Moving your office is a demanding and often stressful project, one that can easily get in the way of your work if you’re not careful. If, like most businesses, you can’t afford all that downtime, what can you do? Here, we’re going to look at how you stay productive and efficient during relocation, so it’s much easier to get back on the ball when the new office fit out is over.
Find the right time to schedule it
There are certain periods of the year where a little more downtime is already expected. This might include conference/trade show season or a pre-scheduled training session for the team. Look to see if there are any periods coming up where your team is already going to be partially or completely out of office and consider relocating then.
Manage it in phases
You don’t have to move everything all at once. Rather, this can increase your overall downtime, since there may be a period where no-one is working at all. Instead, consider moving it one department or even workstation at a time. That way, while the first team is being moved over, the other teams can keep working. By the time the last team has made the move, the other teams will be up and running on the other side.
Be flexible with your work
If the workspace or equipment your team needs to work is going to be unavailable for a time, let them use their own. You can adopt a temporary BYOD (or bring your own device) policy, so they can bring their own laptops to work while their regular computers are unavailable. Or you can let them work remotely from home. They might not have access to all the systems they regularly use, but they’re not cut off from work entirely.
Don’t go it alone
You want to minimise the amount of work that you and your team have to do directly during the relocation. It’s better to rely on professional movers and office fit out teams to handle the logistics of the move itself, so your team can continue to focus solely on their work. There are likely to be a lot fewer complaints or problems that your team isn’t used to sorting out this way.
Consider a temporary workspace
It can be a little more costly, but if a temporary remote working policy doesn’t work for your team, you can always consider renting out a temporary workspace. You can save on the costs of such a space by looking at co-working areas nearby.
Figure out what you can and can’t do
Losing access to your equipment, even temporarily, is likely to cut you off from some of the processes that you’re used to. Figure out, ahead of time, what resources, systems, and software you won’t be able to work with so you can instead identify other ways to keep the team productive and take care of other business.
Your move and new office fit out doesn’t have to slow your business down. With a little more planning, flexibility, and some help, you can keep the wheels of productivity turning all the way throughout.
