Office Relocation Checklist: Moving Without Losing a Working Day

Most office moves that go badly are not the transport going wrong. It is the discovery, at the new place, that a cable run was never documented or that the server room was packed in the wrong order. Here is the sequence that works.

Two to three weeks before

• Agree a moving date that avoids a pay cycle, a month-end close, a board meeting or an exam week.
• Decide who owns the move internally. One project manager, not six departments each talking to the mover.
• Take an inventory: what exists, how many, what condition. Photograph server rooms, racks and the cable layout before anyone touches them.
• Confirm both addresses with the movers, including floor, lift size, parking and whether the loading bay is reserved.

One week before

• Tell IT what is being moved and when. Back up everything, and verify the backup, not just the command.
• Label network points at both ends. A label at the wall and the same label at the patch panel saves an afternoon.
• Flag anything fragile or unusual — server racks, printers, scanners, water coolers, the tea trolley — rather than assuming the crew will spot it.
• Arrange the new premises: power, cooling, network drops, desk space, and access for the movers outside office hours.

Move night

Sequence matters more than speed:

1. IT and network first — servers, network points and cabling, while the floor is still clear and there is room to work.
2. Desks and workstations — before anything is stacked against a wall.
3. Partitions and cabins — while there is still floor space to stand them up.
4. Heavy furniture and storage — last, so it goes in where it belongs rather than getting moved twice.
5. Stationery and consumables — final, straight into the correct room.

Keep one box of immediate essentials — coffee, water, chargers, first aid, a change of clothes for the person on site — and open it first, not last.

Monday morning

• Walk the floor against the inventory before the crew leaves. Discrepancies are easy to settle on the spot and near-impossible a week later.
• Get the signed job sheet and the carton inventory list.
• Test every network point, every workstation and the printer. Problems found in the first hour are cheap; found on Wednesday are not.

One thing worth deciding early

Decide what happens to the old office. If the lease has not ended, a lot of companies pack everything into storage. That is almost never the right answer — you pay for storage and you pay again when you move in again. Pack only what you will not use in the first month, and leave the rest.