When you first contemplate moving your office, it is essential to assess your needs and current situation. The new office space should meet your business needs and better embody your company’s culture. It should also help you in making your business be better, faster and cheaper.
Moving an office can be quite stressful, and it’s all about proper preparation to reduce this stress. You should establish an office move project team, a timeline, and a budget for your move. It is best to obtain feedback from all your staff on what they think is reasonable in terms of commuting time, new office amenities, and other related move topics.
The office move team should consist of individuals who: have the trust of senior management, the authority to act on behalf of the company, good skills in organization of people and processes, experience in setting and working within a budget, and great communication stills. They will then need to visit different locations that match the feedback from the employees and needs of the organization.
A key component of having a successful move is communication. The process of the move and timeline needs to be communicated internally. This allows everyone to know what is expected of them and each individual will be able to anticipate possible obstacles. Your employees need to be able to maintain their daily work tasks in addition to move related tasks. You need to inform your clients and everyone who interacts with your organization of your move. It is best to give your clients directions to the new map location and update your website as well. Your new address should be indicated on all your mailings; in addition to having your voicemail message mention your move.
Take advantage of this move. It’s a great time for you to do some clean up and get rid of old documents and remove all unneeded items. You can easily scan your old documents to make them accessible on your server. Just be sure you dispose of all documents securely. With this move, you should also be assessing your current equipment and systems and whether or not new systems would be better for your new location and needs. And don’t forget to maximize the marketing opportunity. Be sure to send communications to your entire network as another touchpoint letting them know what’s going on. This is a great opportunity to reinforce the value you regularly add to your clients and your outstanding communication skills.
At Mediaspace Solutions, we recently moved our headquarters from Norwalk, Conn. to Wilton, Conn. Our new location has a lot of natural light, open work areas, ample amount space for impromptu meetings, and tons of walkable dinning and retail options. Everyone at the Wilton office can easily run to the bank, drugstore, grocery store, and grab lunch from more than 15 dining options. Being centrally located and close to regular activities was important to the employees based on feedback from the surveys.
All employees were asked to contact their clients and inform them of the address change. There was also a half day when our systems were temporarily down due to the move which affected our Hopkins, Minn. office. Everyone prepared and saved the information they needed prior to moving day.
We also had upgraded our servers at Mediaspace so the move provided a chance to map out the ideal set up for the servers. Because they were set up in our old location we had the chance to assess what would work best and then implement that solution in the new space. They kept our system downtime to less than five business hours. The Technology team also did a great job of resolving any issues that occurred and communicated expectations throughout the company. The biggest success was keeping everyone informed about the process, what to expect, and how to resolve any issues.
The new space exceeds expectations and the moving process was smooth thanks to proper preparation and constant and clear communication with employees and clients. Mediaspace continues to constantly improve not only our processes and capabilities but our workspace and work environment with our employees and clients best interest in mind.
These are some helpful resources to help you out if your office is contemplating a move:
http://www.michbar.org/pmrc/articles/0000022.pdf
http://www.123movers.com/guides/moving_corporate_office.asp
http://moving.about.com/od/preparingforyourmove/a/planofficemove.htm
