PAINLESS OFFICE RELOCATION: How to make by Richard Buckley

SPACEPLANNING RELOCATION PROJECTS
PAINLESS OFFICE RELOCATION: How to make
a smooth transition to your new building.
by Richard Buckley
A satisfied client! HRH Prince of Wales, President of Business in the
Community, makes a point to Richard Buckley and colleague Lorna
Rew at the opening of BITC’s new Head Office which Richard
Buckley & Associates planned and relocated.
I have been planning office workspaces and managing company relocations and internal
moves for many years.
It's not rocket science but it is fraught with problems. Everyone seems to have their own
horror story of the Relocation from Hell; the contractor who overran by weeks and then
went bust before completing the fit-out; floor boxes in the wrong positions; ‘phones that
didn’t work; the removers who didn’t turn up; lost removal crates. And so on.
It needn’t be like that!
If you’re thinking about moving, this short paper poses most of the issues you need to
think about. Be it relocating half a dozen people across town or bringing together in one
place a multi-site organisation employing thousands – the principles are the same.
To arrange an initial discussion, please call me on 01285 851095 or e-mail me at
rbuckley@spaceplanner.co.uk. My website is www.spaceplanner.co.uk.
Richard Buckley
COPYRIGHT RICHARD BUCKLEY 2014
Page 1
Do you really need to move?
“Should I stay or should I go?” Joe Strummer / The Clash 1981
A leading businessman once wrote “Don’t move – two moves
equals one fire!” (Robert Townsend in ’Up the Organisation’,
long out of print but used copies are usually available on e-bay or
at www.abebooks.co.uk). He also advocated providing ‘double
decker desks’ until the building was unquestionably full.
You can see his point. All too often you read of a business
going bust with the CEO blaming it on a relocation which
went wrong or cost far more than expected; or because they’d
closed down the old warehouse before they’d got the new
one working properly (you know, the new warehouse that was
going to save them so much money!).
If your lease is up, then you have to move. But do you? In today’s
economic conditions it’s a rare landlord who won’t consider a
‘short term’ extension, ie, a year or two, maybe longer.
What’s more, relocation is an expensive exercise in terms of both
cash and potential disruption to the business. In the first instance it
might be worth thinking imaginatively and see what can be
done with your existing premises.
It’s a rare building which cannot be replanned
to work more efficiently and accommodate
more people, at least in the short term.
Whilst internal reconfiguration can be costly and disruptive,
it’s usually much less so than moving to a new building. It’s
amazing how a few new ideas, some clever space planning
and the intelligent application of a bit of colour can transform
a tired or seemingly full office environment.
If you MUST move, hire the right people to do it
A very senior manager once said to me 'If my wife can move
house, my secretary can move office'. No she can’t (I’m not
being sexist here but even these days it’s always a ‘she’), she’s
too busy with her day job. The same point applies to everyone
else in the organisation.
Page 2
That said, senior PAs can be very good people to have in
an advisory role on a relocation project. It is always worth
genuinely consulting with them and keeping them informed
because they have status, understand the organisation and,
perhaps most importantly, have the ear of top management.
It’s always worth appointing a suitable project manager. Note
the word 'suitable'! I once worked with one of London’s best
qualified professional teams but they had absolutely no
understanding of what the client wanted to achieve by
relocating and, worse, showed no sign of wanting to understand.
They just wanted to do the project their way. I find this sort of
professional arrogance unacceptable.
Could you get someone in-house to do the job? The problem
is that this person already has a full-time job in the business
and almost certainly will have no experience of relocation
projects.
Being inside the organisation, particularly if they are relatively
junior, will put them at a disadvantage. They will have to
contend with internal politics and potentially unreasonable
demands from senior managers that can be difficult to resist.
Could a recent retiree do it? Don’t even think about it! Retirees
always have ‘baggage’ in the organisation.
