November 16, 2016 
From our experience as an office fitting company, we understand how stressful it can be moving office. However we’ve learned as long as you plan and organise yourself in advance, moving office can be a fun experience. Remember you’re moving to a new workspace, you should be enjoying this moment, not freaking out. So, we’ve created a moving office checklist to help your move run smoothly.
The Checklist you need when moving to a new office
To help you avoid confusion whilst you’re trying to move, we’ve listed the six most important factors you need to monitor to keep your office move on schedule.
1) Timings
How long it takes to move office can depend on many different factors: office size, negotiations with landlords, work done by solicitors, office design, etc. Some office moves can take up to 12 months!
Meetings with solicitors or waiting for work to be done by the landlord can delay your plans. To avoid any delays, you should keep yourself organised for each step of your move. Create a timetable or a schedule and keep in contact with all the relevant people involved in the process.
2) Costs
Before starting out any move, it’s important to try and prepare for the financial costs that will be involved.
There’s the cost of the new workspace, you will need to put payment aside for a deposit and likely the first month’s rent (unless you’re buying). Then you need to pay for solicitor fees and for the entire moving process.
To avoid surprise costs, prepare in advance and do your research.
3) Site safety
In your new office space you need to make sure all safety regulations are in place. It’s against the law to not put up the regulatory health and safety signs in a business premise.
Before your office is opened for business you need to put up a Fire Action notice that explains what to do in a case of emergency. You may be required to put emergency exit signs on additional routes out of the building.
Putting up the correct signs doesn’t take long but it’s an important step you can’t forget.
4) Employees
As you prepare to move offices you need to put time aside to speak to your employees and explain what will happen in the coming months. If you’re going to be closing the business for a couple of weeks, it’s important all staff are notified. Moving office doesn’t just affect you but it also affects your staff, especially if you’re moving to a new location.
Allocate time for your employees so they can ask you questions. Keep them regularly informed, especially if there are delays in the moving deadline.
Employees want to be part of the process, if they feel ignored, you could end up upsetting them.
5) Branding/PR
Moving offices is big news – and you can’t miss taking advantage of this opportunity to give your new workspace that necessary PR boost.
If your new office is in a brand new location, then this is the perfect chance to get new clients. Contact the newspapers or local radio to let people in the area know you’re moving into town. To keep your current customers involved, you should contact them once you have a moving date decided.
6) Deadlines
This is perhaps one of the most important parts of the moving process. Keeping to a deadline can be difficult when you have so many tasks you’re trying to manage, that’s why you need to stay organised and keep in control.
Give yourself deadlines for each task that is waiting to be completed. Keep in contact with any companies you’re working with, working with multiple companies can get confusing and give you extra hard work.
Moving offices can be a long process so it’s easy to forget or keep to your plans when you’re trying to juggle other jobs as well. If you plan in advance, you can actually enjoy the moving process. Remember you’re moving to a new workspace: this is an exciting time, a fresh start and new opportunities for your business.
Do you want a printable moving office checklist with EVERYTHING you need to remember?
Well, we’ve got one! It includes all the information above with EXTRAS so you can fill out each step as you go through your office move and avoid forgetting anything important.
