Office Relocation Checklist: Things You Shouldn't Forget

Moving to a new office is a process that involves many things, and you need to make an office relocation checklist to avoid missing anything while doing so.  

Naturally, you can’t go through this process all by yourself, so most people recommend that office workers and business managers who plan on moving to another office in the future prepare a team to address the situation.  

All the people on that team need to be aware of your relocating a business checklist, so this page can be an excellent start for everyone who is not that sure of what to include on their list. Read this page if you want to know what to include in your corporate relocation checklist! 

Assemble a Planning Team

The first thing you need to do in your relocating a business checklist when planning on moving to another office is assemble a moving team to help you manage the whole process. This team can be formed of your employees or other colleagues, but make sure you only include responsible people who can take things out of your plate instead of bringing more problems to the table.   

Ideally, everyone in this team has a specific role to follow and tasks to accomplish to make the process easier for everyone. You can, for example, assign someone to get all the must-have office equipment your workers need for the new office while others care about communicating with your employees.  

We don’t recommend you assemble a big team, though. It’s easier for everyone to communicate in smaller teams of six or seven people. Those people can consequently recruit others to help them with their tasks, but making a 20-person team for moving out may jeopardize the process.  

If the team you chose has a five-people team, then these can be the tasks you can assign to each of them:  

• Getting office equipment 
• Communicating with employees
• Canceling services for your old office and hiring them for the new one
• Talking to the moving company 
• Make sure your new office is ready for you to move in 

Hire a Moving Company

You can, technically, move to your new office without the help of a moving company, but doing so can bring you tons of problems and take you more time than you need.  

When we say problems, we mean breaking office equipment, losing office items, spending more money than needed, and asking your employees to do more things than the ones you hired them to do.  

As you could see, it’s way easier to find a decent moving company and ask them to help you when the time comes.  

This can seem like something too expensive, but hiring a moving company saves you more money than the one you would save by not hiring it. In addition to that, several companies offer affordable fees for the job, so you only have to look for them.  

Regardless of that, it’s of no use hiring a company that offers affordable rates but doesn’t offer a high-quality service. It’s best to pay a bit more to hire experts who are experienced on the job and know what they need to do to make the moving process less stressful for you.  

While many people don’t put it on their corporate relocation checklist, you also need to set a date with the moving company you hire. Doing so gives you a deadline to have everything ready for the moving process. We recommend you constantly update your moving company on what you are doing and what you need to do next.  

Communicate With Your Employees

This is another activity in relocating a business checklist. Going forward with your office moving checklist, we have communicating with your teammates and employees. The problem with many business owners is they forget to update their team on what they are doing and the next steps of the moving process, which not only upsets your employees but can also slow the moving process.  

However, we understand it can be difficult to keep track of everything while telling your workers what you are doing at all times. This is when having a planning team comes in handy.  

You can ask one person on your planning team to focus on telling everyone in the company what they need to do next and how to prepare for the moving process. That includes telling them the moving date, how the process is going to be, and what they can do to help.  

What some people do is create a working database everyone can access to see how the moving process is going. Nonetheless, you can only do this with a database system or platform, and most of them cost you some money.  

People can manage internal communication by personally talking with people or making public announcements, but it’s up to you to decide what may work best for your employees.  

Get New Office Furniture

Office furniture is essential whether you want to optimize your work quality in your current office or are making an office relocation checklist for your company. The office products you offer your workers can change your working environment and everyone’s productivity.  

It’s proven that ergonomic items improve productivity, comfort, and creativity. Unfortunately, not all office managers pay attention to that and prefer sticking with standard office products because they are more expensive than ergonomic ones.  

There are many affordable ergonomic products on the market, so don’t worry about that.  

Autonomous has many of them for your office relocation checklist, and the SmartDesk 2 is the perfect example of it. This standing desk for home office allows your workers to work while sitting or standing, which helps them adopt a better posture to prevent back and neck pain.  

The same happens with getting an ergonomic office chair for you or your peers. Whether it is a reclining office chair or a lumbar support one, it gives you benefits that an average office chair doesn't, so try to save some money for all the ergonomic essentials you need for your new workplace.  