Whoever fills this role will almost certainly, on occasion, have
to give unpalatable advice. This requires a certain degree of
detachment from the business.
You need a down-to-earth project manager who can
talk in common sense terms to everyone from
the caretaker to the Chairman.
The Project Manager will work closely with and complement
the services of your professional team (architects, surveyors)
if you have one.
You might think, hold on! Doesn’t the architect or surveyor do
all this stuff? The answer is – no, they don’t. They’ll deliver you
a new building, a refurbishment or a fit-out. What we do, or what
you need to do for yourself, is all the other stuff that falls outside
the responsibilities of your architect or building surveyor.
Page 3
The Project Manager will also work closely with your Office
Manager or Facilities Team so that they can continue to run your
existing premises without being diverted from their day job.
This is very important. They need to be satisfied that the new
building will be fitted-out in a way that will enable them to run
it efficiently and productively when they take it over.
The Project Manager will keep a Risk Register and an Issues
Register to assess and track all the many dangers and issues
that arise during a relocation project.
You will also need a Project Owner, ie, a Director or, if a charity,
a Trustee, who will ‘own’ the project on the organisation’s behalf.
Get the brief right - put all your functional needs down in
writing
As soon as you can you should agree a written User Brief.
You don’t make this document any bigger than it has to be but
you do need to spell out in appropriate depth and detail what
you want the new building to do for the business.
Question everything. Almost certainly, you are doing many things
in your existing building because of historical accident rather than
by design. Relocation is disruptive to the business, there's just no
way around it.
So make it an opportunity. Be radical.
Think the unthinkable. And make sure you have
lots of ‘Plan Bs’ in place!
CEOs are often not much interested in the move because they have
a million and one other things to think about. They usually delegate
authority to someone senior in the organisation. But signing off the
User Brief is, in my opinion, the responsibility of the CEO.
Get the space planning right
Spend time on getting it right. Put up a few options. Consult widely.
Let everyone have their say. I’ve found over many years that once
you’ve got the space planning right everything else naturally falls
into place. Also, once you’re committed on-site and the space
planning isn’t right, it costs a lot of money to change it.
Page 4
Set a realistic budget and stick to it
Simple to say, Isn’t it? But so many organisations just don’t do it.
Why don’t they? I don’t know. By ‘realistic’ I mean just that. Spend a
bit of time putting it together and don’t be over optimistic.
To quote Up the Organisation again, Robert Townsend proposed
putting one person in charge of the move. He called this person Uriah
Heep! He said that if, after one month, the building is more or less a
success it will be called the Heep Building; if it’s a failure it will be
called the Heep Memorial Building.
Think of the worst possibilities and budget for them. Don’t forget
the cost of closing your existing building and paying dilapidations.
I have never understood why so many capital projects, particularly
Government projects, go spectacularly over budget. There’s no
need for it. The key to staying within the budget is:
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Decide what you want at the beginning and stick to it
Ensure the specification of works asks for what you want
Get fixed price quotations
Never change the specification once works have begun
Build in a realistic contingency.
This is, of course, a counsel of perfection and hard to achieve in the
real world. Sometimes you cannot avoid making changes. So you need
a proper Change Control process under the chairmanship of the Project
Owner to approve (or not as the case may be), document and track all
changes and, if necessary, seek compensatory savings.
I’m not talking about anything complicated, just a regular meeting with
clear and costed decisions tracked on a spread sheet. Note the word
‘costed’.
If you can’t find compensatory savings, you will have to
eat into your contingency. Only in extreme and
unforeseeable circumstances (and sometimes they
do occur) should you go back and ask for more money.
Page 5
Location, location, location
This is not the place for a detailed discussion of the criteria for
selecting a new building or where it should be. In any case, most
organisations can work out for themselves the geographical area
they want to be in or need to move to.
A brainstorming session will soon eliminate the areas that aren’t
right for your business and also identify the areas which could be
right. You can plot employees post codes and find a theoretically
optimum location but, in my experience, natural staff turnover and
other factors soon make this type of exercise out of date.
