Relocating your business is time-consuming and stressful. It’s stressful for employees and customers. To help ease the stress of moving, you should develop a relocation plan for your business. When your employees know they are relocating strategically, their stress levels will lower.
Let’s get started creating your business relocation plan!
1. Determine a New Location
The first step in your business relocation strategy should be to determine the place to which you are relocating. You should consider the well-being of your employees, opportunity for growth, relocation expenses, and many other factors when choosing a new location for your business.
Physically visit each potential new location to come up with a pro vs. cons list for each site. Compare the lists against each other and choose the best fit for your company.
After you have determined the new location, it’s time to clear a few things up.
2. List the Reasons Why You Plan to Relocate
Your company’s unique needs will determine your reasons for relocation. When you list the specific reasons for relocating out on paper, it will allow you to focus on the best solutions for your situation. The size of your company and the risk associated with relocation are two reasons to consider.
Possible Reasons Why Your Company Plans to Move
- In search of lower taxes
- In search of a larger, more diverse workforce
- Your company is growing and needs more space
- Your lease has expired
- A downturn in the economy is forcing you to downsize
- Move closer to your target customer
- Move for the sake of your employees well being and mental health
- Lower cost of operations
- Ect.
No matter your reasons for moving, having your reasons neatly listed will aid you in knowing what you need to add to the budget and what you can leave out.
3. Create a Budget
Create a relocation budget, just as you do for everything else in your business. Be as detailed as possible and leave room for unexpected expenses. Consider how hiring a relocation company, such as ARC, can save you time and money.
Creating a budget gives you the freedom to make quick decisions that will benefit your company short term and on into the future.
Does Your Budget Include
- Employee relocation costs for each employee
- Office furniture moving costs or new office furniture
- Relocating equipment or tools (if necessary)
- Office computer and telecomm moving costs or new office equipment
- Moving company
- The new office building (might be in a separate budget)
- Miscellaneous expenses
Creating the budget is only a step in the process. You must keep track of your expenses and follow the budget for it to work effectively. The funding can quickly get blown if you fail to manage your time correctly.
4. Create a Timeline
Now that you have a budget, you can create the timeline for the relocation. When will this move take place? How long will each step take? How long will the entire relocation process last? Be as detailed as possible when creating your timeline. Setting milestones to help track where you are currently in the process ensures everyone stays on track. If helpful, create an office relocation checklist to make everything clearer.
Don’t forget to allow for unexpected delays! You might have to adjust the timeline as you encounter a delay.
Share your timeline with your employees, vendors, and customers, so they are not surprised by any delays on your end.
Logistics, Logistics, Logistics
Determine how you will move office supplies and when you will move them. You might be able to go without some supplies and furniture longer than others, so be sure to keep that in mind as you figure out the logistics of everything for the move.
Organizing the entirety of the relocation process is a stressful event, especially when this is your first time going through the process. It might be worth the investment to hand over the process to a company that regularly handles relocation logistics.
5. Ease Your Employees Minds
You can relieve your employees’ stress by answering their questions and being clear on when, why, and how you are moving. They don’t have to know every detail, but making them aware of the general situation will help keep rumors to a minimum and your employees on board with the relocation. You might find out they have strengths that can contribute beneficially towards the move. Under communicating is far more stressful on a team than over-communicating.
If you are moving multiple employees or an individual employee, you need to consider several factors. We created the complete Employee Relocation Guide to help ease your burden!
6. Give Vendors a Heads Up
Now is the time to renegotiate contracts with vendors and let them know you will be changing locations. Vendors such as food and beverage vending, internet, phone, copier, and cleaning services need to be notified reasonably in advance about the company’s plan to relocate.
Having the vendors set up before your company moving into the new space means less downtime as you are settling into your new location. This should be a matter of letting vendors know your relocation timeline.
7. Bring Your Relocation Plan Together
You can now centralize the separate parts of the business relocation strategies you have created in an easy to read shareable format. The best practice is to make it accessible to everyone involved in the relocation. When everyone has the access they need to the relocation plan, it ensures they can be held responsible for their part during the move.
You create less confusion with more precise communication by having the plan in one centralized document. If your employees have any questions about the move, then you can direct them to the document where you should have answered all of their questions.
Whether their questions are about relocation tax implications, logistic questions, vendor questions, timeline questions, or anything else, this document can help to make everything clear.
8. Execute Your Business Relocation Plan
Move week is here! It’s now time to execute your relocation plan. The hard work of organizing is over. You now get to see how well your strategy comes together. Keep in mind everything is not going to go perfectly according to plan.
This period of transition is stressful, so be flexible and offer grace to everyone involved.
Delegation is the Key to a Successful Relocation
Whether you delegate to capable members of your team or a specialized relocation company, your relocation will be more successful working as a team instead of individuals. That is why having a well-communicated plan is critical. Everyone can know their roles and work as a team.
Don’t put the stress of moving your business all on one person’s shoulders; that that includes yourself!
Final Considerations
If relocating your business is overwhelming, don’t hesitate to schedule a free call with us today! We can walk you through your options and give you a customized quote, no matter the size of your business!
We have helped transfer over 75,000 people to over 220 countries and provinces. Let us help you today!
