Hundreds of clients have hired our office furniture movers to decommission their space. Largely because our office furniture removal service can maximize the value of their used furniture assets.
This post shares what you need to know about moving used office furniture so you can minimize – and even recoup – your moving costs.
Every office manager knows decommissioning your old office is essential to meeting end of lease requirements. Making sure you fulfill those obligations, however, isn’t as easy. And maximizing your used assets is another matter entirely.
But with the right help, it can provide a great opportunity to develop a business strategy that benefits your community and your company.
Enter office furniture movers: experienced commercial movers who have established relationships with charities, furniture refinishers, and resellers to help you recoup as much of your moving cost as possible.
One of the reasons why Office Move Pro has been so successful in managing used furniture (helping companies like RBC, Telus, and AECOM decommission their offices) is because we have been highly successful in redistributing it. This redistribution avoids landfill and helps improve communities, as well as your bottom line, by offsetting the cost of moving.
With the right partner, any organization can make this kind of impact.
Do all office furniture movers provide a decommissioning service?
The short answer is, no. Often, when a business relocates, it doesn’t need to (or can’t) take everything to the new office. But leaving workstations, desks, and shelving behind is not an option. In fact, most lease agreements and property contracts prohibit it. Once you’ve removed your furniture from the office, you’ve got to have a place for it to go. You can either send it to landfill, recycle it, or better yet, redistribute it. You may even do all three.
Whether you donate, sell, or refurbish furniture for your own use, your primary goal is to do it as responsibly as possible. Essentially, you need to create a business strategy for your office that includes managing your used office furniture in a way that benefits your company.
You may choose to support your company ethos by donating within your community, or to an organization in need. Or you may prioritize offsetting the cost of your move. What you decide is up to you and the business goals surrounding your move. The point is, you need a plan.
If you can get a strategic office relocation plan in place, you can be the office hero.
While furniture movers can relocate your office contents, decommissioning the space is another another matter entirely.
How do you decommission an office?
Let’s assume you are relocating (as opposed to closing) your office. You’ll want to separate what’s going with you from what you no longer need. At Office Move Pro, this is our expertise. The first step is to inventory your assets and identify what is broken beyond repair. If it can’t be fixed, it’s no good to anyone. The best you can do is recycle it, so make sure you take the time to source recyclers for business in your area. Here’s Green Calgary’s specialty recycler directory.
First and foremost, decommissioning is about taking responsibility. You also get valuable return for used furniture, fixtures, and equipment that is properly sorted and removed from your space – which will not only help offset the cost of moving, but also avoid additional (possibly inflated) costs from your property management company for removal fees or fines.
Then determine what will be done with the rest of your used furniture and equipment.
There are a few ways you can engage office furniture movers to help you. We’ll share some examples to explain.
Examples of effective office decommissions
We helped the B.C. Transit Police remove and redistribute their unwanted office furniture following the move to their new office. Through our network, we were able to locate a buyer for all of their furniture, which completely covered the cost of furniture removal.
A recent move for the CPA is another example of the difference working with professional furniture movers can make to your bottom line, primarily because this project engaged our end-to-end moving services – including decommissioning.
We helped the CPA in a few ways:
Selling their used furniture
As with the B.C. Transit Police, we were able to help broker a deal to resell the furniture they no longer needed. In this case, about 90% of it. As a result, we kept used furniture out of the landfill, saved the buyer money, and helped the client recoup a portion of their moving costs.
Moving everything to the right place at the right time
Since we also relocated their offices, we were able to move everything according to a master plan. This is huge. Organizing multiple delivery destinations over several days is time consuming for office managers. First you have to sort your assets, then contact potential vendors, finalize terms of sale, and eventually make arrangements for pickups and delivery that don’t interfere with your moving day, or regular course of business. We can do all of that for you.
Providing a trustworthy decommission service
The ability to trust that your office furniture movers are acting with your best interest in mind provides unparalleled value. It’s the difference between working with professional partners versus amateur movers. If your movers don’t provide a value-added service you can trust – like minor repairs, cable removal, and cleaning – you should reconsider whether they’re the right resource for saving you time and money.
Our office movers do just that, and coordinate every aspect with you. In fact, we regularly get email commenting on our high level of customer service, because moving an office is complicated.
From the first time I contacted them, Office Move Pro graciously and patiently answered all my questions and worked with me. I’ve now used their moving services several times and each time I’m blown away by how amazing they are. Each crew has gone above and beyond to complete the work I ask of them. They are professional, respectful, polite, and will do whatever it takes to get the job done. They’re prompt, efficient, and have turned several stressful situations for me into a success. No matter the request, they calmly take it on without hesitation.
