If you’re one of those many startups that is operating out of your home, and you are proving to be so successful that you are upgrading from a home office to a real one, keeping productive is one of the biggest challenges in this transition. So, how can you make the change from a home office to a real one as smooth as possible?
Operate as a team way before you move in
It’s all about the attitude you communicate as a business and as a brand. Because you are moving up to an office environment, this could mean a rude awakening in terms of how you run the business. For example, if you have many remote workers, and as it’s now time to be a proper boss in the same building as your workers, there could be a lot of potential sticking points. So, before you move into the office, and everybody is still working from home, start to implement certain managerial techniques so that everybody can gel as a team and you can hit the ground running. This is easier said than done, but you can start by having team meetings every morning, albeit online or via conference call, to make this a far easier transition.
Preparing remote tech
Because people have been working remotely prior to the big move, it can result in significant downtime. Instead, have the technology in place so the transition from remote working to a static office works effectively, this will help to ease the pain of system downtime. A good example would be to implement a Bring Your Own Device policy, just for the short term, so people can work on the move.
Move in over a weekend
Moving into an office when there is a lot of work to be done causes issues in productivity, not to mention the fact that it’s annoying. Instead of doing it during office hours, schedule it so you are moving in over the course of the weekend. Take advantage of the local moving services to bring every item in and set it up over the weekend, so you don’t feel as much pressure to get everything ready as you would during the week. If you moved items in on a Friday night, that gives you Saturday and Sunday to get everything in place, as well as the equipment set up, ready for Monday morning.
Give it time
You can’t expect everything to be perfect right off the bat, and when you move from one way of working at home to an office environment, this can prove to be another sticking problem. These things take time, and so, if you bear this in mind, it’s going to make the process far easier. We don’t always get everything right the first time, but when upscaling from a home office to a proper business location, we are going to encounter many different problems. Still, be patient, and give it the time it needs to find its feet.
Operating out of an office is the next rung on the ladder towards supreme business success, and as we climb up every new rung, we learn more about how our business operates. It’s a big change, but an essential one.
