Relocations are a normal and critical part of many business operations. Whether you're moving to a new location to save on leasing costs or need expanded space for more staff, commercial moves are never easy. Packing up an entire office involves all the difficulties of a residential move, combined with the need to ensure business continuity and protect sensitive materials.
The best way to overcome these challenges is through teamwork and coordination. Use your staff where necessary and work with a professional moving service to pick up some of the slack and handle the small details. Keep reading for three essential tips to coordinate a quick, efficient, and successful move with a professional moving service.
1. Create a Detailed Relocation Plan
Moving from one house to another requires planning, but not nearly as much as even the smallest office move. You can't simply label boxes by room or location and hope for the best, especially when you need to be able to quickly unpack materials at your destination and get back to work. A detailed plan will help you and your employees pack and provide critical guidance for your moving company and those helping out.
If you're bringing furniture from your old office, label the furniture accurately and create a floorplan layout for your destination. Your movers can use this information to quickly and efficiently unload desks and equipment at your new office, minimizing the amount of guidance and direction required while unpacking.
You should also clearly delegate moving tasks to your employees and provide a role for everyone on your staff. By designating clear roles for team members, you'll be able to work more efficiently on packing up your old office. Planning these roles will also allow you to accurately judge how much packing your staff can handle and where you may need additional professional help.
2. Identify Sensitive Equipment and Documents
Every office has a few particularly sensitive items. These items may include expensive and mission-critical equipment, sensitive client documents, critical financial statements, and more. The exact nature of these documents or equipment will vary from business to business, but you should identify anything necessary to resume operations at your new destination.
If you have equipment that requires special consideration or disassembly before moving, take the time to handle
these tasks as early in the process as is practical. Ensure these boxes are clearly labeled, and work with your movers to inform them about the nature of the equipment and any special precautions necessary to protect it during the move.
For sensitive documents, consider the number of documents you need to protect and the length of your move. If your new space isn't quite ready or security measures haven’t yet been set up, consider a secure off-site document storage facility as a temporary holding location.
Once secure document storage is available at your new location, you can transport the documents from the storage warehouse to your new office.
3. Label Everything
If you're relying on your moving service to help you pack, labeling everything is one of the
most important things you can do. A professional moving service can handle many arduous and tedious tasks, such as emptying desk drawers or packing electronics and cables. However, packing everything into boxes isn't useful if you can't find what you need
while unpacking.
Work with your employees to develop a system for labeling items and boxes and communicate this system to your movers. Use whatever system works best for you, whether color-coding like-items that should go together in similar boxes, labeling based on location, or some other system. Your movers can then use your labels to pack everything into the correct boxes, saving your staff time and effort.
A more detailed labeling system will also make locating items and unpacking them substantially easier when you arrive at your destination. Thorough labeling combined with your relocation plan should allow you to efficiently work with your movers to unpack at your new office and get back to business as quickly as possible.
Los Flores Movers have experience in all forms of commercial relocation, and we can help make your office relocation quick and painless.
Reach out to us today to get started.
