Enviro Waste are back!
We’ve been brainstorming over recent weeks about what content we can bring you to be more helpful, more actionable, and more interesting. Over the coming months, you’re going to see a few changes to the style of our blog feed, and we really hope you enjoy the new approach. Starting off, we will be giving you our Top 10 Tips for Office Clearances, along with a few bonus ideas at the end.
Tip 1: Time Management
Office clearances are not always easy. There can be heavy, fitted, or outsized furniture that causes difficulties. There can also be confusion over which assets are staying and which are going. To get the most out of your office clearances, start early, even weeks before, and begin preparing, cataloguing, labelling, separating, dismantling, donating, selling, and cleaning. Take the time to make a strategy for the clearance day (or days), so that everything runs smoothly and you don’t end up having to pay for lost time.
Tip 2: Sell or donate
If you do start planning your clearance weeks ahead, you can separate items that have no use already, and that could be out of the building before the office clearance day. This is a perfect idea if you want to keep functional and useful items within your local economy. Give a call to charity shops, find some new startup businesses, or see if any local schools are looking for stuff. When it comes to filing cabinets, tables, and chairs, you’d be surprised how easy they are to give away. If you want to sell stuff, list your items online.
Tip 3: Clear and reorganize storage assets
- Drawers.
- Cabinets.
- Desks.
In the digital era, most companies have found ways, for the most part, to stop using paper and put their processes onto laptops, phones, and tablets. Your company may have made that transition, but never got around to dealing with all of the old paper sat in storage. It’s time to get a scanner (or a tablet) and a shredder, start scanning the files and saving them in a secure place, and then shredding them. You can recycle all of that paper, and free up so much valuable space, but talk to Admin first! These storage assets can be sold, donated or repurposed, and they will no longer take up precious commercial space.
Tip 4: Pick a reliable office clearance company
We are putting together a full guide on this concept, so we won’t go into too much detail. There are certain things you need to be aware of that you won’t find with your run of the mill office clearance company, be conscious of how committed they are to sustainability, how transparent they are with disposal, and whether they have all of the required licenses.
Tip 5: Repair your tech
It’s very easy when performing office clearances to start seeing everything as waste, or as unwanted. A better approach is to see everything as an opportunity. Now, as the years go by, it’s likely that broken gadgets, keyboards, and outdated equipment (like fax machines) get put in cupboards and forgotten about. Don’t throw this stuff to the bin, it will end up in an e-waste landfill. Find a second-hand electronics company (search for WEEE recyclers) who will take your unwanted technology and repair it. Or, get your in-house IT guy to personally assess everything and see what provides continual use or not.
Tip 6: Ask your staff before you dispose
Some of your staff, especially the long-term members of the workforce, might be quite accustomed to your equipment, the way the chairs feel, the opening mechanism of the drawers, or whatever else you have in your office. If you’re clearing your office and you deem the assets to be unwanted, ask your staff first if they’re interested in taking any items. This is the easiest way to provide reuse value through equipment.
Tip 7: Commercial space is expensive
Assuming that the reason for your office clearance is so that you can relocate to new commercial premises, have you considered that you don’t need as much space as you think you do? If space is optimised better, and storage is more streamlined, you could move into a smaller office space, pay less, but effectively still have the same amount of free space because of clearing out unnecessary assets.
Could your business streamline its office equipment and layout better?
Tip 8: Labelling is key
You want to make absolutely sure that anything you want to keep is kept, and that anything you want to get rid of is taken away. The reverse would be a disaster! You might also want to make sure that some items are separated for sale, some for donation, and some for your staff. That’s five different coloured stickers that you can use to make everything clearer. Label your items and make sure the key is clear so that there is no confusion and the ‘for sale’ pile doesn’t end up getting cleared for disposal!
Tip 9: Re-read your Waste Duty of Care
It’s a good idea before you start your waste clearance process to just go through this document and make sure that you’re following the rules. The last thing you want when clearing your offices is to be hit with a fine for doing it wrong! Remember to hire a licensed waste carrier, and that you are responsible for all of your waste.
Tip 10: Call Enviro Waste
We don’t want to blow our own trumpet too hard, but we’ve got a pretty stellar reputation for office clearances in London. We put the customer and the environment first, meaning we look for reuse and recycling opportunities before we would ever consider the landfill. Most of the time, we avoid the landfill completely, but occasionally there’s nothing we can do. We are licensed, our staff have more than just the basic training, plus they’re friendly and helpful, and we can assist with techniques and strategies to maximise your clearance efforts. Give us a call today.
Why is an office clearance a good idea?
Here are five reasons:
- Commercial office space is not cheap, so the more efficiently you use it, the more you get for your money.
- Making a good impression to visitors can help you bring on new talent, impress customers, and give potential suppliers a good feeling about partnering up.
- Surroundings play an important role in motivation and can have a positive effect on staff retention and productivity.
- Reduced dust and bacteria make your workspace a healthier place to be. Replace that old filing cabinet with some new plants and people will subconsciously feel better.
- Reusing unwanted assets in your local community can bring great reputation benefits. Imagine giving 20 chairs to a local charity or school, and how great the PR would be if the public knew.
