Move Planning and Execution

Matt Newstrom

LEED AP

Matt leverages more than 20 years of senior management and consulting experience in corporate real estate, workplace strategy, business development, building operations, construction, and process improvement to guide Hyphn's vision, strategy, and execution.

When it comes to move planning and execution, there’s no secret sauce. Far too often, leadership looks to office managers, facilities managers, or their front desk people to lead the charge on a major move, operating on the conviction that there’s a ready-made checklist out there for the taking. Oftentimes, the true level of effort and distraction is grossly underestimated and managing chaos is delegated to a first timer. This is the first toe down a path that can lead to a rocky day one in which your employees show up for their first day of work in the new office (a bit anxious, of course, because change is disruptive) and not one of them knows how to find their new desk nor do they know what has happened to the personal belongings they sent over with the movers. The kicker: the coffee maker is not properly set up and they are all under caffeinated. Yikes.

Tacking on what—on the surface—might feel like an additional cost to an already-expensive process can be overwhelming, but if this article accomplishes anything, it communicates the sheer breadth and nuance in a successful move process. There’s truly an absolute relief (and provable ROI!) of having a seasoned expert on your team driving the process and making sure every “i” is dotted and “t” crossed.  

Among the first steps in planning a move is knowing that a key for success is kickstarting the process up to a full year in advance. Yes, you read that right. It’s important to consider details of your new lease (including occupancy and commencement) and your old lease (including lease hold-over penalties, restoration clauses, and other major considerations that need to frame the overall program). Additionally, you’ll also need to be considerate of business operations requirements, fiscal periods ending, major product launches, holiday move moratoriums. Further, there’s the time it takes to hire and manage low voltage professionals, general contractors, AV contractors, and more, lead times for signage, furniture, internet service providers, the management of food vendors, remembering details like alerting the postal service, changing utility bills, insurance plans, even making loading dock reservations absurdly far in advance…

The list could go on (and truly, it does). The first step in a move is not hustling to check the first box, though, but setting out parameters for measuring the success of the change. Before one call is made, ensure your move manager is also paying attention to the “people side of the move.” This can involve a thorough interview with your full leadership team along with key stakeholders. Part of a successful move is truly knowing your business’s goals—that’s the only way to ensure that the process is smooth from end to end, the new space is fully furnished with all the critical elements, and you will truly delight your employees.

In addition to stakeholder interviews, company-wide, pre-move work engagement surveys are not only critical for answering the myriad questions along the way, but also for implementing a critical line of communication to the employees that might feel resistant or hesitant to embrace change. This typically translates to excellent news when it comes to both employee adoption and increasing the speed back to full productivity. Additionally, a thoughtful, consistent messaging strategy throughout the move process keeps employees in the know, tempers anxious feelings, and assures them that the change will be positive and beneficial for all. 

Bottom line, add the technical minutiae of a move to timing and process and pepper in the human element and it starts to inflate to a task far larger than what an internal task force can handle. Don’t leave it up to chance or trial and error, call an expert.