I can’t say enough about what amazing people this company has sent my way!
– Robyn Thompson, Incognito Software Systems Inc.
There’s a lot of planning, detail, and potential for roadblocks. This can be stressful if you don’t know how to handle it. Our project managers work with in-house teams to ensure nothing is overlooked. They design roadmaps, and provide our clients with the necessary tools to get their offices where they need to be – on time.
These three points can make or break the success of your office decommission.
If you can execute these actions, you will be able to move your organization into the next phase while meeting the needs of staff, management, and property owners.
Benefits of decommissioning your office
When you’re decommissioning an office, you’re actually inventorying everything you have – then deciding what to do with it so that you can return your space to its original condition. Part of decommissioning is deciding which items can be reused, and how. Then you make a strategic plan to relocate those items so that you can save – or even make – money in the process.
In order to maximize your used furniture assets, you need to incorporate them into your moving plan.
Most movers who offer to buy your furniture directly (site unseen) are the ones who are most likely to cut corners, to proceed without a plan, and to leave promises unfulfilled.
Why hire them? Items that could have made you money may end up costing you money in the end. Damaged items cannot be reused or resold. Property managers will charge for disrepair, mess, and the removal of any furniture left behind.
You need to engage a moving partner who will help you see the entire picture. Which brings us to…
How you can save money by working with specialty office movers
Specialty office movers have established relationships with furniture dealers, charitable organizations, and commercial property managers that general furniture movers don’t. This post explains the difference between the various types of movers and how to choose the right business movers for your situation. We can tell you what you don’t know, saving you time and money in the process.
It all starts with a walk through your facility with one of our move managers.
We also understand our local office markets. A big part of this is because we specialize exclusively in commercial moving. We know the current economic situation in Calgary is forcing many businesses to make tough decisions. Our team can help make them a little easier.
Even experienced office managers have benefited from our expertise in relocation management.
If you’re attempting to manage everything in house, other than actually moving boxes, it’s going to take a lot of extra work – and resources you don’t likely have in place.
We know this from experience. We’ve been dedicated to moving offices since day one. That’s over 15 years of helping small businesses, medical, law, government, and corporate offices move from heritage buildings to modern complexes.
The importance of references
We are leading office movers and industry experts. It says so right on the home page of our website. But of course, every mover will tell you they’re the best at what they do.
That shouldn’t be enough to get anyone hired.
Google is full of fake reviews, and the moving industry in particular is filled with scammers, which is why it’s crucial to the success of your project to request references. It’s proof that your moving candidates can actually execute the job they have proposed.
The best references come from names you recognize and trust. In the past, we have used references from Schlumberger Canada Limited, The City of Mississauga, and SunLife Financial to inspire confidence in our prospective clients.
Their good reputation gave new prospects a solid reason to trust us. By providing firsthand accounts of how we’d helped past clients save time and money – going above and beyond – we were more likely to earn the trust that we could fulfill our proposal.
Requesting references is a simple step that can give you confidence that you’re hiring a credible partner. Reviewing examples of similar projects can even help you come up with great ways to help your own company – maybe even more than you thought possible.
3 things to consider before selling used office furniture
Think outside the box
There are so many ways to do good. From recycling to impactful community donations, your used office furniture can become a source of goodwill for your organization. Be clever and cost effective in rethinking the way you use your furniture. It can save your company money in maximizing its current assets.
Engage your staff as well as your movers
Don’t hold back; we can’t help you with what we don’t know. But we can outline the potential pitfalls of your plans, and provide ethical guidance for disposal and decommissioning.
Plan the work and work the plan
If your goals are unclear and your dates don’t line up, you’re setting yourself, and your entire staff, up for a moving day disaster. (More on how to avoid that, here).
You must have a clear vision of what decommissioning your office space means, and you must share that with your office furniture movers to ensure the right outcome.
This may sound like a lot of work. It is. You have to have the right relocation team on your side to ensure everything gets where it’s supposed to be – on time, and on budget.
That’s why major clients like Manulife, Trinidad Drilling, and Canadian Blood Services choose our team from Calgary to Ottawa to relocate and decommission their offices. It’s not easy to coordinate these projects; you have to have the experience and the resources to make it happen.
Office managers who have managed relocation projects before are a great asset to your team, and applying the information shared here can help. But if you want to harness the power of collaboration and productivity to ensure a smooth and financially responsible transition, you can contact us anytime.
We have a proven track record of success that includes: helping companies avoid landfill, arranging impactful community donations, recouping moving costs for our clients, and exceeding expectations. And we’re happy to share our experience with your team.
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