Relocating an office comes second only to root canal treatment and tax audits as most business owners consider such task to be a fun experience. You are striving to hold the whole thing together, employees are concerned about their desks, the IT department is nightmares about off line time, and an accounts person is continually complaining about the file cabinets as though they hold the secrets of the state.
North London Office Removals experienced it all in the past. The panic, the discoveries at the last moment, the mysterious boxes, which no one can remember to have packed. They have devised mechanisms of making businesses run in what looks like a chaotic state to all those who are on the receiving side.
Planning That Really Takes into Account Reality
The good removal companies do not just appear with a van and start loading. They pay you a visit in your present office a few weeks prior to the move. Measuring doorways, lift capacities, calculating the desks that will pass on which pathways. The mahogany table in the boardroom of the 1980s may have to be taken apart. The server cabinets are unlikely to fit in the normal lift.
Timing in North London is influenced by traffic patterns more than the people anticipate. A movement at 7am does not experience the maximum congestion. An individual who begins at 9am can add to the job in terms of hours. The North Circular during a rush hour is a torture in itself. Seasoned movers cannot ignore these realities and construct their schedule around them instead of acting that they do not exist.
The insurance specifics are discussed early not when something has been broken. What’s covered? What isn’t? Who will cover the cost of that Herman Miller chair that could be scratched in the course of the move, which costs a lot? Until you require them, these discussions are boring. Then they matter enormously.
What Do you do with IT Equipment during Moves?
They cannot put servers in boxes just like staplers. The IT infrastructure should be handled. There are companies of North London Office Removals, which have been training technicians in disconnection and reconnection of the equipment in the correct way. There are others who collaborate with your IT group and take their instructions on what should receive special attention.
Unless people label the cables, they turn into a nightmare. The wires-next-door-nest of that bird behind each desk looks the same when you are struggling to establish oneself in the new office. Anything is disconnected by professional movers who then take photographs of the connections. They tag cables. Something basic that will save hours of frustration on the other side.
The desktop computers are not what they appear to be. Monitors are fragile. In printers there are moving components that can be broken when they are bumped in the wrong direction. All this has got specialist packing materials. Foam, custom boxes, anti-static wrap. Neither is flashy, but it is the distinction between equipment that works as soon as one gets to the new office and equipment that must be repaired first before one can do work.
Their Treatment of Confidential Documents?
There are lockable containers that are meant to transport sensitive files. Staff records, accounting records, customer records. These materials cannot be transported in an open box in a van. Secure transport solutions by proper moving companies have chain of custody.
There are those businesses whose archives have to be transferred separately of general office. Banking papers, legal documents, medical documents. This is different in the laws surrounding the transportation of these, depending on the industry. The firms involved in North London Office Removals that provide their services to solicitors or other financial services companies have the compliance requirements in mind. You would not want to find out half way into a move that your new company of choice cannot process regulated materials adequately.
During office movements, shredding is likely to occur. Decades of paperwork that no one ever requires anymore but no one could find the time to get rid of. Relocating it to the new office is expensive and consumes space as well. It makes sense to have it shredded in the shift. Numerous removal companies are collaborating with accredited shredding services or provide it as part of their service.
Can You really do without business disruption?
Complete abolition of disruption is a dream. There is always something to go wrong or do something that follows the unexpected timeline. The practical aim is to reduce the commotion and make it manageable.
Weekend moves are more expensive but result in less disruption to the operations. Your employees go out of the old office Friday afternoon, and they come in Monday morning to the new one. The relocation occurs on Saturday or at night. It is not ideal – human beings require time to adjust into new working environments- but at least the physical relocation is not carried out at the expense of labor.
Movings in phases apply to bigger companies. Departments that are critical go first. All others come in phases. One weekend the accounts team may move, the following weekend the sales team, the following marketing. It prolongs the total period, but these business is not out of business at the same time.
What About Furniture Nobody Wants Anymore?
That is the question that arises each and every time. Furniture used in any office is half a century old and has not been fit to purpose. The chair that has a wobbly wheel, the desk that does not have a full close door and the meeting room table that is not big enough to accommodate the size of the current team. Moving them costs money. Their disposal is an expensive process. There is no use in keeping them about.
You will often find that company’s in North London Office Removals frequently collaborates with furniture disposal companies. They are able to distinguish between things worth relocation and things worth abandoning. There are some with a resale value. Others need recycling. Some of them may even be appropriate to charitable organisations or educational institutions. The removal team can do the sorting, though you would have to provide some advice to them in regards to what is important and what is not.
The issue of storage becomes complex in case of mismatch between the move out and move-in dates. The expiry of your lease is on 15 th yet the new office is not ready till 28 th. Everything has to go away two weeks. Storing in the short-term is very expensive and this is particularly true in North London where a warehouse cannot be rented at a low price. There are even removal companies which added temporary storage in their quotes. Others charge it separately.
The Morning of the Move
Employees are met by the removal team at work. Boxes, boxes, piles of them, furniture being broken down, controlled chaos. And good planning manages to pay off here. Each one is aware of their duties. Personal objects are to be packed already. The IT department has an idea of the disconnection order. The floor plan of the new space is with the office manager.
Packing and unpacking of coffee and tea supplies should be done last and first respectively. That is insignificant until you have thirty employees in a new office and no method of making hot drinks. Morale is a thing in stressful days. Little issues such as the presence of operational kitchen facilities in the new office by lunchtime are important to the coping mechanisms of the people with this change.
North London Office Removals is not about carrying the boxes one building to another. It is a combination of project management, logistics, problem-solving, and psychology. It is not as easy as it appears in the companies that do it well.