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How To Manage The Relocation Of Your Office

Commercial & Office Removals

Moving an office of any size, whether its a small 5 man office or a multi-department corporate office, is a daunting task for the person in charge and not to mention a significant financial investment.

This is why knowing how to prepare, plan and execute your office move is critical to minimise relocation problems and unexpected costs. Here is a brief guide on how to ensure your office relocation goes to plan!

Create a Checklist

First step of being organised is to actually note down what you need to organise! What needs moving? What needs clearing? Are there any items that need a specialist to move? Do I need to book cleaners? These are just a few of the questions that can crop up when creating a checklist for moving your office. Not a fan of pen and paper? You could even use a free project management tool such as Trello which allows to organise tasks and add other members.

Create a Detailed Item Itinerary

Along with the general moving tasks checklist you have created we suggest also creating a detailed items itinerary. This will allow you find out how much stuff you exactly have which is important to know when organising transport of the items to your new office.

Gather a Team

Now you have a checklist sorted it has probably brought to your attention the real amount of work involved in relocating your office. This is the stage where you will probably need to enlist help from your staff (or colleagues). Choose people who are reliable and delegate tasks to them from the checklist. For larger multi-department companies it might make sense to give the checklist to each manager of the department do they can arrange for their staff to start completing the relocation tasks related to their department.

Dispose or Donate

Using your item itinerary make a note of all the items that can be disposed of. Before mindlessly throwing the items away make sure that your communal or trade waste bins accept the items you dont want a fine from the council after leaving the property.

Now is a good time to also decide if there are any items that you can donate to local charity shops or even other local businesses. Are you using this office relocation to update your office furniture? Then why not see if any local businesses need office tables or chairs for their office space. They may even sort the transport of these items for you.

Technology

Almost all companies rely heavily on IT equipment from PCs to telecoms systems so considering how to transport these items is one of the most important steps to take when relocating to a new office. Make sure you take computers apart and package them properly before putting on to a removal van to minimise damage when taking them to the new property.

Before packing all IT equipment away make sure that the new office has all the correct networking and points installed for your systems. If anything is missing or different then now is the time to order the parts and engineers to get this remedied, not when you are already in the new office!

If possible we also recommend leaving one PC and phone on in your office until the very last day before the move to keep the business admin side ticking over. Unless of course you have a company laptop you can use in the office instead and redirect all business phone calls to a mobile phone. This will keep communication lines open for your business to take care of anything that may crop up.

Specialist Items

Many offices have large or specialist items that we recommend making a note of if they need to be moved to your new office. Many modern offices for example have pool tables, entertainment systems, vending machines and kitchen equipment. If your company owns these items as opposed to leasing them then it is important that you let the removals company know as they require additional preparation for removal.

Budget

An office removal can become unexpectedly costly if nobody is keeping track of the costs involved. Everything from paying staff overtime to help if required, additional packing materials and booking a removals company can quickly add up and have a long term effect on your companys finances if a budget is not controlled correctly.

Booking a Removal Company

Unless your company has access to its own fleet of vans it is highly likely that you will need to book in with a removal company. You need to find a company that has experience in relocating offices as they are often much larger and time sensitive moves when compared to domestic jobs such as house removals.

Ideally the company should have a trade waste licence to be able to assist with the clearance and disposal of trade items and also be safe contractor approved. Kitsons Transport Ltd are all of these and have over 30 years of experience with relocating offices.

Once you have decided the removal company to go with, it is imperative that you book in with them as soon as possible. This is even more important for the larger office relocations as they will need to do a lot of preparation in organising the logistics of your move. It is at this point that we recommend sending across your items itinerary which will allow for a better estimate in the quote for your removal.
To book in an office removal for Kitsons Transport Ltd then fill out our online enquiry form or call free on 0800 328 2207.

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