Do you remember to old idiom, “The shoemaker’s son always goes barefoot?” It references the all too frequent occurrence that one often concentrates all their attention on their customers that they often don’t provide the product or service to their families when needed.

Corporate Moves Require Planning

ASI recently moved our corporate office to a new location. Months of planning and preparation were put into place making the new space ready, coordinating the move and ensuring that telephone and data would be set-up to ensure that the move would go smoothly and downtime would be avoided.

We had been in our old digs for ages so years of records and closets full of out of date contents had to be sifted through to determine what needed to be moved and what could be “deep Sixed.” Although our accumulation of stuff wasn‘t bad enough to earn us an appearance on an episode of the popular A&E Network show ”Hoarders” we still had dumpster load after dumpster load of unneeded treasures. Besides tons of long out of date product materials, documents and marketing collateral, I particularly enjoyed our stock of supplies still on hand of long out of date tech. We had ribbons and self-correcting tapes for electronic typewriters and dictating machine microcassette tapes, thermal paper for very old calculators. I got a special kick out of the report cover for paper reports generated on old dot-matrix printers that have been gone for years.

The move was well planned and orchestrated and it went off without a hitch. Bins and boxes were well labeled and everything made it to our new location. We have moved our individual office signs from the old location to our new location and they are in the process of being updated and put by the appropriate our office and cubes. So they day we arrived at our new digs there were no names by each office. Instead there were numbers that coordinated with the numbers assigned to each of us for use when we packed our personal and shared space belongings. We have a small team so this really wasn’t an inconvenience. In a matter of a few minutes and a quick tour we all get our bearings.

Signage Is Critical for Employees and Vendors from Day One Forward

However, the experience of the move and gaining bearings reminded me of the importance of making certain that signage be carefully planned and designed for office moves and new office openings. It can easily become overwhelming when settling into a new location. It is one thing for the movers to know where different items need to be delivered. They typically have a detailed mapping system that corresponds to labels on materials packed. But for everybody else not having signs in place from day one can be confusing and frustrating. Not only are employees faced with finding their offices but they also must find coworkers and general amenities from storage to restrooms to break areas and supply/work rooms and copy centers. Add to that the number of outside workers who are onsite handling last minute finishing touches that are always needed with a move. Furniture and equipment often need to be repositioned, computers and phones often present challenges that need to be addressed.

It is much easier when signage is in place prior to move-in day. Unfortunately signage is typically one of the last things selected and ordered by designers and contractors and so it is a challenge to get signage installed on time. The lesson here for a corporate move team is to be sure that signage is included in the planning process and incorporated into the timeline so that moving day and the days that follow go as smoothly as possible. In that way there are plenty of shoes for everybody, even the shoemaker’s son!

John Selig
Marketing Manager