As your company grows and expands, inevitably a day will come when your present office is not adequate to accommodate all the staff and the equipment you need. When this happens, you’ll have to take the complex yet the necessary decision of moving the office to a new, more prominent, and more convenient location.
When you’re planning for the relocation of your office, you’ll want to target keeping any disruption to the barest minimum during the move. While moving offices is difficult, there are things you can do to make it as hassle-free as possible.
You must have a useful guide to help make a move without unnecessary stress and fuss. Here’s what you should know when the time for a change of office address finally comes.
Planning the Move
In any transition project, a well-organized workplace move plan is crucial – whether you are moving into a new phone network or transitioning to new office space and address. Be sure you follow these guidelines when creating a strategic office move plan:
- Create a timeline for the relocation of your workplace and timelines for when and where new equipment and facilities are to be installed.
- Evaluate your current position to make sure you recognize its IT features, equipment, and services.
- Plan your office space and think about any improvements you may want in your new workstations, IT facilities, and fixtures.
- Understand how the relocation of the office impacts any current initiatives that you have in motion.
Communication
Once you’ve confirmed your relocation date, ensure both internal and external parties are notified of your upcoming move.
- Inform your present landlord and/or property manager, and send an official notice.
- Notify your staff of the moving date and the new office address.
- Create a master list of all your key business and personal contacts that need to be aware of your business location.
- Keep your client and service provider list updated.
- Keep your staff list updated too.
- All team leaders and managers must be clear of what their tasks are going to be ahead of time.
- Book a date and agree on a price and other logistics with your preferred moving company.
- Notify your IT unit about the relocation date and let them know what tech will be required for the day.
- Inform local partners, suppliers, and associates of the upcoming change of business address, especially those that will be most affected by the move and contact details.
- Who to notify about your change of business location:
- Clients and partners.
- Banks and financial institutions.
- Any accounts departments.
- Insurance companies.
- Telephone company.
- Your internet service provider.
- Any professional group that you or your business is a part of.
- Any food service companies.
- Bottled water company.
- Stationery services.
- Any additional services your company makes use of.
Office equipment
When you move into a new location, what do you intend to do with your heavy office equipment and other physical assets?
Temporarily store office equipment at a storage facility like the one at Stafestore Containers in Auckland, New Zealand. You can get a storage unit to store your bulky items like filing cabinets, printers, and desks until you’re ready to move into your new space. Sites like safestorecontainers.co.nz will come in handy then.
If you are looking to switch to cloud technology and already have a host network, you’ll need to transfer your desk phones and other communication hardware to your new office space.
But if you have different work machinery and office communication systems in place, you may need to decide if it’s time to change or replace them, or whether it’s worth taking them with you.
You need to remember these issues when readying your office equipment for an office relocation:
- Make a checklist of all IT telecommunications assets you want to bring to your new office.
- Decide whether all the properties at your new place will fit together with the IT infrastructure.
- Determine if the time is right to update various aspects of the communication network by transitioning to the cloud.
- Note any upcoming IT/telecoms purchases or enhancements and decide whether they can be carried out simultaneously as the relocation.
Telecommunications Systems
The hardware in your telecoms network, as described above, is only one aspect to be handled during your office move. You would also need to talk about different other aspects of your company communication network.
Think about the moving checklist below for your business telecommunications:
- Assess what you need to do with the new system’s voice data. Will you migrate to new technology and the cloud?
- Determine how many telephone lines you need, as well as whether you want to continue with them when you contact your service provider.
- Decide what you would do with the current phone numbers. If your clients are already familiar with them, then it may be worth keeping them the same.
- Consider any upgrades that may come with your office move. Will the extra bandwidth offer new networking options?
- Keep copies of any audio or text data you are going to take with you. On the other hand, cloud technology should mean that you can easily get back up and running.
Security
Finally, try not to forget the logistical specifics when relocating your office. This is the best time to reassess your business network security and ensure everything is secure.
Stuff to consider when planning your network security when moving an office include:
- Build a list of all your equipment and services, and establish a strategy to secure your information while in transit.
- Create a registry of your staff and the network access they should have.
- Do a detailed list and update your security policies before relocating away from your current premises.
- Evaluate contracts with security service providers and look at the security options available from your telecommunications company.
Of course, the above guide may not be suitable for every company, so you may need to adapt your checklist to fit your company. The bottom line, you’ll need a well-laid-out plan designed to fit your particular needs.
Even at the best of times, moving workplaces can be a difficult process. Fortunately, you can mitigate any complexities that may come with it with good planning, strategy, and any professional assistance you may hire.