I must have looked at thousands of potential buildings for
clients over the years.
I long ago came to the conclusion that, in general,
a company is better off in the ‘wrong’ building in the
‘right’ location than being in the ‘right’ building in the
‘wrong’ location.
Why do I say this? Because, with a bit of imagination the 'wrong'
building can almost always be made to work well enough whereas
the 'wrong' location can never be made right. No matter how appropriate
a building may be, if it's in the wrong place, staff and customers will
find reasons for not going there and you are likely to lose a high
proportion of your staff fairly quickly.
Do your homework when you start looking at specific buildings.
Look for downsides.
For example, many companies decide to move out of Central
London to, say, the Thames Valley, and rely on recruiting
locally to replace those members of staff who don’t want to
make the extra journey. But, even in today’s economic
conditions, towns on the Great Western line out of Paddington
have low to nil unemployment. This is something that local
Economic Development officers don’t shout about.
Another tip. If you’re thinking of taking a snazzy new building
on a business park, go there first thing in the morning and at
going home time. See how long it takes people to get in and out
by car at peak times. You might have an unpleasant shock.
Page 6
Keep your IT people under control
I know a fair bit about IT and telecoms but I am not, and do
not pretend to be, a specialist.
Your IT and telecoms installation is the central
nervous system of your organisation. No ifs, no
buts, it absolutely has to be 100% up and
running when you move.
In my experience, IT managers often use the excuse of a
relocation to make changes and upgrades that, whilst
desirable, may not be absolutely essential for the move.
These upgrades and new features may already be in the IT
Plan for the year and it might make sense to do them at the
same time as the move but it might not. This is when senior
management has to make a judgement call.
There is clearly downside risk in introducing too many new
features additional to the basic needs of transferring existing
systems over to the new building. Far better, in my opinion,
to play safe and introduce the new stuff after you’ve moved
and once everything is up and running.
I may be ultra cautious but I have seen many last minute
panics because the IT migration was too ambitious.
If your IT Manager is not up to planning the IT relocation then
you may have to hire in someone who can do it on an interim
basis.
Choose the right building contractor
If you want to build a ‘signature’ building from scratch then,
fine, employ a signature architect. But office interiors and
working environments generally do not require this high
degree of ‘design’. Most clients just want an office
environment which is functional, attractive and businesslike.
I believe that office building fit-outs and refurbishments are
best carried out on a ‘design and build’ basis tightly controlled
by a Project Manager rather than the ‘traditional’ way of using
an architect who is separate from the builder.
Page 7
The key advantage advantage of using a ‘design and
build’ contractor is that it gives you
single point accountability.
Single point accountability means that if something isn’t right or
not designed properly there is no argument about who’s at fault
or who has to bear the cost of putting it right - it’s the contractor.
You should always get four competitive proposals / quotations.
This means you will still have three quotations if one of the bidders
drops out, which often happens.
Getting maximum value for money
One of the difficulties in selecting a design and build contractor is
that even when you put the same brief out to a number of
contractors they will often come up with significantly different
proposals or solutions. That is why you have to spell out your
requirements and expectations in some detail.
Contractors have to make a judgement on what you’re looking
for and how much you want to spend. Sometimes they get it
wrong. Clients can then find themselves faced with a number of
quotations or budget proposals which are wildly different in price
and specification.
You must evaluate these proposals and
quotations to make sure you are comparing
apples with apples and not with pears.
I undertake Cost Evaluations as a stand alone service. Please
see the relevant PDF on the Brochures & Articles page on my
website – www.spaceplanner.co.uk.
Stuff happens
It really does! As I’ve already said, you must always have lots of
Plan Bs in place just in case the worst comes to the worst. That’s
why the Project Manager should keep a Risk Register. But there
are some occurences which would never show up in any risk
assessment and just cannot be foreseen.
