Why Your Employees Should Not Manage Your Office Move
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One of my clients recently moved to a new office building and in an attempt to save on moving costs, decided to have members of their staff coordinate the office move.
The next business day after the move was complete, the employees went into the office only to find that their phone lines were not working– someone forgot to contact the phone company to inform them of their move date. As a result, employees were forced to use their personal cellphones to conduct business.
In addition, they found out that all the company mail was still going to their old location — someone forgot to contact the postal service and alert them of both the move date and the change of address. So, the receptionist took two to three hours out of her work day to travel back to the old office location to retrieve the mail and distribute it to the staff accordingly for an entire week.
Is this a question of incompetency of the staff assigned to coordinate the office move? Hardly! They are experts in performing the job they were hired to do….which I bet was not to coordinate an office move.
Having company staff coordinate such a demanding project as an office move, I believe, is an incompetent decision. Here are four reasons why:
- An office move is a full-time project. From coordinating the move date with all stakeholders and third parties, to planning and implementing a communication strategy with all parties involved, to working with all utility companies, postal services and all other external services your company relies on to stay operational, plus working with construction managers if the new site requires reconstruction, the furniture movers, the moving truck and on-site lease managers, an office move could be considered a full-time contractual job.
- Unless you are a moving company, your staff would most likely not be trained to know and handle every detail of an office move.
- Your staff already fills a 40hr week applying their skills and talents to other duties related to your business operations. Adding an additional full time project to their plate that is not directly related to your business operations would only be a recipe for important details (like not informing the phone company and post office of your office move) being missed and neither job being done well.
- The thought of saving your company money via using your office staff in an office move is a myth. If five of your staff members were assigned to coordinate the office move and they each earned approximately $300 – $900/day, the cost to you would be $1,500 – $4,500 per day on staff being diverted from their regular business responsibilities. Add the loss of incoming revenue because of missed business opportunities (an estimated average of $ 10,000 per day), and the added cost of mistakes like those described at the beginning of this blog (mobile fees, extra mileage expense payouts), and you have an idea of how much it really costs to have your staff involved in an office move.
So what is the solution?
If your business is moving into a 2000sqft or more office space, consider finding an office move project management company in your area to take the lead and handle all the details related to your office move. Your company will be better off financially, incur minimal disruption, and enjoy hitting the ground and running once in your new office space.
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DJ McGauley and Associates Inc. is your Office Move, Reconstruction and Reconfiguration Project Management Company of choice for the Toronto, GTA and surrounding areas. If an office move or reconstruction of your 2000 – 25,000sqft office space is a remote possibility, consider contacting us to arrange a no-obligation site meeting. We guarantee that by the end of that meeting you will know all that would be required to make your office move/reconstruction project a successful reality.
Call 416-239-1931 , email [email protected], or visit our website to complete our contact form.
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