Relocating an office is always a major undertaking, whether your office has hundreds of employees or just a handful. It requires all of the care and consideration of moving between houses or apartments, but with the additional difficulty that comes with ensuring that your business operations are disrupted for as short of a time as possible. If you're planning a move in the near future, then you have a lot of work ahead of you. These tips will help to make sure that your move goes smoothly and efficiently, and hopefully you will avoid an employee revolt in the process.

Plan and Delegate

Relocating even a moderately sized office is a heavy workload for one person. One of the first steps in any move should be to establish a plan of action that delegates roles to multiple people. Even if you will be overseeing the big picture, it is still important to assign employees to handle and manage smaller tasks. To help dole out responsibilities, start by making a checklist of major tasks that will need to be completed. This will likely include:

• Packing of basic office supplies
• Tear down of electronic equipment such as computers, especially if your office doesn't have a dedicated IT team
• Packing and organization of documents and paperwork
• Disassembly or other preparation work needed to make furniture ready for your movers

If possible, create a timeline to complete these tasks. To reduce the time and cost of actually moving from one location to another, everything should be packed and ready to go once your moving company arrives.

Schedule in Advance

Just as with residential moving companies, commercial moving companies prefer advanced scheduling whenever possible. If you can, schedule your movers several months in advance. This gives you a large amount of time to reschedule as necessary. Having a set time for the movers to arrive can also help you to develop a schedule and stick to it. Rescheduling a move that was planned well in advance can sometimes incur extra fees or cause costly delays, so a move planned several months in advance can serve as a powerful motivator.

Consider Using Comprehensive Services

Many commercial moving companies offer services that go behind simply loading and unloading boxes and furniture from trucks. Consider using a service that can help you pack and unpack as well. This can free your employees from some of the drudgery that comes with a move and also allows you to continue operating out of your old office for longer. If you are thinking of taking this approach, it can help to do a back of the napkin cost-benefit analysis to determine if the time saved will offset the extra cost of using a comprehensive service. In most cases, the marginal cost of hiring extra help will be offset by the time you will save completing your move.

For more information, contact local office moving services.