How to avoid downtime when changing business locations

By Meghan Belnap

If the time has come for your small business to move into a new building, it’s important to make efforts to minimize the time you lose during the changeover. If you don’t, what was supposed to be an exciting event in the life of your company could wind up being an event that causes a significant decline in business. To help make your move smooth and successful, here are a few ways to avoid downtime when changing business locations.

Prepare the new space

Even if your infrastructure requirements are fairly simple, you’re probably going to need to make some modifications to your new space to make it suitable for your needs. To minimize downtime, therefore, you need to do as much of this prep work in advance as you can. This will ensure you can get up and running quickly and help everyone get settled into their new normal.

Appoint a leader

The buzz associated with a move can cause employees who are normally focused and hard-working to be distracted and unproductive instead. Even with good intentions of giving input on how the move should be orchestrated, the fact is that every single person in your company doesn’t need to be involved in the moving process.

To minimize distractions, then, it’s a good idea to appoint a person or a small team of people to head up all the logistics of the move. This ensures that the move goes well and that you’re freed up to continue pushing your employees to do their best.

Hire a mover

Given the weight and quantity of furnishings in your current location, the best way to avoid downtime is to use one or more commercial moving companies to help with the move. This helps speed up the process, prevents your employees from being injured, and ensures everything arrives at the new location safely. When searching for a mover, it’s important to look at companies specifically experienced in commercial moves to ensure they have the equipment and personnel to make the move a success.

Make a plan

Before everyone arrives in the new location, it’s important to have a plan of how everything will be laid out. You should know which desks will go where, how phones and computers will be wired, and what new items you’ll need to buy to get everyone up and running. With a clear plan in place, you’ll be able to easily direct the movers where things need to go, ensuring that any rearranging is limited and that efficiency is maximized.

Though your employees don’t all need to be directly involved in the moving process, they still need to be kept in the loop about what’s happening. By giving regular updates to affected employees, you will help keep morale up and ensure that the transition to the new location happens more smoothly and allow everyone to be prepared every step of the way. This will help everyone adjust more easily and ensure you get back to business-as-usual without major loss to your company’s productivity.

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Meghan Belnap is a freelance writer who enjoys spending time with her family. She loves being in the outdoors and exploring new opportunities whenever they arise. Meghan finds happiness in researching new topics that help to expand her horizons. You can often find her buried in a good book or out looking for an adventure. You can connect with her on Facebook right here and Twitter right here