Earl:
Is this a records center furnishings and staff move or a more-general
office move which includes the records center staff involvement? I ask
that because the personnel under the first scenario would certainly be
more knowledgeable about a records move than the second group.
I coordinated a move of general staff from two city buildings into
smaller, temporary quarters & off-site storage, then back again to the
original site after renovations were complete. We literally determined
how much square footage would be available for each employee and for
office furnishings so we could say, for example, you will have one desk
and two file cabinets going forward, not one desk, three file cabinets,
and a bookcase. Sounds simplistic, but it is amazing how many people
just do not understand that you can't fit 10 pounds of onions in a 1
pound sack.
I tried to get department managers to purge their files of records, that
could be destroyed, PRIOR to any move with the instructions that active
records would go to temporary office quarters and inactive records would
go to off-site storage. No sense in spending money to move records that
don't need to be moved. Still, some departments waited and waited and
procrastinated until moving day -- though they would say they were "all
set" every time I checked in with them. Result: ALL the office records
were moved to smaller, temporary space. Department managers started
panicking when they found out they didn't have space and began throwing
records away -- claiming they were adhering to retention schedules.
Then many of the records were moved from temporary office space over to
off-site storage. As such, we were paying the moving company twice to
cart the same records: once to temporary office space and then again
from the temporary office quarters to off-site storage. That was a
waste of money.
File cabinets were locked without anyone thinking to ask where the keys
were.
When file cabinets are moved unlocked, movers ask that staff empty out
the top three (of four) drawers. File cabinets were sent into storage
for auction with records still in the bottom file drawer. Employees
would check the top two drawers and, finding them empty, would order the
cabinet removed. Movers would oblige; it wasn't there job to see if the
file cabinets were empty.
A lot of what we did, we did "right." But department workloads were
such that the moving date seemed "far away" and some managers -- not
all, by any means -- didn't plan far enough ahead.
We also set up a moving schedule at least a month ahead of time. We did
not move both buildings on the same day. We needed to coordinate IT
staff, the movers, and my own time to make sure each piece of the move
went as smoothly as possible and to ensure that there wasn't a lot of
down time among personnel. Elevators can only go so fast. No sense in
having 100 employees in place waiting for furnishings and records when
the moving company can only bring stuff up one elevator-full at a time.
Good luck!
Paul R. Bergeron, CA
City Clerk
229 Main Street
Nashua, NH 03060
Telephone: 603/589-3010
Fax: 603/589-3029
http://www.gonashua.com/
-----Original Message-----
From: Records Management Program [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Earl Johnson
Sent: Wednesday, December 13, 2006 12:07 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [RM] Office moves...
Good evening,
Two of our offices will be moving into new buildings next spring and I'd
looking to hear from those of you who have gone through office moves.
One office has about 1,100 employees on 8 floors, and is moving into a
new building where we'll have 5 floors--same amount of employees. We
already know the Records Center (RC) space will be smaller, so we're
preparing for that. We're also beginning to prepare staff for moving
into smaller office space (even our partners will have smaller offices).
The other office has about 125 employees and will be moving into a
new-but-similar sized office.
I'm especially interested in any lessons learned you can share, what
you'd do differently if you could do it over again, and mistakes made
all from a RM standpoint... i.e., how you physically prepare the records
for moving?
How were the records moved? What RC operations or services did you have
to change or lose in moving from a larger space to a smaller one?
The RCs in these offices are moving from an open, self-service operation
to a closed, locked-down and secured operation with restricted access.
I'd be interested in knowing how your offices responded to a similar
move, and knowing what drove your office to such a move. Finally, I'd
appreciate learning more about any standards you have in place for new
RC buildouts... i.e. size, staffed inside or outside of RC, security
(cameras, restricted access, keypad or access card entry, etc.),
customer access to RC (escorted or not), and any other issues you can
share.
Feel free to respond to me directly and I'd be glad to summarize the
responses I get for anyone else who might be interested.
Thanks.
Earl.
ENTERPRISE SUPPORT SERVICES
SEA Sub-AREA RECORDS MANAGER
Earl Johnson, Jr.
Ernst & Young LLP
600 Peachtree St., Suite 2800, Atlanta, GA 30308
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