How to reduce downtime during a corporate move

If you’re about to relocate your office to a different location, you can allow yourself a little downtime. However, your main task is to keep this downtime as minimal as possible and not let it affect your business. During this period, there’s no connection with your clients, and you can’t provide them with your usual goods and services. This can heavily affect your business, so it is mandatory to reduce downtime during a corporate move. With good communication between you and your workers and the help of California professional movers, minimizing downtime can be done. Combine both of these factors with our guide, and you can even eliminate downtime completely. You will be able to keep your business running even during the move. So, let’s see how this can be done.

Reduce the downtime of your corporate move with careful planning

No matter if you’re in a corporate or a residential move, making a good plan is the key to success. For best results, a business move should be planned roughly 3 months in advance. Needless to say, making a moving plan includes many complex tasks. From making a full inventory, over decluttering and organizing your workers, to hiring long distance movers California. All of it may sound overwhelming, but it is important to stay cool. It is also worth mentioning that packing takes a lot of time, so you should start early. A good idea is to pack the items which are rarely used first. This will get them out of the way and create more space to work in. Then you can move on to packing more important items which are frequently in use. Careful planning before acting really helps in reducing the downtime of your business.

Discuss the relocation with your staff and keep them prepared

Communication is key to success, especially during a business move. Before you start making plans, it is a good idea to organize a corporate meeting with all of the employees. Create a friendly and open environment, and explain to everyone how the move will proceed. Keeping your staff well informed at all times is a great way to reduce downtime during a corporate move. Be open with everyone and listen to their ideas and suggestions. Your employees’ feedback can be very important for the planning process, as they may have good ideas on how to make everything more effective. Many office tasks can be done remotely, meaning you can allow your employees to create a productive home office. Be ready to hear out everyone who may have issues with the relocation as far as work goes and present them with a solution.

This effectively means that the work doesn’t have to stop even if the office is not available. Prepare in advance by setting up cloud servers and purchasing the required infrastructure to allow remote work. In case some of your employees also have to relocate their house, it is a good idea to allow them to continue working from home after the move.  To make the whole process even faster, you can ask your employees to help prepare the office for the arrival of your professional commercial movers. Split your workers into teams and assign everyone with different tasks, such as doing a supply inventory, or preparing the equipment for packing. With their help, everything will be ready for the move either ahead of schedule or just on time. And if everything is ready to go, your movers will work faster, meaning less downtime for your business.

Preparing the IT department for after the move can help reduce downtime

Aside from your employees, your work equipment is one of the most important things in the building. To effectively reduce downtime during a corporate move, you need a strong team of IT experts to handle everything. They need to be present in both your old and new building to maintain and set everything up. Before the relocation, have them carefully prepare the IT equipment for the move by disconnecting everything properly and preparing it for the road ahead. All of your gear needs to be in such a condition that it is ready to immediately hook up at the new office. Have then look over everything and see if some of your equipment needs an upgrade. This should also be done ahead of time so everything is ready to go after the move. The faster the office is set up, the faster your employees can get back to work.

After this, go with them to your new future office and inspect the place carefully. They will be the best judges of where and how everything should be connected. Have them figure out which room will be the server room, where all the routers will go, and how the cables will be laid down. Once all of the equipment is delivered to the office, your IT department can immediately get to work and start connecting everything. As soon as they finish, have your regular employees come to the new office and start their work. With careful timing, you will bring the downtime to a bare minimum, and possibly even remove it completely.

Pick the perfect time for your office move

A successful office move isn’t all about “how?” but also “when?”. To reduce downtime during a corporate move, you need to pick the perfect time to do it. Mainly, you should avoid the beginning of a month, since California movers and packers are in higher demand at that time. This means that you might have to wait much more and even pay more in some cases. Analyze your business data and look for periods in which there is less work. This is the perfect time window for the move, seeing as your business won’t suffer as much. Pair this clever timing with a well-executed office organization, and your precious business won’t have to suffer for even a second!