loading it onto trucks – but few get a handle on the second, causing significant delays.
If you want to avoid delays when setting up IT in your new office, then it’s vital to have a plan in place ahead of time detailing exactly when and where you will install various computer equipment. You’ll need to make sure that your IT equipment is compatible with the infrastructure at your destination or whether you need to migrate over to the cloud before you move to make the transition more comfortable.
Mistake #2: Failing To Hire Professional Removalists
Any kind of removals, including interstate removals, is an administratively complicated procedure. But office Removalists face a host of additional challenges. One of the big problems is the sheer volume of stuff that you need to relocate from one place to another. Amateur furniture removalists won’t be up to the challenge. You need professional movers and packers with the facilities to transfer large volumes of items according to your schedule. You also need packaging services that can protect all your desks, chairs and computer equipment during transit, and unpacking services which help you get set up at the other end.
Hiring a professional interstate removal company comes with a host of benefits.
- Professional Packing Services. Just like professional home movers, office movers provide professional packing services. These services go beyond just boxing up items from your office and dumping them into the back of a truck. It also involves choosing the correct packing types and properly packing things to avoid damage during transit.
- Itemised checklist. House removals are complicated enough, so we’d always recommend that movers use an itemised checklist. But moving offices is an even more involved affair, involving dozens of people and multiple floors worth of stuff, including archived material. Professional furniture removalist companies make office relocation simpler by implementing a checklist to ensure that you do everything according to plan and that you leave nothing to chance. The last thing you want is to undertake a costly move, only to realise that you forget to do something essential right at the start.
- Office setup on arrival. The last thing you want is truckload after truckload of office equipment and furniture dumped at the entrance to your offices with no one, other than your colleagues, to pick everything up and carry it inside. As office movers, we know that you want more from your office removals than a delivery service. Professional office movers not only unpack your items from the truck but also set them up according to your instructions. Movers should never leave you to get on with it. Trying to do it yourself could result in damage to your items and injury to your colleagues – neither of which you want.
Mistake #3: Failing To Label Your Boxes
Home packing services insist on labelling all boxes as a matter of course. Movers need to know precisely what is in each box so that they can unpack it and carry it to the correct room. The same is true for commercial office movers. Operatives need to know where a particular box needs to go to prevent you from having to endlessly carry boxes from one location to another in your new premises after the move.
Failing to label your boxes can result in major headaches when you get to the other end. Having a pile of unidentified boxes is an administrative nightmare. You need to know what’s in each box so that you can immediately deposit it in the correct location, taking the guesswork out of the process.
What information should you include on box labels?
- If it’s personal items, then include the name of the employee and their desk number if you have a desk numbering system. Labelling in this way will help movers take it to the right location immediately, without further instruction.
- If you have an office plan in place and the items in the box are general office equipment, then you’ll want to include the office location. The office location could be anywhere in your new offices, including the kitchen, reception rooms, foyer, a particular office suite, a private office and even the bathroom.
- Finally, you may want to include the contents of the box in the label. Packers and movers can benefit tremendously from being able to see what’s the box, not only to take it to the correct location but also to ensure that they handle with care.
Mistake #4: Using The Wrong Size Of Box
When companies try to organise packing and moving, they often make the mistake of ordering a bunch of boxes of identical size to save tune. While this might seem like a good idea, it’s not.
The main problem with using boxes of the same size is that you’re unable to adapt the size of the box to your needs. The temptation is to overstuff large boxes with as many items as you can to use all of the available space. The contents, however, can be too heavy for the box, causing it to fail and everything to spill out.
In general, the heavier the item you wish to transport, the smaller the box. Cardboard has a maximum capacity, so filling a large box with lots of heavy objects is a recipe for disaster. By keeping the box small, you avoid creating problems for yourself when it comes to offloading and unpacking.
Many offices have lots of archived materials that they need to move from one location to another. These archival materials, usually in the form of reams of A4 paper, files and folders, can weigh a lot. Companies with lots of small, dense and bulky items need to buy small boxes to transport them all.
By contrast, if you’re moving office cushions, then the more substantial the box, the better. Cushions do not weight a great deal, meaning that you can transport more of them in a single box.
Mistake #5: Moving Everything Without Considering Whether You Need It
Companies, just like homeowners, have a terrible habit of accumulating junk that they do not need. Worse still, many of these firms make the mistake of moving all the detritus to their new location, clogging up space that they could use more productively.
Before moving your office equipment, look at how you might cut down on the total quantity of possessions you transport between locations. Think carefully about whether you genuinely need everything in your storeroom, or whether it’s time to get rid of some of it.
Of course, there are many items that you’ll need to send straight to landfill or recycle, such as paper reports and files from years gone by. But some, you can pass on to others who need them. Here are some of your options:
- Schools. Schools often need chairs and desks and are willing to accept them for free. If you’ve got a bunch of desks or swivel chairs you don’t need any more, there’s probably a school in the local neighbourhood that would appreciate the donation.
- Donate to a non-profit. Non-profit organisations, such as charities, still need offices in which to do their work. Providing them with free furniture and computers can be a godsend for non-profits trying to operate on a shoestring. Your gift is a donation “in kind,” helping to cut the cost of running the enterprise and freeing up financial resources for serving the community.
- Resell items online. There’s a large market for office resale items online. Startups and other cost-sensitive companies are desperate to pick up office equipment at discount prices, and if you can provide it, they’ll be happy to pay. Selling second-hand benefits both you and other firms in the local area. You salvage some of the capital costs of buying your equipment, and your customers get to kit out their offices on the cheap.
Mistake #6: Failing To Give Yourself Enough Time
Businesses don’t like downtime. It’s costly and means that customers have to put up with a lack of services for hours and sometimes days at a time. Prudent managers want to avoid it at all costs.
Many managers, therefore, want to believe that they can relocate to a new office is a matter of hours, and that it’s something that they could do in an evening if they wanted to. Unfortunately, the reality is very different from the expectation. Moving the entire office from one location to another is an enormous process that can take up to ten weeks, depending on the volume of stuff to move and the distance to the new site.
For most office moves, it’s not a case of doing it in the middle of the night and hoping you’ll get it all done by morning. That’s not realistic. Instead, you need to plan the move in stages, moving some items to your new offices before others and slowing the transition down. By doing it in sections, you can minimise disruption to your business and manage the changes on a day-by-day basis. Remember, transporting an entire office can takes weeks, and usually does.
Mistake #7: Not Setting A Budget Limit
When moving to a new office, you probably have grand plans for your company. Moving from a small to a large office says to the world that your business has made it and you’re a serious contender in the marketplace. But resist the temptation to spend lavishly if you can. Remember, what matters most is the quality of service you offer customers and your ability to retain talented staff. How your office looks is a secondary factor.
Smart executives ensure that their removal costs fall under a pre-defined threshold. These company leaders plan removal costs in advance and carefully set out a strategy to keep costs as low as possible. There’s no need for an office mobe become unaffordable.
Mistake #8: Assuming You Need To Set Up Your New Office Just Like Your Old One
Your old office had a sense of familiarity about it, and you set it up to reflect the needs of your organisation. Your new office, however, is a blank slate and a chance for you to correct all the things that were wrong with your old setup. Did people have to walk too far to get to the printer? Were your coffee machines right next to desks where people wanted to work quietly? Changing the location of your items and, sometimes, not taking certain things with you can make an enormous difference to conditions in the office and productivity.
So there you have it: a rundown of all the most common mistakes companies make when they move offices. Make sure you avoid them.