By Jim Lindgren
Star correspondent
Moving in a new house presents the average family of four with a myriad of decisions and many hours of work. For a company with several hundred employees, the brainwork and the grunt work can multiply even more quickly, overwhelming day-to-day operations.
That’s why many companies are hiring move managers to handle every aspect of their relocations.
Melissa Brown calls her work “project management” because it involves so many details.
Brown is a project manager for Relocation Strategies, Inc., 909 Buchanan St., a company that specializes in planning moves for other companies. Those details can include construction, buying furniture, running phone lines and cables, building computer rooms, hiring movers and deciding where the electrical outlets should be located.
Depending on what the client wants, RSI puts together a detailed proposal of all the actions necessary to make the move and requests bids from contractors. Brown includes a detailed budget, as well as a timeline of every step in the process.
Then “we wave a wand and make it happen,” she said.
Hiring a move manager is increasingly common in the commercial real estate industry, especially for midsize to larger companies, according to Mary Beth Kohart, vice president office services at Colliers Turley Martin Tucker, a commercial real estate company in Indianapolis.
“Like any industry, it’s maturing,” Kohart said. ”The addition of such specialized services is an example of that maturing,” she said.
Technology is a big part of the trend to use a manager, she said. Phones, cabled and wireless computer networks, and multimedia devices all need to be addressed.
“Move managers save companies time and money, especially in their ability to handle all the competitive bids,” Kohart said. “An office manager is busy managing his or her office, leaving little time to seek competitive bids for the major components of an office move.”
A move manager also comes in handy when a company has to relocate quickly.
“We were in a crunch situation where we needed to move,” said Jelana Bryan of Compensation Systems, a Carmel retirement planning company. The office’s lease was up last summer, and RSI’s Brown helped the company find its new space at 12900 N. Meridian St.
Brown measured everything down to the last detail, which helped immensely as they moved into a smaller space, Bryan said. Brown diagrammed where all the cubicles were going, and the furniture installers were able to complete their work without problems, Bryan said.
Brown said she keeps track of all the physical changes and additions with color-coded office maps. When it is time for employees to move, they get written instructions on what to pack and labels coded for their boxes’ eventual delivery and unpacking. It’s all intended to reduce the stress of moving.
“We save them on productivity, on money and anxiety,” Brown said.
Bryan, who anticipates Compensation Systems eventually will move into larger quarters, said she would use a move manager. “Absolutely.”
TOP FIVE PITFALLS OF A RELOCATION
· Waiting until the last minute to pack.
· Not properly labeling items.
· Forgetting to pack common areas, such as, break rooms and conference rooms.
· Forgetting to empty the refrigerator and defrost it.
· Not calling vendors of leased items-such as coffeemakers, copiers and vending machines–to remove them.
Excerpts taken from the Indianapolis Star January 27, 2007