Moving to a new office means changing many things about your working style since your whole working environment changes when you do so. Therefore, this is an ideal opportunity to take a step further from your competitors by getting a decent office standing desk that improves the productivity and mood of your employees.  

If you are wondering which ergonomic products to get, you can visit our website since it has many articles about the best ones you can find for each situation. As for chairs, we recommend the ErgoChair Ultra, which makes an excellent mix with the SmartDesk 2.  

You can have all these products delivered to your new office and ask someone on your team to assemble and organize them before your employees finish the moving process. Apart from this being a profitable investment for you, in the long run, it’s something that can increase morale among your workers and let them know you care about them. 

Make Sure Your New Office Support Technology Developments

More technology developments get to us as time passes, and we need to adapt to the new technology trends to avoid missing out on investment opportunities. Companies can benefit a lot from business management platforms and other gadgets in the office relocation checklist, but managers first need to ensure their new workplace can support those gadgets.  

The first thing we recommend you do technology-wise is study the whole IT infrastructure of your current office and see how everything has worked out for you in the time you’ve been working there. If it’s enough for you, look for what you need to replicate that in your new office.  

However, if you find out you could improve your IT infrastructure in your new office, you need to do what you can to adapt that office to what you need. Your IT analysis must include a study of the office supplies you use, the power sources that keep everything running, how to organize cabling, and company servers.  

You can’t run a company without your sales information and the information about your customers and employees. Hence, losing that would be disastrous for you. Backup all your important files before the moving process to avoid making any mistakes in the future.   

Make Sure Your New Office Is Ready for You to Start Working There

Even if you get to the moving date, you can start working at a workplace that is not ready for you to go there. You have to make sure the place is ready for everyone to work there and do all the things they could do in the old office building.  

However, doing this is not something easy to accomplish and it can take months for you to do it. Things such as water and electricity services are your top priority when moving out. Hence, you need to cancel your services in the old office and redirect them to the new one.  

Next, you need to make sure there are enough electrical outlets in the office relocation checklist for you to plug in all the equipment you and your workers need to work properly.  

Sending your office equipment is also something you need to do, but that’s the job of the moving company you hire. Some people spend months planning their move out and find out they missed some things on their corporate relocation checklist once they are already working in the new office.  

Thus, we recommend you send some testers to work there for a few weeks before going all in. You could adopt a hybrid workforce during that time, so your testers would work on the new office and the others from their houses. Nonetheless, this is not something all companies can afford to do.  

If you can, we recommend you do it, though. Sending testers allows you to know what you may have missed in your relocating business checklist, so you can solve all those issues before your other workers get there. As we mentioned before, it’s not something that should take a lot of time from you.  

Choose a New Office Design for Your Workplace

When we talk about office design and office relocation checklist, we mean the aesthetic and vibe you want the place to have. This includes office decorations, your whole office layout, painting, and even the office products you get for your new workplace.  

Although many people don’t know it, working at a place you visually like boosts your productivity and improves your office performance. Hence, investing in having an appealing workplace can bring you several profits in the long term.  

Before doing anything, you need to decide the style you want your new office to have.  

Do you want a B&W office setup or a more colorful one instead? What colors do you want for it? Do you prefer a modern office setup or a vintage one? Those are some of the questions you need to ask yourself before getting ergonomic products for your office.  

Once you answer all those questions, you need to get office items that meet the aesthetic standards you set for your workplace. It’s not difficult to get items of a specific color or design, so don’t worry about not finding something for your office. Painting your office walls also helps with the process.  

Decorations are next in the relocating business checklist, and they are the funniest part of the moving process for some people. You can get paintings, artwork, RGB lights, carpets, and anything you think can make your office shine brighter than before.  

Some also use this opportunity to get other gadgets such as trays, dehumidifiers, and speakers.  

Conclusion

Moving to a new office building can take months, but all the time you wait pays off when you are working in a new workplace you like and feel comfortable in. 

These are the essential things you need to consider for your office relocation checklist. However, you can add other things to the list if you think you need them.