What would you say if your boss was to come into your office this afternoon and tell you that the company needed to move to a new office? He then goes onto tell you that he feels you are just the person to organise and implement this project. As he is leaving he says, as a throw away comment, that the lease on the current office ends in six months, which should be plenty of time for you complete this task.
Whether you are going to be able to succeed will depend on a number of factors and the size of the office and the number of people you have to relocate is probably the biggest determining factor, but the good news is that with six months notice you have a fair chance of succeeding. For smaller companies, or where your company requires very little customisation of the office environment your will be moving into, less time may be needed and for more complicated projects involving many staff or very specific requirements a time frame measured in years may be more appropriate.
But you have six months, what should you be doing first to get the project moving? Unless you have specific knowledge of the real estate industry, and even if you do, you will probably need some professional advice along the way. However, the first task is to assess how much office space you occupy now and how much space you will need in the new property and this initial assessment is something you can carry out relatively easily using benchmarks appropriate to your business.
Once you have this and you know how much space you need you can go and find your new office. This will usually involve either speaking with the local real estate agents to establish which suitable properties they are currently marketing, or as time is not on your side, instructing an agent to carry out a detailed search for you. This has several benefits, not least that this is a time consuming process and an agent should have speedier access to industry information.
From these enquiries you will be able to draw up a long list of suitable properties carry out initial inspections to narrow this down to a short list and then to a preferred option, or options on which you, or your real estate agent can negotiate the best leave terms available before instructing solicitors.
This process, through to having a lease ready to sign, is likely to take up to three months, considerably eating into your available time before you have to relocate.
To make the best use of this time, you should also start considering the design of your new office and drawing up your plans for the office refurbishment, something we will look at in the second part of this series.
In the meantime, you can review a detailed programme that shows what you need to be doing and when, in order to achieve a successful office relocation and refurbishment project.