When you get the news that your company is moving office then you
, as the office manager, will have to consider hiring a removal company. Before you begin this process you may want to take a walk through the offices to see exactly what they will have to move. If the office has been in one place for a very long time it may have accumulated lots of items that could be put in a more permanent storage like a document storage facility. This may pertain to items that a company must keep for a certain number of years such as financial documents. Often a removal company may also have storage facilities that they let out for this type of items.
If the documents can be stored on a more permanent basis you would have to insure there is adequate security to protect the documents from theft or fire. Fire proofing and secure storage are both considerations when storing company records. You also need to consider the system for retrieval of the documents. If you don't need instant access to the documents does the office storage company have an effective collection and delivery system so office personnel can get documents delivered directly to the office door? These are some considerations to think about so that you do not have to move everything in the current office.
You may have to sort through these files and perhaps if the time limit imposed for saving them has passed they can be shredded safely. There is no need to store more documents than the office is required to keep. In the case of an older office location many items may have been stored that do not need to be stored.
As you go through the offices pay attention to those storage areas such as closets or libraries or even conference rooms as these are great repositories of odds and ends that should be tossed out. The fewer items a removal company has to move out and into a new office the faster the move will go.
Many times a company that has been in one location for along time will accumulate magazines and books that are then stored in a library. Books weigh a lot and if your move is going to be by the weight you may consider putting some of the books in a secure storage facility also. Some of these books may be outdated reference books that can perhaps be discarded. However some companies prefer to keep all of the old reference books so someone can look up some older information. But other times reference books are outdated about when they are published. Of course a law library would want to keep all of its reference books to research past cases for trials. But in many cases you can research just about anything on the computer and find it almost instantly.
Looking at storage options when hiring a removal company makes sense to help contain costs on an office move.