COVID-19 has changed the way we dine, shop, socialize; it’s even changed the way we move. Moving your business is stressful under the best circumstances. Add in a global pandemic, social distancing, and an ever-changing list of public health guidelines, and the situation can quickly start to feel unmanageable.
But organizing a business move during COVID-19 isn’t impossible. Things may take more planning and involve smaller teams, but at the end of the day, you will have executed a safe and efficient business move.
5 Tips for Relocating Your Business During COVID-19
If you’re reading this guide to COVID-19 business moves, chances are you are either in the midst of pandemic relocation planning or you’re about the start. To make things easier and less anxiety-ridden for you, we’ve compiled these tips to make your business move safe, secure, and efficient. Let’s get to it:
1. Limit the Personnel Involved. This one may seem like a no-brainer but moving is usually a team sport and an “all hands on deck” activity. Pre-COVID-19, office moves usually involved as many people as possible to make packing, loading and unloading, and set-up quick and painless. But during a pandemic, the more people involved in one activity, the higher the risk of infection or illness. By selecting a small moving team, you can easily test each member before the move and track everyone’s health and COVID-19 status throughout the process. If one member of the moving team does get sick, contact tracing and quarantine procedures become more manageable, and you can avoid quarantining your entire staff.
2. Make Sure You Partner with a Moving Company With COVID-19-Specific Procedures. While we’re all trying to adjust to this new normal, some moving companies have already implemented policies to help their clients move safely and efficiently within this new public health environment. Look for vendors that have COVID-19 information on their websites. If you have your heart set on a company that doesn’t offer information on their COVID-19 protocols, make sure you ask about what operational changes they have made to comply with social distancing regulations and other health and safety guidelines. While there are things you can do on your own to enhance the safety of your corporate move, it’s always best to have experts with you that know what they are doing and that have experience in coordinating COVID-19-compliant relocations.
3. Use Storage Units to Lighten Your Moving Load: One of the changes that COVID-19 has brought to the workplace is fewer people in the office at a time. That means you need less furniture and supplies. Instead of moving everything from your old space into your new office site, you may want to consider renting a storage unit to house items that you don’t need immediately. By limiting the number of items that need to be unloaded in your new space, you can reduce moving personnel and potentially decrease the risk of COVID-19 spread. Additionally, by storing unused items, you create more open office space, which means greater opportunities for social distancing.
4. Sanitation is Everything. For many of us, hand sanitizer, masks, and other personal protection equipment (PPE) have become daily staples. Your office move is not the time to relax your reliance on Purell and surgical masks. Throughout your move, make sure that all personnel involved in packing, loading and unloading, and new office set-up are using hand sanitizer and other cleaning supplies regularly. Vaccinated or not, everyone should wear a mask; shared surfaces should be cleaned and sanitized regularly. A pro tip is to give everyone in your moving crew a bottle of hand sanitizer with a built-in clip or rope so they can attach it to their pants or jacket and have it on them 24/7. With masks and gloves, it’s always a good idea to have multiple boxes of each on-hand at all times since these items tend to rip and tear easily during moves and periods of heavy exertion.
5. Make Sure Your New Space is COVID-19-Safe. Before you move everything into your new space, complete a walkthrough and identify ways to make your new office space COVID-19-compliant for your employees and guests. When setting up your new space, make sure to:
-Space desks or cubicles as far apart as you can to allow for proper social distancing. In situations where six feet of space between desks is not realistic, try installing partitions or plastic shields to make up for the lack of physical distance.
-Create PPE stations for your employees and guests. By creating easily accessible PPE stations (stocked with masks, gloves, and anti-bacterial gel or lotion), you provide ample opportunities for people to stay safe and protected.
-Ventilate your space as much as possible. Whether you open windows or find ways to optimize artificial airflow, ventilated spaces tend to be safer.
Moving your business during COVID-19 will look and feel different, but different isn’t always a bad thing. While you may not be able to amass a moving team of 50+ employees or crowd everyone onto a loading dock to unload trucks of supplies, with some planning, forethought, and a few modifications, moving your business during COVID-19 can be executed safely and efficiently.
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Davida Redmond is the leader of the Marketing team of Mobile Mini; the world’s leading provider of portable storage solutions committed to providing our customers with superior services and access to a high-quality and diverse fleet.
