Moving Offices: A Full Guide To The Task, The Office Style

By: Tommy Loutzenheiser Last Updated: Jul 12, 2024

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When it comes to moving the entire office down the block or across the country, there are a few things you need to know. Read on for our tips and tricks to simplify your office day move.

Moving Offices: A Full Guide To The Task, The Office Style

There is nothing more frustrating as an employee than being expected to help out just because your CEO decided that it’s time to move locations. Some companies move for improvement of the space, expansion, to be closer to the city center, or just because the boss lives too far away.

No matter the reasoning as an employee it can throw off your work life balance and feel like an unfair burden.

If you are an employer making this call it is important to keep the moving stress to an absolute bare minimum for your employees since this isn’t their choice. Ensure to book a full service mover if the company can expense it and save everyone the hassle!

Safe Steps to That Pesky Office Move

True and tried tips by happy employees that have made the move:

  • Plan out the steps for your team: Build a full plan that outlines timelines, tasks, responsibilities by team, and plans for who will be running logistics in the office.
  • Let your clients know what’s happening: Inform employees, clients, vendors, and anyone else who your company is in touch with about the upcoming office move well in advance. Provide clear instructions and timelines to minimize disruptions and offer the new address for everyone to take note of. Don’t forget to update your business address, contact information, and online listings (website, social media, directories) to reflect the new office
  • Set one person in charge: This is usually the office manager or secretary who are the lead when it comes to booking and coordinating with movers, dates, and dividing up tasks.
  • Inventory and de-clutter time: Take inventory of all office items, electronics, other equipment, furniture, and documents. Declutter and organize what is remaining to decide what needs to be moved, sold, donated, or discarded. This can be tricky as “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” You want to be extra careful about discarding someone else’s possessions or even items in the office that are useful for one and not for another.
  • Hire Professional Movers- this is the most important tip of this entire guide: Your employees are not your paid workers, so make sure you don’t treat them like they are. Research and hire experienced office movers with years of work in commercial relocations. Ensure they are licensed, insured, and capable of handling your needs. Moving Feedback specializes in exactly this so feel free to book directly on the platform.
  • Decide what will go where: Develop an office layout or floor plan for the new offices. Coordinate with movers to ensure furniture and equipment placement aligns with the new plans desks around so you won’t have to drag items around. Plan by teams that sit together and in a way that makes sense and flows in the office.
  • Pack and Label Everything: Pack office items in a safe fashion using proper packing materials such as bubble wrap, tape, and packing paper. Label boxes clearly with contents, by teams, and list any other details that will help in the unpacking phase of the move. Make sure to take extra time to ensure the labels are perfect to save headaches later
  • Backup Data and IT Systems: Backup all critical data, files, and IT systems before the move. Digitize any files that are hardcopy. Coordinate with IT professionals to safely disconnect, transport, and reconnect electronics, wiring, and any other technology products.
  • Call the Utilities and Services: Have the office manager arrange to stop paying utilities at the old office and start paying them at the new to avoid down time. Electricity, internet, and phone lines will need to be set up at the new office location before moving day to keep workers on track. Notify service providers of the move and schedule transfers or cancellations when it makes sense.
  • Prepare as a Team for Moving Day: Before the end of the last work day in the new office, consider blocking off the last 2 hours of the day for a last happy hour and to clean the space for movers. Have employees take all personal goods home and if it makes sense also bring home their laptops. Ensure the new office space is ready for you to move in and clean and that movers have clear access to load and unload. Speak to the building about a parking permit for the mover’s truck.
  • Settle In See What Needs Improvement: Unpack and set up essential items first to quickly resume working. Evaluate what new items are needed to be purchased and make sure your employees feel comfortable. Consider allowing certain departments or the whole office team to work from home more than usual in the first couple of weeks.
  • Be Kind: Change of any kind can be hard on individuals. When moving the office employees can feel a lack of control and emotions run high. Be aware of this, allow more freedom than usual for deadlines and support your team at this critical moment.

Wrapping up the printer

All in all, moving office spaces can be a pain in the ass in an employee’s life. Ease their stress as much as possible by not making them responsible wherever possible and bringing in the pros. Make sure you have one set individual running the show so that you have accountability for the move and where possible show flexibility in allowing employees to work from home. If you can, book a full packing service with Moving Feedback’s top commercial movers in your are and let them worry about moving the server room instead of trying to find solutions.

FAQ

Start with your personalized inventory list to understand the items you have and their quality stage. From there you should be able to estimate how many drawers of smaller items and similar things will require their own boxes.

Your move is able to bring you a first load of movers and you can always request more later or buy them on your own at your local hardware store.

As a rule of thumb, always take 15-20 more than you think so that you don’t end up over stuffing your boxes. Your employees might pack tightly or loosely so it is better to have more than less.

Moving Feedback is the answer. We agree that honesty is the most important quality trait a mover should have. No matter the pricing differences or reviews, nothing is more important than honesty and transparency.

Moving Feedback created a vetted list of movers and has a dedicated team that all day show up to their desk in the office just to read through personal reviews, and check accident records, insurance claims, and other boring documents of our movers on the marketplace.

It’s important you know what to check and why or you may end up paying more to get out of a scam.

Your mover bailing on you the morning of your move is one of the top, worst things that we have seen happen in the industry. Booking a scammer is the worst thing that can happen.

They can take a huge deposit up front and then just never show up or give a lame excuse and not answer your calls.

This can be avoided by only booking a tried and trusted moving vendor from our marketplace and ignoring all the scammers online.

Moving labor is a helpful and dandy service you can book with Moving Feedback if you’re planning on DIYing most of your move on your own.

Rather than a full-service moving team that do it all, moving labor can show up whenever you order them, help with packing, and help with the heavy lifting. Think of moving labor as that helpful set of uncles you just don’t have.

Everything else will be up to you for the unpacking part, unless you book a moving labor team to meet you at your destination as well. If you are doing this look into pricing as it might just make more sense to book a classic moving team.

If a moving company is expecting you to pay for your entire move up front, this is a terrible sign of a scammer. If you pay up front, there’s no guarantee they’ll even show up or care at all about your stuff. That being said, paying a down payment before the big moving day is relatively common and should be expected and calculated for.

Expect to pay a few hundred dollars, or about 10% of the price of your entire move as a down payment. Obviously if you book with Moving Feedback you won’t have to worry about accidentally booking scammers.

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Written By Tommy Loutzenheiser

Meet Tommy, a writer from San Diego, California with a passion for interior design and moving! Coming from a family of interior designers from San Diego, he’s been involved in the world of moving and helping to create beautiful homes for the places people move to. He’s also moved over ten times in various states such as California, Washington, and Arizona! Through these moves, he’s worked with a variety of moving companies, and prides himself on knowing what to look for and how to have the safest, smoothest move possible! For the past few years, he’s bringing his talent of copywriting and knowledge of moving together to help people all across the world start new chapters in their lives through moving! When he’s not busy writing, you can find him doing extensive research all to help your moving process.