Page 8
Here are just two typical examples (I could quote dozens):
•
The Metropolitan Police once stopped a
move I was running in Central London for
nearly a whole day because the lorries were
parked on the route of a protest march.
I had checked on the Met website to see if
anything was happening that weekend
which might affect my move. Nothing was
shown. Unfortunately, the Met had posted
the information on the wrong weekend.
Their fault, my problem.
•
A number of shipping containers containing
new furniture ordered by a client of mine lie
somewhere at the bottom of the Atlantic. A
violent storm blew up and for the safety of
the ship the captain decided to put the top
layer of containers overboard, which
contained . . . guess what!
If something like this happens, you will have to find a
solution - instantly! Another reason why you should use an
independent Relocation Project Manager.
Get everyone involved
Form a Steering Committee or Project Board to own the
project. Encourage as many of your employees as possible
to get involved in the relocation. Have a few sub-committees
or working groups and let them be chaired by the people
who can contribute the most, even if they are relatively low
down in the organisation. Let them take ownership of
particular areas - support services, photocopiers, catering,
storage, reception needs, etc.
Remember, no-one knows as much about the
functional needs of your business as the
people who work in it.
Involve as many employees in as many decisions as
possible. But only up to a point. Democracy must have its
limits. Seating plans cannot be agreed by committee. The
Project Owner must have the final say.
Page 9
Tell the staff what’s happening. Tell them again.
Appoint a 'Move Captain' from each department. The Move
Captain can be briefed on the details of the move and be the
first point of contact for any queries.
Have a communications strategy. Tell your staff what’s
happening and when. Tell them again. And again.
You can be certain that all sorts of unfounded
rumours will start to circulate. Deal with
them before they get out of control.
I don’t know why these rumours happen, they just do.
If possible, organise staff tours of the new building whilst it’s still
being fitted-out. The contractor might not be happy about this on
entirely reasonable Health & Safety grounds but, with care and
understanding of the contractor’s problems, objections can usually
be overcome.
Post progress photographs on the company Intranet. You might
even put a webcam or two on-site to view progress as it happens
(contractors are quite used to this because many regular corporate
buyers of construction work require it as a matter of course).
Sort out your HR issues early on
As with IT, I am not an expert on HR matters. However, I do
know that relocating can pose numerous HR issues. If these
requirements are not identified early on they can cause you
serious and potentially,expensive problems.
Depending on the exact circumstances of your move,
there may be a statutory requirement to
formally consult with your staff.
Get your HR people involved at the very beginning. Get
advice from a specialist HR lawyer if need be. It will be worth
every penny even if it only confirms that you are doing what
you ought to be doing.
Page 10
Keep the business running at all times
You must maintain business continuity. The move should be
‘invisible’ to outsiders, ie, your clients, customers, tenants
or whatever. It must cause as little disruption internally as is
humanly possible. It can be done. It just needs careful
planning and switching everything over out of normal
working hours.
Everything needs to be organised down to the ‘nth degree’.
It’s not rocket science but someone has to do it – it won’t get
done by magic.
Maintaining business continuity / productivity
is the key requirement of any relocation project.
A lot of people seem to think that the removal contractor will
organise your move for you. They won’t. How can they? They
don’t know what your priorities are. You have to tell them.
They will then organise themselves to do whatever has to be
done.
They don’t know when you need to move or whether you
need to phase the move or which departments have to move
first (or last) for operational reasons. They won’t know which
of your storage units are the most important and need to be
emptied and positioned in their new locations first so that
refilling can begin. You have to tell them. (It is amazing how
many organisations defer the move at the last moment
because they have forgotten about the annual audit).
I don’t like ‘big bang’ moves over one weekend. They can be
done but it’s usually far better to minimise risk by splitting
the move up into ‘bite size chunks’. This gives time for recovery
should something go wrong or the unexpected happens. Having
systems and facilities up and running in both the old and the
new buildings gives you resilience and redundancy if something
happens. Sometimes it does. A utility company once dug up the
road outside the new building two days before my client moved
in and cut through all the new comms cables. I’ve twice had
to accommodate suspected bombs. Stuff happens!
