Managing a Timeline for Office Relocation

An office relocation doesn’t happen overnight. But if you do it right, it’ll look that way to your coworkers. Although the process of identifying and leasing space should start around a year before your final move date, the actual move timeline starts about six months prior to when you relocate to your new space. Here is a timeline that you may use to inform how you plan your move:

Six Months Out

Six months before your move, you should have your lease signed and your concessions negotiated. At this point, it’s time to get your architect and space planner involved so that you can draw up construction documents and order any new furniture that you’ll need for space.

As a part of this, you’ll want to audit what you have in your existing space to decide what your company will keep, what it will sell and what it will dispose of. While it’s tempting to use an office relocation to freshen up all of your furniture, fixtures and equipment, there’s no reason to re-buy items that are functioning well and have a long remaining useful life. After all, moving is almost always cheaper than buying.

Five Months Out

After completing your office relocation plans, it’s time to start configuring your new space. If your building doesn’t specify a specific contractor, get bids from three different firms and sign a contract with the best one. At the same time, order furniture from your chosen vendor. This will give them more than enough lead time to get your order delivered on time.

Three Months Out

At 90 days out, your new space should at least be roughly finished so that you can start visualizing your new space. It’s also time to start getting down to the nitty gritty of preparing for the move:

• Collect bids from and select a mover. As a part of this process, you’ll need to decide whether or not you want employees packing for themselves and, if so, what they should pack.
• Begin the process of selling or disposing of items that you won’t be bringing over. At the same time, begin purging files and supply closets of items that don’t need to come over.
• Establish telephone, Internet and other communication services.
• Let all of your vendors know about your office relocation and about its date. That way, you won’t have any interruption in service.
• Order new stationery and business cards and let your web designer know about the impending move.

If possible, consider holding a tour of the new space for your employees to help boost morale. If not, simply notify them.

Two Months Out

Visit the new space to re-orient yourself to its layout. Use your site visit and your architectural plans to develop a detailed floorplan, marking both equipment locations and where each employee will work. This is also a good time to reconfirm all of your changes with your vendors and to confirm that your furniture is on the way. Finalizing your switchover plans for your telephone and data networks is also an important task to do. Hold another “purge day” where you throw out more unnecessary material to lower both your moving cost and the clutter that you take with you to your new space.

As you approach your office relocation, you will turn your attention to your new space and to inspecting it and creating a construction punch list for completion. Consider scheduling your move over the weekend so that your team has extra time to clean up any remaining issues or messes.