iMoving’s 101 Guide To Moving Your Office

This article will review the main tips needed for moving offices. We discuss how to plan, what to begin with, how to unpack, and most importantly how to keep your workflow going the entire move.

Moving your office can feel like a huge mission. With the right planning, organization, and proper delegation, you can minimize disruption to your workers and workflow.

Here’s our guide to help you move your office in style without stressing out your whole team:

Planning Phase:

1. Decide Who is Manager: First things first, don’t have too many cooks in the kitchen. Assign one person as the project manager and he can create a team or committee responsible for overseeing the move. He should delegate tasks but also keep track of what has already been done and booked.
2. Build Your Timeline: Establish a detailed timeline for the move, including a packing timeline, notifying company partners, and the actual moving day. Make sure if you will be shutting down operations let your vendors and clients know ahead of time. You may want to make moving day a work-from-home day.
3. Inventory: Delegate the task of taking inventory of all office furniture, equipment, and supplies. Organize items into categories and keep a master list. Make it clear to employees by what date they should take all their personal belongings home with them so that the office will be as empty as possible.
4. Budget: Determine a budget and the manager should stick with this. If budget allows opt for services such as packing and unpacking as your employees might not want to be helpful or come into the office that day. Try to get as much done by way of service providers instead of relying on your workers as a move isn’t within their work duties.
5. Coordinate with Building Management: If needed and you are moving into a big office building, coordinate with both your current and new building management regarding moving logistics, elevator access, parking permits, and any permits or scheduling needed. You wouldn’t want to find out by surprise that another company is moving the same day as well.

1. Create a Floor Plan Idea: Start with the basic idea for a floor plan overview for the new office layout. Assign workspaces and think about placement for furniture and desks based on teams. Think about having quiet spaces to take work calls as well as conference rooms to work efficiently with your teams.
2. Declutter Ahead of Time: Declutter the office by getting rid of or donating unnecessary items or old equipment. Many NGOs would love to have old laptops or desks so consider this option. Try to measure the space of the new offices ahead of time and take this into account for your floor plan so you’ll know what to keep and what to toss. 
3. Label and Pack Smart: Label boxes clearly by department for smarter and quicker unpacking. Pack sensitive equipment and electronics with the right padding and protection. The best idea here is to hire the full packing and unpacking option on iMoving so you won’t trouble your employees.
4. Backup Data: It is a good idea to do an additional backup of your important company files as laptops could get jostled around and potentially you could lose data.
5. IT and Utilities: Schedule with your IT team to disconnect and reconnect the network. Have them arrive early before the work day so that all servers, phones, and internet services work fine. Don’t make the rookie mistake of forgetting to transfer over your office utilities as well. Update your work address with the post office too to make it official.
6. Google Maps: Update you office location on Google Maps and Waze to ensure customers looking to find you won’t end up accidentally at the old location.

1. Delegate: Give tasks to team members to oversee different aspects of the move. One team can build the new desks while others begin the unpacking process in the smaller rooms.
2. Inventory List: Put one team member responsible for taking inventory so you can know that everything made it onto the truck and into the new offices as it will probably take some time to fully unpack.
3. Set Up Essentials First: IT infrastructure needs to be your first priority so that your employees can really get back online. The goal is to minimize your downtime.
4. Let Employees Work From Home: The first week post-move can be hard on your workers. If your job allows for it give them the option to work from home or the office so they can ease into the changes.

1. Unpack ASAP: Unpack smart, start with essential items for your team like computers and desk spaces. Follow the floor plan you planned out but keep things flexible if it doesn’t make sense post-move.
2. Celebrate The Small Things: Take time to recognize the efforts of your team and celebrate the successful move with a happy hour with lots of goodies for the team like new swag and food.

Best of luck with your upcoming office move! By following this iMoving guide and staying organized and on plan throughout the move, you can minimize office downtime, keep up team productivity, and overall make the transition a smooth one! iMoving specializes in corporate moves and has the knowledge and go-to teams to get your company there smarter.