Perhaps the single greatest goal of a business is to grow. Increased sales, expanded markets, and more product offerings are only part of that central goal. Of course, with growth comes the occasional need to upgrade facilities or to relocate them altogether. This process can create some growing pains, especially for your longest-serving employees. Here are four ways you can ease the transition.
Involve Them in Planning
Employees don’t like to feel like they are just along for the ride. During a move or renovation, they will expect to have some input in what type of facility they will be using for 40 or more hours per week.
Before the company providing your estimating services, for example a business like I AM Builders, gets your project underway, solicit employee feedback. You may be surprised at how beneficial their contributions may be, in terms of both design and cost.
Make Sure It Benefits Them
The last thing you want to do is put your employees through a complex and difficult move that doesn’t do anything for them. This can build resentment and create damage to morale that takes years to repair.
The move or renovation needs to benefit everyone if you expect everyone to react positively to it. Use the new place to address their frustrations from the old setup, such as poor traffic flow, faulty plumbing, or whatever the case may be.
Organize the Relocation
When the time comes to begin utilizing new spaces, make it an ordered process. Plan the move efficiently so that workers aren’t tripping over each other. Fill the new space from back to front to minimize congestion.
Instead of a single moving day, make it a process. Have departments or functional units move together to minimize the disruption to their daily work, and wrap up the process quickly so that the overall office can get back to normal as quickly as possible.
Provide Help
Desks, file cabinets, chairs, and other fixtures are heavy. Enlist a professional moving team for the lifting and transportation, and provide boxes and packing materials for fragile personal belongings.
Don’t forget to provide information. Create facility diagrams and operational cheat sheets to remind workers how to adjust thermostats, set alarms, and handle the other daily tasks that had become second nature in the old setup.
A change in surroundings is always stressful, but when it’s beneficial to all involved and executed in an orderly way, the growing pains will be less severe.