I offer Move Management as a stand alone service. Please
see the relevant PDF on the Brochures & Articles page of my
website – www.spaceplanner.co.uk.
Page 11
Get it right first time
Change is the one constant in business today. One can never
know for certain what's going to happen but it's worth making
an intelligent guess and to plan in advance how you’re going
to accommodate it.
Don't create the need for another relocation or expensive
remedial work by skimping or failing to think out your
requirements properly. Get it right first time. Make sure you
have enough space for your foreseeable needs (and perhaps
a few unforeseeable ones as well).
Ensure that your new location is 'forgiving', ie,
fitted-out in such a way that it can be
reconfigured or otherwise accommodate
change without difficulty or major cost.
Think about the likely longevity of your new facility. Don't
under-specify or buy 'cheap' - it never pays in the long run.
But don't over-specify either. Why fit-out a new building for a
15 year life if the reality is that you are likely to move in
another 5 years?
Make your new office look good
Even in these days of working off laptops from just about
anywhere on the planet, people still tend to spend a fair
amount of time in the office for meetings or social reasons. So
make it look good. People work better in a nice environment
and are more likely to stay (I’m not aware of any objective
research that proves this but it seems a sensible proposition
to me).
Don’t be ostentatious. Don't let customers get the
impression that you are indulging yourself with
their money! Keep it smart, tasteful and businesslike.
Page 12
People are often terrified of the word ‘design’, thinking it means
something impractical or outlandish imposed on them by ‘creative’
designers. If something is impractical or outlandish then that is bad
design.
Good design does not mean you have to spend a fortune. It does not
need to be anything more than using a bit of imagination and taste,
buying modern furniture, selecting nice colours and putting some
decent artwork on the walls (nothing wrong with prints from IKEA).
You might put your product on display in reception – or in the middle
of the offices as they do at JCB. Good design is worthwhile for its own
sake. It doesn’t cost more to make something look good than it does
to make it look unattractive.
Under promise. Over deliver.
Do both. This will enable the unexpected to be dealt with.
Almost every project I have worked on has had
to accommodate major change at a very late
stage due to unexpected developments
which no-one knew were coming.
If you build some slack into the programme without telling
anyone, you may well be able to accommodate these
unexpected changes. Then you’ll be a hero!
Never underestimate the time it can take to sign the lease or
take occupation. It always takes much longer than you think it
will.
Never be optimistic about delivery or completion dates. Be
brutal with your colleagues about the need to take decisions
in a timely manner. Your suppliers and contractors want your
business and will promise the earth to get it but they cannot
do the impossible.
Don’t forget that as well as having to obtain statutory consents,
work cannot begin until you have both the landlord’s consent
and a licence from the landlord for the works to be carried out.
This can take weeks, months even, longer than you think it will.
My American clients expect to initial a building plan and start
work more or less straight away like they do in the US. Sadly,
it doesn’t work like that in the UK.
Page 13
Don’t move in straight away
Try not to move in to your new building the moment the fit-out
Is complete. Every building needs a period to ‘power up’ - to
get the kitchens stocked up and ready, water fountains
installed, get some IT build done and so on.
It shouldn’t really need saying but try and
avoid having to move in before
the builders have finished!
I had to do it once through no fault of mine - the client had
no choice but to vacate their existing premises earlier than
expected and move in to the new building whilst the builders
were still on-site. It would have been better to have made
everyone work from home that week!
But even this extreme situation gives you an opportunity.
If you absolutely have to move out of your existing building
before the new building is ready, you can always use this as
an opportunity to test your Disaster Recovery Plan (you do
have one, haven’t you?).
