Hi Jill and welcome to the forums.

If you can provide a bit more background, you'll probably get some responses. For example,

• what is the distance that is involved in the office move?
• What home to work travel times do people have today and what are they likely to be in the new location?
• Is the new location well served by public transport for those staff who don't have a car?
• Will you be offering a comparable number of parking spaces in the new location?
• If you can't accomodate everyone's car in the new location, is it possibe to park in the immediate area?

All of these (illustrative) elements can have a massive impact on people's willingness to move...

In reply to Ray:

Thank you Ray, I'm very much looking forward to being part of this forum.

What is the distance that is involved in the office move?
We are currently based in the City and hoping to remain within this area but other areas such as Canary Wharf are also being considered

What home to work travel times do people have today and what are they likely to be in the new location? This will be dependent once a new building has been identified and secured.

Is the new location well served by public transport for those staff who don't have a car? Yes


Will you be offering a comparable number of parking spaces in the new location?
If you can't accomodate everyone's car in the new location, is it possibe to park in the immediate area?

I'm sure I will have more questions over time I just wanted to get some general feedback at this stage.

In reply to Jill Berry:

Given that it's City based and maybe moving as "far" as Canary Wharf (only a few more or a few less underground stops) I wouldn't expect a high level of attrition - all other things being equal.

Technically this probably will be a redundancy situation - unless you have conditions of employment stating they can be required to work within x miles of the City of London, for example. If that's the case you should be home and dry subject to good communication.

Assuming it's a redundancy situation you will be offering everyone "suitable alternative employment" - i.e. the same job in another place of work close by. Provided you manage the communication and logistics well, it should be possible, in my experience, to have zero turnover - I did this twice with Eurotunnel in the centre of London - Victoria to Trafalgar Square, then to Canary Wharf - Canary Wharf to Folkestone was another kettle of fish. The key for the inner London moves was to keep people fully informed at all times and present the whole process as a fairly normal, non-traumatic event.

In reply to Ray:

In your experience did you offer employees any compensation towards increase in commuting fees within the first year?

Its great to hear that you had zero turnover as a result of these moves.

In reply to Jill Berry:

Frankly, everyone was travelling into the same central zone so it wasn't necessary. However, if the situation had arisen we would almost certainly have compensated extra travel costs for 1 year. The move involved about 100 people the first time and something like 20 the second time, the lower number being due to the opening of the Channel Tunnel operations and many jobs relocating to Folkestone. On the relocation to Folkestone we lost about 60% of the people we would like to have kept, but they lived, for the most part North of the Thames and were more exited about the start-up part of the company than the steady state operations. Having said that we relocated in excess of 400 people during the recruitment phase both to Folkestone and to Calais - I personally relocated from London to Calais to take part setting up the operating company head office just outside of Calais......

Hi Jill

We moved 2 years ago within London. For most people, it wouldn't make a difference to transport costs as we moved from Zone 1 to Zone 1.

Some people complained a little, mostly younger staff who were renting and had deliberately chosen to live near to the office to reduce transport costs. We didn't offer them anything though.

A few people who already had a long commute (from outside of London) and would have an extra ~20mins each way added to their journey, requested a couple of days home working each week, which we were able to accommodate. We also have flexible working around core hours, which helps people with a longer commute.

We did a lot of consulation with staff before the move and invited their feedback (by surveys) on some potential locations we were considering. We also asked some senior level staff if there were any no-go areas for them that would make them consider their future employment, and we took that into consideration.

Overall I think one administrator left to work for a different company based in our previous location but otherwise no staff turnover due to the move.

The impact on productivity has been positive! We were able to design the new space around the type of workplace we wanted to be, taking on board staff feedback and all the things that people had found irritating in our old building. As a result, we have a lovely space to work in each day which is built around the needs of our current business and not the needs of the past. We're now able to list this office space as one of the benefits of working here!

Good luck!