Moving offices comes with is own suite of blessings and curses. Maybe you’re moving into a larger space, or maybe you’re consolidating for efficiency’s sake — either way, there are a lot of bits and pieces to an office that requires strategic organizing to ensure the corporate relocation goes smoothly. So to be sure that nothing catches you and your team by surprise here is our guide to preparing your office furniture for the big day.
Empty Your Drawers
It may be the most dreaded part of moving, but it’s time to clean out the drawers of every desk and filing cabinet you have. Keeping contents in the drawers, even if they lock, makes the furniture heavier and increases the risk of injury for your movers — so for safety and liability, they will unpack the drawers for you on moving day and charge you for the time spent packing.
When unpacking your filing cabinets, plan on 1.5 boxes per drawer of paperwork. That does mean, perhaps, greater motivation to clear out old paperwork that you don’t need…
Unbolt furniture in advance
Before your professional movers arrive, take the time to unbolt all furniture, shelving, and joined desks or cubicle dividers. That will save the movers time, and it will save you money as a result.
Disassemble furniture properly
Use your team’s organizational skills to make sure you don’t lose screws, bolts, or other important pieces of your office furniture. Put them all in plastic baggies and use painter’s tape to secure them to the furniture they belong with. This will greatly reduce the headache of putting the furniture back together after your relocation, since there’s nothing worse than trying to get back to work at a desk that’s a few screws short.
Hire Professional Movers
Choose a team that has experience with commercial moving. That means they understand what’s involved with moving office furniture and a lot of important files, and can do it efficiently so your business doesn’t need to lose time and money along the way. A professional, full service moving company can make all the difference.
Label Everything
The more specific you can get with your labeling procedures, the better. For example, by labeling a file cabinet as “Cabinet 1”, you can then mark the boxes of its contents accordingly — making it much easier to know which boxes go in while filing cabinets or desks. Similarly, label those large pieces of office furniture clearly so the movers know where they need to be placed. That will help avoid the need to relocate furniture later down the line, once it’s all assembled and set.
Make a floor plan
Take the time to go to your new office space and create a floor plan. Who will be in what office, what furniture will go where, where will the filing cabinets go, and how will you arrange your desks? Giving your furniture movers a detailed plan will help them to put things in the right places the first time around, saving them the hassle of relocating, and saving you money.
For more tips on how to ensure a smooth office relocation, take a look at this blog post.