After the move
You will need a formal post-move process. There are always
some problems after a move with a new building no matter
how hard you’ve worked to get it right. Some people will
have genuine and worthy complaints. Some people will
complain about almost nothing at all! They may feel, rightly
or wrongly, that things aren’t quite right or don’t work properly
or are different to what they were led to believe they would be
getting. You need to hear their views and quickly resolve their
complaints insofar as you can.
You also need to do all the Health & Safety stuff and ensure
that staff are formally introduced to the building, know where
the Fire Exits are and so on. I have a standard process for
documenting all this.
Page 14
Don’t forget about closing down your existing building
I have known clients lock up their old building and walk away
without giving any thought to the need to close it down! But it
needs doing!
You need to have an Exit Strategy
to deal with all the issues of vacating your
existing building(s).
Again, I have a checklist which, I think, covers just about everything
imaginable. It’s not complicated but it needs to be done.
Next steps
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Take all the areas and issues mentioned in this report
and make an overall master plan for how you’re going
to address them.
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Make a detailed plan for each individual area. Make one
of your people responsible for each area and ensure you
have an experienced external project manager in place
to finalise and deliver the plan.
Best of luck!
*****
Please note that as well as providing a Total Relocation Management service
I am happy to provide services on an individual or ‘a la carte’ basis including:
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Spaceplanning
Fit-out design
Quotations appraisals / value engineering
Move management.
If you feel you could do with some help with your relocation, please call me on
01285 851095 or e-mail me on rbuckley@spaceplanner.co.uk.
You will find overpage testimonials from just a few or our satisfied clients.
Richard Buckley
Page 15
Some real comments from satisfied clients
“In 2011 we won two large contracts and needed to increase our staff from 81 to
107 with no extra space. We’re in a serviced building and the landlord is meant to do
the space planning for us but seemed unable to come up with a solution. Richard did
our last building for us so we asked him if he could help. He did a replan for us which
provided an excellent solution and our building should now see us through until our
next round of expansion”
Kath Grover, Finance Director, Knowledgepool
“Richard Buckley managed a very complex office relocation for us involving 200
personnel moving across four sites. Richard put in a great deal of time with the
detailed preparation process, attending many face-to-face meetings with us. He was
attentive to detail and responded rapidly to a constantly changing brief. He was very
helpful, communicative and always ‘on the end of a phone’ when needed. He took
control of all the organisation and ensured that the alterations to the buildings and
the move went smoothly. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend his services.”
Judy Purves, Facilities Manager, Aegis Synovate Market Research
"We decided to take our existing furniture to the new building so Richard’s team
made an inventory and produced layout drawings which showed every item of
furniture we possessed down to the last waste paper bin. He worked with us to find
the best way of making the move whilst maintaining our normal service to our
tenants. By 9.00am on the Monday morning we were up and running. We were very
pleased with the way it all went."
Julie Roberts, Resources Manager, Fosseway Housing Association
“Richard Buckley has managed moves for a number of our clients including Fosseway
Housing Association and Uniq Prepared Foods. He also managed our own move to an
iconic building originally built by IK Brunel for his Great Western Railway which
posed its own unique difficulties. These moves all went extremely well with a
minimum of disruption to staff and the business and I would happily recommend his
services.”
Will Ricks, Partner, King Sturge, Chartered Surveyors - Swindon office
“I worked with Richard on the relocation of the Competition Commission to its new
building in Central London. As the Commission’s Facilities Manager it was my job to
ensure that the building we got was easy to manage and maintain. It was. I would
recommend his services to any company relocating to new premises.”
Graham Joyce, European and Far East Property Manager, Lawson Software
“We are an office removals contractor and often tender for Richard Buckley’s
projects. Some we win, some we lose. What we like about working with Richard is
that we get a clear brief to quote against and know that our competitors will get
exactly the same brief. This means we can put in our most competitive price. The
move itself is always extremely well organised with excellent documentation and
very clear installation drawings.”
John Mortifee, Managing Director, Oval Office Removals