Office Relocation Checklist for Nairobi Teams

An office relocation in Nairobi is not a bigger house move. It is a project with a deadline, and the deadline is Monday morning. A family that cannot find the kettle has a bad evening. A team of thirty who cannot get online has a bad week, and someone has to explain it.

Everything below is organised around one goal: people sit down on Monday, plug in, and work. Run it as a sequence, give each block an owner, and do not let the IT items drift — they are the ones that ruin the Monday.

Eight weeks out: the decisions that fix everything else

1. Nail the two lease dates. The one thing you want is overlap — a week or two where you hold both spaces. Moving on the day one lease ends and the other begins leaves you no room for a delayed handover, a landlord dispute or a fit-out that runs late. Pay for the overlap. It is cheaper than the alternative.
2. Appoint one person to own the move. Not a committee. One name, with the authority to make decisions on the day. Give them a deputy who knows the plan.
3. Walk the new space with a tape measure and a plan. Where does each desk go, where does the server or comms cabinet live, where are the power outlets, which meeting room takes the big table. Most furniture problems in an office move are geometry problems, and geometry does not negotiate on the day.
4. Check what physically fits. Boardroom tables, tall server racks and safes have to get out of one building and into another. Measure the lifts, the stairwells and the doorways at both ends. A table that came in before a wall was built may not come out.
5. Book the movers. Anything more than a handful of desks needs a site survey at both ends. Ask us to come and look.

Six weeks out: the internet line is the critical path

Write this at the top of the plan and defend it. Getting a fibre line installed and live at a new Nairobi address is the single item most likely to slip, and everything else waits on it.

• Contact your provider now and ask two questions: can the existing service be relocated, or is it a fresh installation — and how long is the lead time at this specific building. The answer varies enormously by building.
• Ask whether the new building already has fibre into it or whether the provider needs to bring it in. If they need to bring it in, that is a permissions-and-ducting job, and it takes as long as it takes.
• Aim to have the line live and tested before the physical move, not on the same weekend. Test it with a laptop while the office is still empty.
• Have a fallback: enough mobile data for the critical people to work on Monday if the line is not up. It costs a little; it saves the week.
• Sort the phone numbers at the same time — whatever is printed on your invoices needs to still ring somewhere.

Four weeks out: buildings, permissions, people

• Talk to both building managements. Ask when a commercial vehicle can load, whether that is restricted at certain hours, and whether there is a service lift and how you book it. Many Nairobi office blocks will only allow a move outside business hours, which is often what pushes it to a weekend in the first place.
• Get the gate access sorted in writing. Truck plate numbers, driver ID, crew names, and a signed access permit from management if the estate or the block requires one. Expect a security check on the way out and on the way in.
• Ask what the building requires of contractors. Some want proof of insurance, an approved contractor form, or lift and floor protection put down before anything moves. Find out in week four, not on the Friday.
• Tell your people. The date, the new address, what happens to parking, what they are expected to pack themselves, and what Monday will look like.
• Tell everyone else: clients, suppliers, the bank, your insurer, your landlord, the company registry and tax records where the registered address is used, and every place your address appears — the website, invoices, email signatures, Google Business Profile, letterheads.

Two weeks out: the IT plan

Whoever runs your IT — internal or a contractor — needs their own written plan, agreed with you.

1. Inventory everything with a serial number: laptops, monitors, docks, the server or NAS, switches, routers, printers, the UPS.
2. Take a full backup, verify it, and take it off site. Verify it. A backup nobody has tested is a rumour.
3. Photograph the back of the comms cabinet before a single cable is unplugged. Then label both ends of every cable. This one photo saves hours.
4. Decide who powers down and who powers up, and in what order. Servers and network kit come down last and go up first.
5. Move the sensitive kit deliberately. Servers, cash, safes and client files should travel with a named person who signs for them at both ends — not anonymously in a pile of crates.
6. Plan a test window. The day before people return, someone sits at three or four desks and checks that the network, the printers and the phones actually work.

One week out: purge, pack, label

Offices accumulate more than houses do, and almost none of it is worth paying to transport. This is your one chance to deal with it.

• Archive or shred. Old files that must be kept go to archive storage, properly boxed and indexed. Everything else that carries client or staff data gets shredded, not binned. Do this before the move, not after.
• Get rid of dead furniture and dead equipment. The broken chairs, the printer nobody has used since 2023, the three-legged desk in the store. Every one of them costs volume, and volume is the biggest thing driving your quote.
• One crate per person. Give every member of staff a crate or a box, tell them to pack their own desk into it, and give them a deadline of the last working afternoon. Personal items are their responsibility, and they should take valuables home rather than let them travel.
• Label to the numbered floor plan. Room name plus desk number on every crate, on two sides.
• Kitchen and communal areas need an owner too, or they simply get left.

The last working day

• People clear their desks, pack their crate and lock what needs locking. Nobody goes home leaving a personal item behind.
• IT takes the final backup and starts the shutdown in the agreed order.
• Confirm with the movers: arrival time, crew size, the crew leader’s number, the vehicle plates, and the access paperwork at both ends.
• Confirm the lifts are booked at both buildings, and that security at both ends knows what is happening and when.
• Take meter readings and photograph them where you are billed directly for power or water, and confirm how the old space’s final bills and deposit will be settled.
• Photograph the condition of the space you are leaving. That is your deposit conversation, and photographs win it.

Move day

The named owner is on site at the origin. The deputy is on site at the destination, standing next to the printed floor plan, directing crates to numbered positions. Do not put both people in the same building.

• Walk the office with the crew leader before anything is lifted — what goes, what stays, what is fragile, what must not be dismantled.
• The sensitive kit travels with its named person.
• At the new office, furniture goes in first, then IT, then crates. Getting that order wrong means moving desks around a floor already full of boxes.
• IT starts bringing the network up as soon as the comms cabinet is in place. They should not be waiting for the last chair to arrive.

Before anyone comes back to work

1. Sit at several desks and test: network, printers, phones, access to your systems. Actually log in. Do not assume.
2. Check that every desk has power, a chair and a monitor that switches on.
3. Confirm door access, keys and alarm codes work for the people who arrive first.
4. Send the whole team one message: the address, how to get in, where to park, where they are sitting, and who to call if something is wrong.
5. Do a final walk of the old space, hand over the keys, and get the condition agreed in writing.

Office moves reward planning more than any other kind of move, and they punish improvisation harder. If you want a crew that has done this before, look at office relocation, or read what drives your moving cost so you can read the quotes you get back. When you are ready, tell us about the move and we will survey both sites.