While getting run over by a reindeer may be low on the threat list to your business, the analogy is apt in that MANY things can go wrong during the holiday season that can affect any businesses, small or large. This time of year, businesses need to be especially wary of and prepared for threats that may cause a disruption and have plans in place to minimize the impact as much as possible.

Large corporations have “peak season” protocols to ensure maximum uptime of all systems and customer service during the holiday season. Here are some facts about how large companies manage “peak season” protocols:

• Peak season normally runs the day before Thanksgiving to the day after Christmas.

• All major system changes, upgrades, modifications etc are suspended during this period. They will ONLY allow emergency changes to correct issues and have to be approved by senior managers.

• Daily health check calls, reports and meetings are published by operations teams to ensure ideal system stability.

• Employees are engaged to be “on call” at all times in order to respond to any business disruptions.

Common Holiday Threats

System/Credit Card Outages

Systems are strained to their maximum capacity during the busy holiday season. Add to this a complex network of suppliers and system outages such as ordering systems, sales systems, point of sales terminals and credit card processing is ripe for disruption. That is why banks and credit card processors put a lot of effort into minimizing the chances of a disruption during the holiday season.

What can you do about it?:

1. First, respond QUICKLY. Engage your suppliers and make sure they are aware that you are impacted.

2. Have backups: If the credit card point of sales terminal goes down, make sure your employees have access and training how to input manual purchases into your systems. For that matter, sign up for a second credit card processing service. If you use Stripe and it goes down, make sure you already have a Square or WePay account ready to quickly slip into its place until your primary systems are restored.

3. When in doubt….go analog! Keep a supply of notepads and pens in your store and office. When all else fails, pens and paper will be a lifeline for your company. Write down orders, purchases, etc and then take the time to input them into your electronic ordering and sales systems when they are restored.

Employee illness/vacations

The beginning of winter is the ideal time for communicable illnesses (and a few hangovers) to rear their ugly head. Covid, Flu, RSV, it all explodes around the holiday season, especially as more and more people crowd into indoor spaces like malls and stores. Add to this an already strained employee base, vacations so people can enjoy time with their families and an increased workload during the holidays, this is a perfect recipe for staffing issues.

What can you do about it?:

1. Create on call schedules and shifts and offer incentives for employees to be on call should the need arise.

2. If you operate a retail space, encourage masking, gloves, frequent sanitization and other protective measures to cut down on the amount of sick time employees may take.

3. Make sure you have a succession plan including cross training for critical functions at your business.

4. Ensure you have quality, up to date Standard Operating Procedures so if a new employee has to jump in to help with a task, they have reference materials and instructions to work from.

Winter Wonderland Weather

Snow and ice can make driving dangerous causing inventory delivery delays or employee lateness. Power outages can be common from ice on power lines and water main breaks are more common this time of year.

What can you do about it?:

1. Backup Power: Invest in a generator and test it to keep critical systems operational during power outages. Get a backup generator or at least a large battery Uninterrupted Power Supply that couldhttps://www.amazon.com/dp/B06VY6FXMM?ref=nb_sb_ss_w_as-reorder-t1_ypp_rep_k0_1_3&amp=&crid=1EPIYAJN3Z89T&sprefix=ups&th=1 power some of your critical equipment during a power outage. This UPS will power a desktop, monitor and internet router for a couple of hours and ensure that you never have any data loss from a sudden power loss

1. Have an emergency supply of water bottles and food such as cliff bars in the office or store in case employees are snowed in and need to attend to basic needs.

2. Keep a back of road salt/melt and a wide shovel handy.

3. Make sure you have an emergency communications plan and tools in place to communicate any closings or delayed openings. Develop the messages you plan to send by email, social media, text, website etc well BEFORE the emergency. Craft these messages in a way to ensure stability, trying to insert some humor or lightheartedness into your messages. Customers will remember that you did your best and will probably plan another day to come to your store.

4. Inspect and Maintain Facilities: Check the roof, gutters, heating systems, and insulate pipes to prevent damage and ensure functionality.

5. Confirm your insurance covers winter risks and update your business continuity plan.

Holiday Cyber & Fraud Surge

The holidays are prime time not just for shoppers, but for cybercriminals. Increased transaction volumes, distracted employees, seasonal staff, and rushed processes create ideal conditions for phishing attacks, account takeovers, gift card fraud, fake vendor emails, and ransomware attempts. Many attacks succeed simply because someone is tired, busy, or assumes a request is legitimate during the chaos of peak season.

What can you do about it?:

• Slow down financial changes: Freeze changes to payment instructions, bank details, or vendor payouts during peak season unless verified verbally by a known contact. Most holiday fraud starts with a “quick” email request.

• Reinforce phishing awareness: Remind employees (especially seasonal staff) to be suspicious of urgent emails, password reset requests, QR codes, or links claiming to be from banks, shipping companies, or internal IT.

• Enable basic protections: Ensure multi-factor authentication (MFA) is turned on for email, financial systems, POS systems, and cloud platforms. This one step stops a huge percentage of attacks.

• Have an incident playbook: Know exactly who to call and what to shut down if a suspicious transaction or cyber incident occurs. Minutes matter, especially during high-volume periods.

• Monitor gift cards and refunds closely: Fraud spikes around gift cards and return abuse during the holidays. Set alerts and thresholds so anomalies are caught quickly.

Decision Fatigue & Leadership Burnout

The holiday season doesn’t just stress systems and employees—it exhausts leadership. Extended hours, constant escalations, staffing gaps, and nonstop decisions wear down even the most experienced managers. As fatigue sets in, decision quality drops. Approvals get rushed, warning signs are missed, and small issues turn into major incidents simply because no one had the energy to stop and think.

In peak season, leadership burnout becomes a business continuity risk.

What can you do about it?:

• Define decision thresholds in advance: Decide now which types of issues require senior leadership involvement and which can be handled by frontline managers. This prevents unnecessary escalations and preserves leadership bandwidth for true emergencies.

• Rotate leadership on-call coverage: Just like IT teams, leadership should have scheduled coverage. Ensure executives and managers get real off-duty time so they can make clear-headed decisions when it truly matters.

• Pre-approve common actions: Refund limits, overtime approvals, vendor spend thresholds, and customer appeasement actions should be pre-approved before peak season begins. This removes friction and reduces decision overload during stressful moments.

• Use checklists, not memory: Fatigue causes people to rely on intuition instead of process. Simple checklists for incident response, customer communications, and operational decisions help ensure consistency when brains are tired.

• Watch for burnout signals: Irritability, delayed responses, and poor communication are early warning signs. Encourage leaders to tap out briefly rather than push through exhaustion—clear thinking is a critical system.

Holiday resilience isn’t just about technology and staffing—it’s about protecting the people making the decisions. Leaders who plan for fatigue will outperform competitors who assume they can simply “power through.”

Don’t be a grinch!

With these holiday preparedness tips, you can help ensure maximum uptime, productivity and sales while your competitors panic and lose customers.

Team Tempest

www.tempestnavigator.com

www.tempestrisk.com